by Ian Pringle
Like Norman Walsh before him, Brand had to live in Rhodesia for six months before he could apply to the RRAF. Sir Quintin provided the opportunity, teaching his nephew the fundamentals of farming, driving tractors and rifle shooting, first at targets, then live quail. The young man excelled at shooting, a skill that would serve him well in the air force.
The six months flew by, and soon Brand had to go through the same process of medical and aptitude tests he had undergone a year earlier in South Africa. This time, the door opened and Brand joined 11 lucky young men in the 11th pilot intake of the RRAF in 1958. Some of them would also become legends, such as Ian Harvey, Tol Janeke and Vic Wightman.
Reid-Daly drilled the men relentlessly and no cadet was immune from his attention. Brand recalled an event: ‘On the tarmac early one morning, we were lined up facing the control tower when a squawking bird flew past. Reid-Daly looked at Tol Janeke and said, “Janeke, answer that bird.” Of course, Janeke said absolutely nothing.
‘Reid-Daly glared at the hapless officer cadet: “Janeke, you are going to regret that you did not answer that bird, because one day you will be flying along in your aeroplane and you will have to bail out, and your parachute won’t open. And you would have had the opportunity to stick your little finger up that bird’s arse and drift gently down to the ground.”’
Such was the quaint humour of this larger-than-life personality who would go on to establish and command the Selous Scouts, a man who was known affectionately as Uncle Ron.
Then it was time to learn to fly. On 10 March 1958, Brand met his instructor, the irrepressible Mick McLaren, also a South African. Brand has good memories of McLaren, a man who had a big influence on his flying career:
He taught me very early the value of a properly trimmed aircraft, a prerequisite for accurate flying. One day, I had not trimmed the aircraft properly, and Mick picked up a crowbar he kept in the Percival Provost cockpit, banged me on the helmet with it and said, ‘Brand, trim the fucking aircraft!’ He went on to lecture me about TAFIO, a common mnemonic pilots used to remember this drill – T, trim the aircraft; A, asseblief, trim the aircraft; F, for fuck’s sake, trim the aircraft; I, I must trim the aircraft; O, Oh shit, trim the aircraft.
On April Fool’s Day in 1958, McLaren climbed out of the Provost, telling Brand, who had 15 hours’ total flying time in his logbook, to fly a circuit on his own. Thinking it was an April Fool’s Day joke, Brand did nothing – at least not until he saw McLaren reaching back inside the aircraft for the crowbar.
‘I guess I landed okay because I continued flying.’
After 124 hours of prop flying, Brand joined the jet age, and started flying Vampires, mainly under the instruction of Flight Lieutenant Peter Petter-Bowyer.
‘After Vamps, I was posted to No. 3 Squadron, flying Dakotas, which I hated with a passion.’
Brand did not hide his feelings, and told his superior officers at every opportunity that his heart was in flying jets. To make up for the tedium of flying big, slow machines, Brand applied himself to building and flying model aircraft, at which he excelled – he won the Rhodesian Aeromodelling Championship title 11 times and the South African title seven times, earning his Springbok colours.
After 300 hours on Daks, Brand’s persistence paid off. He was posted back to No. 1 Squadron and Vampires, this time to learn weapon firing and bombing, under the expert instruction of Norman Walsh. He showed a high aptitude for delivering weapons accurately, and averaged only 14 yards in the high dive-bombing profile, a fantastic achievement in anyone’s book. His gunnery results showed a 35 per cent hit rate, also impressive for a student. And, recalls Brand, ‘I always remembered to trim the aircraft well; Mick McLaren’s TAFIO was well and truly ingrained in my flying.’
The Hunters come
After another mandatory stint at HQ as operations intelligence officer, Brand returned to No. 1 Squadron as weapons instructor, a job he was good at. Then came some exciting news – the squadron was to take delivery of a dozen Hawker Hunter FGA9 jets. This was a fighter and ground-attack jet capable of supersonic speed, a bigger, faster and much more exciting machine to fly than the Vampire.
Late in 1962, Brand was told he was going to the UK to learn to fly the Hunter and ferry one of the 12 back to Rhodesia. His first experience with the Hunter was in a simulator at RAF Chivenor in Devon, which did not feel good: ‘I thought the Hunter was a most dangerous aircraft, as everything that could go wrong in the simulator did.’
His fears proved unfounded after three dual flights in the Hunter T7 two-seat trainer. Then Brand was told to fly solo in a single-seat F6, essentially the same machine as the FGA9. The single-seat layout was broadly similar to the T7 he had just flown, but there was one big difference – the F6 punched out a lot more thrust than the trainer.
It was late afternoon on a wintry January day in 1963. Brand strapped in, fired up and lined up on the runway as the sun was slowly reddening in the west. As he brought the thrust lever up to 4 500 rpm, Brand could feel the difference.
He applied full power, hearing a howl as the hungry engine sucked in air. The aircraft accelerated, reaching the unstick speed of 145 knots pretty quickly, and Brand was airborne, above the cloud in the cold twilight sky. He was enjoying the experience so much that he hardly noticed it was rapidly getting dark, and he had to snap out of his reverie and land quickly before he lost the airfield in darkness.
