Regimental Sergeant-Major Ron Reid-Daly’s first command drew a quiet “Oh boy!” from Ian Ferguson who was next to me. His commands were the loudest I have ever heard; his posture was ramrod-stiff and every movement he made was impossibly precise. We had come to believe that we were pretty smart in our drill but Sergeant-Major Reid-Daly did not see it this way. For at least six weeks he gave us absolute hell and we hated every moment of his nitpicking and abuse. With his nose almost in contact with anyone who had not executed a movement to his liking, he would scream such threats as “If you don’t stop turning like a fucking ballerina, I will tear your bloody arm off and smash your silly little face with its soggy end … sir.”
Whenever the wind exceeded 15 knots, and that was often, the sadistic sergeant-major chose to put us through formation colours drills. For ‘colours’ we were given a wooden pole to which was affixed a heavy blanket. The wind drag on this arrangement was enormous and very tiring. Strong gusts would either propel the lighter fellows forward or backward bringing about a flurry of abuse from our instructor. But all the time we were getting better at everything and suddenly the pressure eased. We were then introduced to silent drill in which no word of command was given. Following fixed patterns of movement we moved as one and became very proficient at it. Yet for all the practice, 10 SSU was the only course not to display its silent drill skills during the Wings Presentation Parade. Sword of Honour for the best student was another aspect that was bypassed on the day we received our wings.
Ron Reid-Daly, who in the 1970s established and commanded the famed Selous Scouts, became a good friend of mine. Looking back on the period he had been sent to drill Nos 10 and 11 SSUs, he told me how horrified he had been when ordered to get over to Thornhill to train a bunch of ‘Brylcreem boy’ officer cadets. He remembered giving us a hard time and said that nothing he tried ever dented our spirit or determination to succeed. He found this both amazing and pleasing. His attitude towards the Air Force changed to one of respect and this was greatly enhanced during Rhodesia’s long bush war.
When we started instrument flying, students were switched among the Vampire instructors. I was fortunate to fly with Flight Lieutenants Colin Graves (Squadron Commander), Chris Dams and Brian Horney. Most of our general training sorties were flown solo. On one of these, a long-range navigation flight, I passed out from the lack of oxygen. The oxygen-control box on the instructor’s side of the cockpit had been set to high flow but I had not noticed this during my pre-engine start-up checks. On the last leg to base, flying over an area known as the Somabula Flats, I became aware of great noise and high vibration which awakened me to the fact that the aircraft was in a steep descending spiral turn, flying at critical Mach. This is when supersonic shock waves develop on sections of a sub-sonic aircraft’s airframe, causing high drag with severe vibration. My mind was confused as I recovered from a situation I had not seen coming. In this dozy state, I dropped undercarriage, instead of activating the dive brakes as I had intended, and put out a call to Thornhill Approach. I was told later that my speech sounded like that of a very drunk man.
By the time the aircraft was in level flight at fairly low level, I was not too far from Thornhill and decided to leave the gear down. The landing was normal and, apart from minor distortion on one of the main-wheel ‘D’ doors, no damage had occurred. Nevertheless I received one hell of a rocket for not having seen the high-flow selection on the instructor’s oxygen-control box and for not noticing my depleted oxygen tank reading before suffering hypoxia.
Shortly after this, Wing Commander Wilson flew me on progress checks and Squadron Leader Dicky Bradshaw conducted my instrument flying test, which was successfully flown on Wednesday, 6 August 1958. This was a day I can never forget!
Beryl and I had been engaged for fourteen months at this stage. Apart from Beryl’s objections to sex before marriage, her mother had planted a notion in our minds that made us decide to get married in secret. Beryl had turned twenty-one two days before, so parental consent was not an issue and we both believed we could keep our marriage secret.
Marriage day—what a hat! What a haircut!
Immediately after my IF test we motored to Bulawayo on the pretext of visiting my brother Tony, who was there on secondment for Territorial Army training. In reality, we had an appointment to be married in the Magistrate’s Court. At three o’clock we were ushered into a room with the magistrate and his assistant. A moment or two later two people, who worked in the Magistrate’s Court, came in to act as witnesses. One of these was a girl from Gwelo. She immediately recognised and greeted Beryl. In so doing she had blown our secret out of the water even before the marriage had taken place! But there was no way out of the situation.
