By the Skin of my Teeth: The Memoirs of an RAF Mustang Pilot in World War II and of Flying Sabres with USAF in Korea

by Colin Downes

  The next major confrontation between Egypt and Israel occurred when President Sadat of Egypt launched an attack across the Suez Canal against the Israeli Bar-Lev Line on the east bank of the canal on 6 October 1973. This was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and the holiest day of the Jewish calendar during which neither public transport nor broadcasting operated. The Egyptians no doubt considered this a justified and overdue response to Israel’s pre-emptive air strike that started the Six Day War of 1967. This time the Israelis had a much tougher time against a well-prepared Egyptian army. The Yom Kippur War lasted over two weeks with heavy casualties on both sides before the United Nations negotiated a cease-fire leading to peace terms that left the frontiers more or less unchanged, but returned the Sinai to Egypt with a recognized southern frontier.

  It was with Handley Page that I experienced my second war situation as a civilian while in Vietnam. I was flying with Far Eastern Air Transport Corporation of Taiwan because Handley Page had sold the Dart Herald Turbo-prop to the airline which was an independent domestic carrier in competition with the Nationalist Government’s China Airlines. I had taken the founder and president of the airline, T. C. Hwoo, to the Channel Islands to fly the Herald with Channel Airways before he bought the aircraft. Fortunately, I was able to establish a rapport with him when I realized that we had both flown P-51 Mustangs during the war and that we also shared an interest in Chinese porcelain. Following the war against Japan T. C. Hwoo left the Chinese air force and joined Civil Air Transport (CAT), then financed by the Americans with reportedly covert operations in support of the CIA. He moved with CAT from Chungking when the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek occupied Taiwan to create the Republic of China in 1949. The Communists on the mainland had created The People’s Republic of China under the command of Mao Tse-tung. CAT was replaced by China Airlines as the national airline of Taiwan and T. C. Hwoo left CAT to form his own airline. He started by delivering the newspapers printed in Taipei to the three principal cities of Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung in the south of the island with converted C-45 aircraft: the military version of the twelve-passenger Beech 18. He purchased twelve surplus aircraft and cannibalized them to produce six serviceable aircraft that formed the cadre that was to become the Far Eastern Air Transport Corporation in competition with China Airlines on the Taiwan domestic services. To start his passenger airline with Douglas C-47 aircraft, the military version of the Douglas DC-3 that formed the backbone and basis of civil aviation after the war, he flew to California and purchased one from surplus military aircraft sales and flew it back solo to Taiwan. Without a second pilot, navigator or flight engineer for a ferry flight lasting three days on an aircraft equipped only with a standard radio and radio compass as navigational aids was a remarkable feat of piloting and physical endurance. The normal range of a Douglas C-47 is 1,600 miles, and in order to extend this to 3,000 miles for the 7,500 miles ferry flight to Taipei, extra fuel tanks had to be installed in the cabin. Refuelling stops at Hawaii and Wake Island resulted in a total flight time of over 40 hours, and although the aircraft had an autopilot ‘TC’ said he was afraid to resort to it in case he fell asleep, and flying the aircraft forced him to stay awake.

  This first acquisition for his nascent airline was typical of his courage and resolve. By this accomplishment he started his airline service around Taiwan. After increasing his fleet of refurbished and converted C-47 aircraft to civil use he progressed to turbo-prop aircraft. With a large fleet of turbo-prop aircraft operating in Taiwan, Vietnam and Indonesia, his airline eventually became an all jet fleet of Boeing 737s serving the domestic routes in Taiwan, and on international charter operations. In achieving this, although he had to give up flying, his hand controlled every aspect of the airline’s organization from the flying and technical operations to the administration and finance. He recruited most of his operational and technical personnel from the air force, with most of his ‘old hands’ moving to Taiwan from the mainland in 1949. To encourage loyalty and incentive he gave ten percent of the airline equity to his employees thus giving them a sense of part ownership. ‘TC’ was a tough and entirely straight negotiator, being determined to achieve and maintain complete independence in the operation of his airline; consequently he did not permit any ‘middle men’ to figure in his airline interests. In following this policy he set up a complete engine overhaul and maintenance facility in Taipei, much to the consternation of the engine manufacturers.