Soon it was time to fly the FGA9s to Rhodesia. The route would involve four refuelling stops between Lyneham in England and Thornhill in Rhodesia – Malta, Libya, Khartoum and Nairobi.
‘As we left RAF Lyneham, our boss, Squadron Leader Mike Saunders, lost his radio, so flying as No. 2, I had to take the lead. There was total cloud cover below; I never saw the Channel or much of France. Two hours and 45 minutes later, with our low-fuel “bingo” lights glowing, we landed in Malta. The rest of the ferry flight was uneventful,’ Brand recalled.
His passion for perfection and need for constant improvement when building his world-class model aircraft were key ingredients in Rich Brand’s constitution throughout his air force life, enabling him to add important modifications to Rhodesian warplanes. When he was with No. 5 Squadron, flying the Canberra jet bomber, Brand soon noticed that the bombsights were not harmonised across the fleet, meaning that each Canberra was slightly different for the navigator. Working with a team, Brand devised a system to harmonise the sights, thus enabling a navigator to jump from one Canberra to the next, confident that the sights would be the same. The Hunter also needed harmonising for air-to-air gunnery, something Brand carried out with the help of Rick Culpan.
In February 1976, Brand’s dream came true: he was appointed leader of No. 1 Hunter Squadron at Thornhill.
That jungle dustbin
Shooting accurately became the hallmark of No. 1 Hunter Squadron; its pilots were often referred to as the Steely Eyes. Word got out about this, and a newspaper published an article claiming that RhAF Hunter pilots could hit a dustbin in a jungle clearing with their 30-mm cannons. This article drew the attention and mirth of rival squadron members, who, as a challenge, presented Brand and his squadron with a rusty old dustbin in a ‘formal’ ceremony in the officers’ mess at Thornhill.
Brand took up the gauntlet. The next day, he asked ‘Kutanga Mac’, the range officer at the RhAF firing range near Thornhill, to place the rusty dustbin on the range. Brand took off in a Hawker Hunter, fired a quarter-second burst (five rounds) and drilled the dustbin.
The seriously holed and dented exhibit, now the air force world’s most famous dustbin, was chrome-plated and returned to the officers’ mess, where it stood proudly. The inscription on the dustbin lid, still bearing the old Royal Government Issue OHMS stamp, read: ‘That jungle dustbin – Alpha.1.1280 – five rounds fired, one hit.’ (The squadron boss always took Alpha, followed by the squadron number, hence Alpha 1. The Hunter serial number was 1280.)
‘The Hunter is very stable when firing those guns. The 30-mm ca
nnons are deadly, deadly accurate,’ recalls Brand. ‘In fact, the cannons were too accurate for the type of war we were fighting. If ground forces called in a Hunter strike, say on a group of terrorists under the third tree from the left, and the troops couldn’t see from the ground that it was actually the fourth tree, the third tree would be destroyed, but the terrs would go unscathed.’
Help was at hand. The inventive Peter Petter-Bowyer was developing yet another new weapon, the Golf bomb, which would give the Hunter a lot more clout. PB had been studying fuel-air explosives, which the Americans were using to clear large areas of landmines. The massive blast pressure of the fuel-air bomb detonated unwanted mines over a wide radius. The American version used ethylene oxide, an expensive and unstable explosive.
PB, always driven to make something effective but more cheaply, decided to test an alternative: ammonium nitrate and fuel oil, known as ANFO. After many tests and modifications, PB and his team perfected an extremely good high-pressure weapon, which exploded and then imploded, causing lethal damage to any living thing in an area 95 × 135 metres. Anyone surviving the blast and the shrapnel would have ruptured eardrums and be badly stunned and disorientated.
Rich Brand was involved in the development of the Golf bomb, in particular in the aircraft bombing profile. The typical dive profile was to release the bombs at 4 500 feet, but Brand wanted to improve accuracy, which meant dropping them at a lower height. The solution he developed was known as the glide profile. This was a technique of approaching the target in the Hunter at 10 000 feet. Then, at 10 nautical miles from the target, the pilot throttled back to idle, in effect turning the jet into a silent glider. The descending Hunter would then pinpoint the target, turn in and commence a 60-degree dive, releasing the bombs at 3 000 feet above ground level, followed by a six-G-force pull-out, which gave just enough margin for the aircraft to avoid flying into its own bomb blast.
‘The advantage of the glide attack was that the aircraft would not be seen or heard until the pull-up, by which time it was too late to escape,’ said Brand.
Dive-bombing accuracy without modern technology is largely proportional to the steepness of the dive and how close the aircraft can get to the target. In other words, the steeper the dive and the lower the pull-out, the better. However, this has obvious dangers because while the pilot is concentrating on keeping the target in his bombsights, it is very easy to inadvertently pay less attention to the altimeter. The most serious case of this scenario is known as target fixation, when the pilot flies straight into the ground.