Having been officially pronounced man and wife we visited friends of Beryl’s folks who lived in Bulawayo. This was part of our cover plan but it turned out to be a bad mistake. The family cat took to Beryl in a big way and nothing would induce the long-haired creature to leave her alone.
Beryl had become a chronic bronchial asthmatic as a young girl, which led her parents to move from Britain to the drier climate of Rhodesia. For the most part she had been fine throughout her latter teens but certain irritants, one of which was cats’ hair, could trigger a severe asthmatic attack. Beryl struggled for breath all the way back to Gwelo and any idea of consummating our marriage on our wedding night was lost. I had to get her home to her parents and bed. Then, back in my own single-quarter room I lay on my back and, looking at the ceiling, asked myself aloud “What have you done PB? Have you just destroyed your own future and made Beryl’s uncertain?”
Two days passed before Beryl’s mother made singsong utterings about a little bird having told her a secret. Though she would not tell Beryl what this secret was, it was quite clear that she had heard about our marriage. So we felt compelled to come clean with the folks, who both took the news very well. The Air Force would be another matter! Nevertheless, I decided I had to let Wing Commander Wilson know right away
When I went to the CO’s personal secretary to make an appointment for the following day, her face lit up and away she rushed to the CO’s office. The next moment she called out, “Officer Cadet Petter-Bowyer, the CO will see you now.” I went cold because I had not yet worked out what to say, but it was very obvious to me that the secretary was tapped into Gwelo’s gossip network.
I had absolutely no feeling below my waist. My upper body seemed to glide through the door into the CO’s office and it stopped automatically in front of his desk. An involuntary salute occurred and I could not speak until the CO asked me what my business was. “Sir, I have come to let you know that I married Beryl last week. I need to tell you this before anyone else does.” The Wing Commander’s face told it all. He was dumbfounded and seemed not to know what to say or do. Then he rose from his chair, came around the desk and extended his hand saying, “Let me be the first to congratulate you.”
Archie Wilson was well known for his handshake and many stories have been told of the agony suffered by many an unprepared hand. Those who knew him well made quite certain that they put their hand in rapidly to avoid his snap-action vice-grip from trapping their fingers. I was taken by surprise because his hand trapped my fingers so fiercely that all feeling returned to my legs and I was in such pain that I found myself almost on tiptoes. There was silence between us as he looked me directly in the eye, maintaining his grip on my severely graunched fingers.
“I did not have to get married, sir”, I said in a high-pitched voice. Whereupon the CO let go and said he was relieved to hear this. He invited me to take a seat as he returned to his own. Then, rubbing his chin and looking blankly at his desk, he remained silent. I piped up again, this time in a normal voice, and told him why I had got married. He seemed impressed by Beryl’s attitude to premarital sex and understood my response to this.
Very quietly he told me that I was to continue as normal and he would handle Group HQ in his own time. I was instructed to let the me
mbers of my course know my situation and ask them to keep my news to themselves. I found my course mates at Station Equipment Section drawing their wings and pilot Officer-rank braid for our forthcoming Wings Parade.
Two days later Wing Commander Wilson conducted my final handling test for wings. I passed and together with my ten colleagues received my wings on 19 August 1958 from Sir Roy Welensky, the Prime Minister of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. There was no presentation of the Sword of Honour for the best student on 10 SSU but Dave Thorne was presented a book by OC Flying to acknowledge the fact that he attained the best all-round position on our course.
This photograph was taken just before I went to see the CO. Left to right: Ian Law, PB, Gordon Wright, Eric Cary, Murray Hofmeyr, John Barnes, Bill Galloway, Ian Ferguson, Dave Thorne and Keith Corrans.
PB receiving his wings from Sir Roy Welensky.
This was quite a day for Bill Galloway to receive his wings and promotion to acting pilot officer because it was his 21st birthday. The Wings ball that evening was the first such occasion for the Royal Rhodesian Air Force at Thornhill, the forerunner of many to follow.