  I delivered the first RR Dart Turbo-prop Herald to Far Eastern Air Transport in Taipei in 1966 and my stay in Taiwan resulted in my first close call since retiring from the RAF. After delivering the first Herald to the airline, the first British aircraft sold in Taiwan, I stayed for the crew training and the aircraft’s transition into the airline’s domestic services. I flew as supernumerary crew with fifty passengers on the first service from Taipei to Kao-hsiung, Taiwan’s second city in the south of the island. On our arrival the station manager asked if I would stand-down for the return flight owing to the heavy booking on the flight. As he offered lunch and some sightseeing as an incentive, I agreed. When I returned to the airport I learned that the Herald had crashed on its return to Taipei with the total loss of passengers and crew. We could only speculate on the cause of the accident because the wreckage revealed nothing to indicate a failure. This was the second occasion when giving up my place on an aircraft saved me from the grim reaper and I was left to reflect on the old saw – Never two without three! However, this did not occur for some time; not until I arranged to join an Airbus team visiting Malaysian Airlines. On the team’s flight to Kuala Lumpur from Tokyo I arranged to join them at Hong Kong. There was no first class seat available on the aircraft and so I flew to Kuala Lumpur shortly afterwards on a Cathay Pacific flight. When I arrived I learned their aircraft had crashed in bad weather while on the approach to Kuala Lumpur with the loss of all onboard. I have since been spared a fourth close encounter with the grim reaper under similar circumstances, and can consider myself a well-favoured man.

  During the Vietnam War T. C. Hwoo asked me if I would accompany him to Vietnam to help set up a subsidiary airline operation with Air Vietnam on their domestic routes, and it provided me with a chance not only to promote Handley Page, but also to see the country. When in Saigon I usually stayed at either the Continental or the Caravelle near the palace and parliament building in the city centre. Shortly after the European Gregorian New Year and before the Chinese Lunar New Year (Tet), late in January 1968, ‘TC’ said I should move into his airline compound near the airport and the main US air base at Tan Son Nhut on the north side of the city. The airline compound was next to a military compound occupied by a South Korean army division operating with the US ground forces. On the eve of the Lunar New Year, as the Vietnamese celebrated the festival, the communist led guerrilla forces and army of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, the Viet Cong, launched their Tet offensive against the US forces and the South Vietnam army and government. All hell broke lose as rockets and mortar shells rained in on the city with explosions occurring everywhere, and the parliament building and the US Embassy came under attack. Amid the chaos the South Korean compound remained an oasis of relative calm, with the adjacent FEAT (Far Eastern Air Transport) compound protected by the presence of the Koreans. I assumed that the well-deserved reputation of the Koreans as tough, well-disciplined and uncompromising fighting troops deterred the Viet Cong from getting them involved in the fighting. There is a Chinese equivalent to the proverb about letting sleeping dogs lie that says, ‘He who rides the tiger can never dismount’. In any event, we experienced no attacks and suffered no damage or casualties from the rockets and mortar shells while the rest of the city appeared to erupt in violence, and I was very glad not to be holed up in one of the hotels. It took some days for the South Vietnam forces to regain control of the city and even then isolated terrorist attacks made life in Saigon not only precarious but unpleasant. It also meant that the excellent restaurants that provid
ed such a wonderful blend of French and Chinese cuisine remained closed, with the presence of the Viet Cong ensuring that Saigon was no longer a fun place to stay.

  The Viet Cong Tet offensive conducted by well-equipped guerrilla forces, logistically supported by the Viet Minh army of North Vietnam, continued to escalate throughout the country. This came as a surprise to the US and a shock to the US army commander, General Westmoreland, with his failed policy of containment and attrition of the Viet Cong forces, and he was replaced shortly after the situation stabilized in mid year.