Operational Conversion Unit
ON 10 SEPTEMBER, MY COURSE moved into the Operational Conversion Unit (OCU) phase, which was the final stage of our two-year course. This was by far the most interesting period of training, during which we learned to use our aircraft as weapons platforms.
First Flight Lieutenant Ted Brent taught me to fire 20mm cannons, He and his wonderful wife Di were to become very close friends to Beryl and me. Ted was a gentleman through and through and his manner appealed to me from the moment I met him. On the ground and in the air his instructional techniques were very detailed and polished, which made learning a pleasure. In flight, he suggested corrections to my dive angle and aiming errors in a manner that helped me bring my strikes to target without ever making me feel pressurised or foolish.
Flight Lieutenant Frank Mussell (John’s elder brother) was a good Pilot Armament Instructor (PAI) too, though his superior manner somewhat undermined the confidence I thought was needed between instructor and student, particularly during advanced training. Frank introduced me to the delivery of 60-pound rockets. Next, I flew with a very different instructor who had come from the RAF.
Flight Lieutenant Sandy Mutch, then the Flight Commander heading weapons training for No 1 Squadron, was bulldoggish in appearance and during his pre-flight briefings. In line with his personality he was very harsh in aircraft handling. He instructed me in low and high dive-bombing. When I made attacks, he had the nasty habit of grabbing the controls when my flight line was not to his liking and pressing his bomb-release button before I could press mine. This had never occurred with my other instructors so I was pleased that my solo bombing results were better than during instruction.
Having said this, I must say how grateful we were when Sandy persuaded Group HQ to let our course accompany elements of No 1 Squadron to Nairobi for that city’s annual Royal Agricultural Show. Aerobatic and formation displays were to be given at the show by the Royal Rhodesian Air Force in conjunction with displays by the RAF.
We were very excited at the prospect of flying Thornhill to Chileka in Nyasaland, then to Dar es Salaam in Tanganyika and onward to Nairobi in Kenya. Such an opportunity had not been given to any previous training course. But, unfortunately for Sandy Mutch, the inclusion of No 10 SSU resulted in dramas that disallowed future courses from enjoying flights beyond the Federation’s borders.
Twelve Vampires, in three formations of four aircraft, left Thornhill at hourly intervals. This allowed formations refuel at each destination before the arrival of the next. I was in the second formation that passed through Chileka and arrived in Dar es Salaam as planned. We had refuelled and were about to fly on to Nairobi when we received instructions to hold over in Dar es Salaam for the night.
I cannot say why this was really necessary, but it was good news for Keith Corrans, Bill Galloway and me who had not visited this part of the world before. It was extremely hot and humid and our stay, though pleasant, was somewhat dampened by the fact we could not swim in the inviting, clear-blue sea because of vast numbers of bluebottle-type jellyfish in the water and on the beaches.
The flight ahead of us had struck a snag between Dar es Salaam and Nairobi when Dave Thorne’s FB9 canopy disintegrated at 33,000 feet. It punctured the hydraulic reservoir, resulting in Dave getting red hydraulic fluid all over his flying suit. Dave immediately switched over to emergency oxygen but, though in no danger of passing out, he was freezing cold with no option other than to continue with the formation because he had insufficient fuel to complete the journey at a warmer level. Behind us, one of the third formation’s aircraft was found unserviceable at Chileka, forcing an overnight stay in Blantyre to await spares from Thornhill.
All aircraft finally assembled at RAF Eastleigh (Nairobi) where a replacement canopy was fitted to Dave’s FB9. When all the aircraft were declared serviceable, we set off for the bright lights of Nairobi. In town I met up with Dave Thorne who had borrowed his aged Kenyan aunt’s Rolls Royce shooting brake to impress a bevy of pretty girls he had in tow.
I saw Dave again the following day when we met in the Nairobi Show Grounds, the venue of the Royal Agricultural Show. An hour before the flying displays were due to start, Dave disappeared into the gents’ toilets and remained there for an hour beyond the time the flying displays had ended. He then returned to the girls with his hair dampened and his face lined with pseudo headgear pressure marks. Those of my course who witnessed this did not let on to the excited girls that Dave had not been part of the formation; though we were most amused by the antics that certainly succeeded in impressing the girls.
That night I met Flight Lieutenant Booth of the RAF who had given a single-aircraft display in a Canberra B6, following a solo aerobatic display by an RAF Javelin. He offered to take me along for his display the following day; an opportunity I immediately accepted. At the appointed time I checked in with him in my flying kit. The correct oxygen mask was fitted to my helmet and I was briefed by the navigator on when and how I must move from rear ejector seat to the fold-down ‘Rumbold’ seat next to the pilot and back to the ejector seat for landing.
As soon as we were clear of the airfield, the navigator moved from his ejector seat to his bomb-aiming position on a bed in the aircraft nose. I followed, folded down the Rumbold seat, and strapped in next to Flight Lieutenant Booth. I had to stretch my neck to see over the right lip of the large domed canopy, but otherwise was able to take in the immense beauty of the famous Rift Valley where we descended for a few practice low-level barrel rolls. These went well and I remained firmly in my seat as we pitched and rolled high over the top and back into low-level flight.
On call from the ground controller at the Show Grounds, we positioned for the display. This initially involved very low-level turns with bomb bay opening and undercarriage lowering for the crowds to view at close range. We cleared for the RAF Javelin and waited to come in for the barrel roll that required the Canberra to invert as it passed over the crowd, because their view of the sky was limited by high trees surrounding the arena.
As the Javelin cleared we were close in and commenced the barrel roll. All seemed fine until Flight Lieutenant Booth said he had started the roll too late. At this point he rolled faster to the inverted and pushed forward on his control column. The navigator, snorting and swearing, was thrown into the wiring and other paraphernalia in front of the pilot’s instrument panel. The emergency hydraulic pump handle dislodged and hit me in the face while I hung in my lap strap with my shoulder pressed hard against one of the canopy’s jettison bolts. The two parachute packs of the rear-ejector seats broke loose and deployed their silk ‘chutes all over the rear cabin.
As the aircraft passed the inverted position, the nose pitched very steeply and I was absolutely certain we were going to crash into the ground. However, the roll rate was increased with full rudder and the aircraf
t pitched out of the dive ever so close to the treetops. Fortunately, the ground beyond the Show Grounds dropped away somewhat; otherwise we would have been history. Loud abuse from the navigator and endless apologies from the skipper continued all the way to landing and for some time beyond.
After a splendid stay in Nairobi, our return to Rhodesia went fine until the third formation arrived at Chileka. I was standing with other pilots on the balcony of the Chileka Airport bar and watched the standard formation break that extended the line of aircraft for the usual descending turn to land. Unfortunately, however, Gordon Wright as No 3 was a bit too tight and slow when, in the final stages of his approach, he hit slipstream from the aircraft ahead. The FB9 impacted the ground about sixty metres short of the raised shoulder of the runway.
No 4 had seen the problem coming and powered up for an overshoot before Gordon’s aircraft bounced from its first impact point, clearing the rising ground and impacting ground again in a broadside at runway level. A huge cloud of red dust marked the aircraft’s passage but smothered it from our view as it slid to a halt on the lip of a storm-water drain. Another three feet and Gordon would almost certainly have lost his legs. As it was, he was lucky to get away with a badly damaged ego, which he showed by throwing his helmet down in frustrated anger. The aircraft was quite severely damaged and was transported to New Sarum by road for repair, and flew again. But it took a long time for people in Air HQ to forget Gordon’s error.
Back at Thornhill we resumed our weapons training. I continued flying with Frank Mussell and Ted Brent and also flew with three new instructors whom I can only describe as salt-of-the-earth individuals and good PAIs (Pilot Armament Instructors) too. Flying Officers Peter McLurg, Randy du Rand and Justin Varkevisser had totally different characters but were pleasant instructors and great marksmen to boot.
Winds of Destruction: The Autobiography of a Rhodesian Combat Pilot Page 8