  Before the Tet offensive of 1968 I had enjoyed my visits to Saigon, seeing much of the country on the east coast up to the second city of Da Nang and the ancient Annam capital of Hue near the border with North Vietnam (soon to be destroyed when the Viet Minh army invaded South Vietnam). I had also visited Cambodia to see the jungle-strangled temples of Angkor, part of the Buddhist Khmer Empire that flourished while Europe was in the Dark Ages. A visit to the lush mountains of Laos, ‘Land of a Million Elephants’, and the mighty Mekong River as it ran down the borders of Thailand and Cambodia to the Saigon delta was particularly memorable.

  However, after the Tet offensive the war became a serious business for visitors as it was no longer safe to move around not knowing who were the Viet Cong and their supporters. My last and lasting memory of Saigon was of a clear night and seeing the fires from the explosions as rockets and mortar shells landed in the city, while from high above came a steady drone from the big USAF B-52 strategic bombers operating from Thailand, the Philippines and as far away as Guam, as they dropped hundreds of 1,000 lb high explosive bombs to the north of Saigon. We could see a glow in the sky as the stream of bombers laid a carpet of destruction along the Viet Cong supply routes, and we heard the thump and felt the tremor of the ground as the exploding bombs created a mild earthquake. The B-52 strategic bombers were used solely in a tactical role during the Vietnam War between 1965 and 1973. According to the official USAF figures, these bombers dropped more than 2,600,000 tons of ‘iron bombs’ on targets in the former Indochina and lost thirty-one B-52s in the process.

  Following his withdrawal from Vietnam, T. C. Hwoo transferred his operations to Indonesia before returning to Taiwan. In the process he made himself extremely wealthy with a vast collection of priceless Chinese antiques that he bequeathed to the national museum of Taiwan and to a museum in San Francisco. ‘TC’ was a convivial man who enjoyed life working hard and playing hard. To this extent it eventually caught up with him when he died suddenly and prematurely of a heart attack shortly after his sixtieth birthday. He was one of those rare individuals whose word was his bond and his handshake was a binding contract. In burning his candle at both ends he produced a bright light, not only in Taiwan but also among those who knew him. In my memory he was certainly one of the most remarkable personalities that it was my privilege to know in all my fifty years in the aviation business.

  De Havilland Canada, then a member of the Hawker Siddeley Group of companies, delivered two DH Twin Otter aircraft to the Indonesian Government for support operations in West Irian, formally Dutch New Guinea. The aircraft were based on the island of Biak, on the northern coast of West Irian, and I recollect flying one of the Twin Otter aircraft out of Biak into the mountainous hinterland of West Irian at the time of the second Moon landing. Biak had been a large and important air base for the Japanese during the Second World War, and was the scene of much fighting, with resolute Japanese resistance, before falling to the Allies in 1944, with heavy Japanese casualties. It was fascinating to fly low level along the coastline looking for the many aircraft wrecks clearly visible as they lay on the seabed of the Philippine Sea. The Japanese and Allied fighter and bomber aircraft wrecks created artificial reefs attracting many species of fish, making this a very interesting fishing and diving area for scuba divers. While on the look out for the sunken wrecks, giant Manta rays were seen in the clear water and with wingspans approaching 20 feet they appeared to fly through the water, occasionally leaping clear to crash back with a huge splash. Occasionally an enormous spotted whale shark some 40 feet in length was seen cruising peacefully on the surface; and like the giant Manta rays they swam with their huge mouths open to vacuum up the vast amounts of plankton and krill present.

  We were flying some emergency rice supplies for the Indonesian government into a small landing strip in the mountains of Irian Jaya when we experienced an engine failure, and, unable to take-off, we waited for a relief aircraft to arrive. The natives of the uncharted mountains of New Guinea are among the most primitive in the world and are virtually living fossils of a stone age, whose activities at the time involved the hunting of human heads to shrink as trophies, and cannibalism. There was a gruesome incident some time prior to my visit when an aircraft crashed in the mountains and examination of the wreckage concluded that some of the occupants survived the crash but the heads were missing with parts of the bodies. Retribution by the Indonesian army was swift and drastic for the village believed to be responsible for the atrocity. The adult males of the village were lined up in front of the assembled villagers and the more mature and influential executed. In a naked society status may not be readily apparent, however, with the natives of New Guinea there were two significant factors. Male adulthood commenced following the circumcision ritual, after which the men wore an elongated sheath covering the penis as their sole attire. For the immediate initiates this adornment usually hung from the waist but for the mature native status was often indicated by the degree of decoration and embellishment of the pellicle. The measure of wealth of the men was indicated by the strings of cowrie shells hanging around the neck. The cowrie shell was used as money to purchase the pigs that subsequently were exchanged for wives who cultivated the yams that fed the village. News of the dramatic reprisals by the Indonesian government spread rapidly throughout the territory as a graphic warning against further incidents of head taking and cannibalism. Shortly before our flight into Irian Jaya a missionary aircraft made a forced landing in the mountains with a family aboard and was quickly found by the natives who tended to the injured and carried the survivors back to civilization. Our mission was, therefore, not only an errand of mercy but a reward to indicate a paternal and benevolent government. The village consisted of a clearing for the airstrip and the cultivation of yams, with the villagers living in small beehive shaped straw huts. In a society that assessed wealth by the possession of cowrie shells, it is not surprising that the entire village crowded around us as if aliens from another planet.

  We waited two days for the relief aircraft to arrive with a spare magneto to service our aircraft and spent the cold nights huddled around the village fire with the Dutch missionary who had spent the previous twenty years living with these people. During the day clouds built up over the mountains and by afternoon torrential rain fell, but at night the clouds left the mountains and at 5,000 feet it became very cold. The clear skies revealed a full moon with the galaxy and the solar system brilliantly clear in all its magnificence. As the naked village tribesmen gathered around us watching our every move, I turned to the Dutch missionary and said, ‘These people regard us and our unsophisticated aircraft with awe more suited to gods. How can they start to appreciate that maybe right at this very moment there are two Americans walking on the surface of the moon?’ The good Father replied that he would ask the village chief, and after doing so he turned to me and said, ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you but the chief is not impressed. He tells me that his people have been visiting the moon for many generations’! This just goes to show that Einstein was indeed right and relativity applies to everything. Our Dutch host was a remarkable man who lived his life among the primitive aboriginal mountain tribes with only a small hut and an HF radio to serve his temporal needs, while a slightly larger corrugated iron shed served the spiritual needs of a parish that stretched in all directions through dense jungle for a distance of maybe a full walking week. Although the monthly missionary supply aircraft was two
weeks overdue he insisted on exhausting his meagre stores during the two days we were stranded in the mountains. When I returned to civilization I arranged for an aircraft on a scheduled flight to Biak to carry a food hamper for delivery to our missionary friend by one of the two Twin Otters operated by the Indonesian government. The hamper included some of his precious Java coffee, some medicinal cognac and a box of his favourite Dutch cigars.

  Marcel Proust in ‘A la recherché du temps perdu’ dipped into his memories to transport him back into his remembrances of things past. I have attempted to do the same with this memoir, rather as I did as a child in France with the ritual of the afternoon gouter when I would dip my madeleine into my chocolat. In similar fashion I have savoured the memories of flying some of the best combat aircraft the world had to offer at the time. It has been a good journey but in looking back on my good fortune there remains the memory of lost comrades in arms, including my best friends, who did not complete that journey with me. It took 400 years to progress from Leonardo da Vinci to the Wright Brothers for sustained human flight, and less than a lifetime from man’s first flight to his walking on the moon. The achievements are mind boggling and yet in an age of TV media and computer video games they are regarded as commonplace. In the space of my lifetime aircraft had progressed from flimsy wood and fabric construction controlled by means of cables and pulleys, flying a short distance above the ground at a speed of a modern motor car to landing a man on the moon. In military aviation today pilots fly fighters and bombers of highly complex aircraft structures and designs. The fundamental airframes, controls and basic flight instruments of my generation replaced by complex fail-safe fly-by-wire computer generated and auto stabilized flight systems that control and guide the aircraft many miles into the stratosphere at speeds in excess of twice the speed of sound. The delivery of weapons progressing, if one can use the word, from a simple navigation-attack system consisting of pilot induced guidance in fair weather to deliver a hand grenade or a mortar bomb, to a fully automated navigation and weapon guidance system that launches a guided weapon under all-weather conditions at a target the pilot may only see on a radar scope.