Fortunately, this problem is usually spotted and resolved early during training. Nevertheless, the risk of pulling out late at only 3 000 feet in a 60-degree dive is high: a few seconds too late, and the pilot will almost certainly overstress the aircraft during the ‘oh shit’ pull-out.
Brand had a brilliant solution. He asked the instrument technicians to install a small additional altimeter next to the sights. Coupled to this altimeter was a light that would start flashing at the optimum altitude. This enabled the pilot to focus more closely on accuracy without having to constantly scan the altimeter. This invention – an early type of head-up display now common in military aircraft – greatly increased dive-bombing accuracy.
The last Rhodesian Parliament
No. 1 Squadron often performed fly-pasts, a wonderful spectacle. The sight of a squadron of Hunters approaching rapidly, silently and in tight formation would impress even the most aerophobic observer. The first sound to reach the audience on the ground is the howl of multiple ‘blue notes’, the term used for the sound emanating from the 30-mm cannon ports, like a greatly amplified version of blowing over the mouth of an empty Coca-Cola bottle. Following the blue note comes the sound of the jet tearing through the air and then, finally, the deafening roar of the Rolls-Royce Avon 207 engines as the formation passes by – a truly memorable show.
On 27 June 1977, at the height of the war, No. 1 Squadron was asked to do a fly-past for the opening of Parliament. Very few realised at the time that this would be the last opening of the Rhodesian Parliament. Coincidentally, the fly-past also commemorated Squadron Leader Rich Brand’s 1 000th hour of flying Hunters. The proud squadron leader briefed his team, Mark Aitcheson, Cocky Benecke, Dave Bourhill, Martin Lowrie, John Annan, Chris Abraham, Jock McGregor and Mark Vernon: ‘Gentlemen, the mission is to fly a diamond nine at the opening of Parliament in Salisbury at 11:00 local time. To polish up, we will route to Bulawayo in tight formation, do a fly-past over the city, then proceed to Salisbury.’
In a wartime economy hampered by economic sanctions, this was an expensive way to celebrate, but it did have two spin-offs. Firstly, it showed the world that Rhodesia was still capable of putting up a formation of nine Hawker Hunters, a feat deemed impossible by some RAF ‘experts’ in Britain. Secondly, it gave Brand and his pilots a chance to practise precise timing over ‘target’ and brush up on their formation skills.
The people of Bulawayo rushed out to see the perfect diamond nine formation go by. The Hunters then flew north-east for 28 minutes to Norton, a farming town south-west of Salisbury named after the family brutally massacred there in the First Chimurenga. As the formation passed over the Umfuli River, Brand called: ‘Red Section, tighten up, three minutes to IP.’ Norton was Brand’s initial point (IP), the final turning point to bring the formation onto a magnetic heading of 085 degrees and straight over Cecil Square, the park in front of Parliament, with its gardens designed in the form of the Union Jack. This was the spot where Rhodes’s pioneers first hoisted the Union flag and named the place Salisbury 81 years earlier.
‘Lead turning right … now,’ Brand called as the formation approached Norton, and he eased slowly into a right turn. Leading a formation looks like the easy job, as everyone else has to work hard to stay in position, but it’s not. The leader must fly very smoothly with accurate speeds, positions and altitudes. Any sudden corrections are amplified, causing the formation to become ragged and untidy.
‘Target one minute ahead, nice and tight please’ was Brand’s final command. At precisely 11:00, the Hunters, in a perfect diamond nine, flew directly over Cecil Square to the delight of the large crowd gathered to witness the formal opening of Parliament on that clear winter’s day in 1977.
Just three months later, the same aircraft, armed to the teeth, would open the attack on Robert Mugabe’s ZANLA headquarters in Mozambique.
30
Lake Alexander
As the crow flies, the distance from New Sarum to the helicopter assembly point at Lake Alexander is 198 kilometres to the south-east. The Alouettes were fully fuelled to save time at the rendezvous, which meant the helicopters were heavy and slow, initially managing to fly at only 130 kilometres per hour. But as fuel burnt off, the machines became lighter and faster. Allowing for dog-legs to provide deception, the total flying time to the lake would be about one hour and 20 minutes.
For Dave Jenkins, peering over the barrels of the twin Browning machine guns in the command helicopter, the flight to Lake Alexander was ‘like any other call-out’. For Norman Walsh, piloting his first operational flight in many a year, the feeling was similar: ‘It felt as if I had never been out of it.’
The sun was quickly changing from a red ball to a brilliant spotlight in the sky, shining into the Perspex bubbles of the Alouettes and causing some discomfort to the pilots as they headed south-east. Twenty minutes after lifting off, the first gaggle of helicopters passed over Longlands Dam, just north of the thriving town of Marandellas. After a similar interval, the helicopters crossed the main Salisbury–Umtali road a few kilometres north of Rusape. Soon, the topography started changing from hilly, rolling farmland to larger, bald granite features. The mountains of the Eastern Highlands were looming in the distance. This was territory both Robinson and Walsh knew well.
As the formation skirted the highest terrain near Osbourne Dam, Walsh could see the deep green of the Stapleford Forest area; he knew they were close to their refuell
ing point. He also noticed something he did not want to see: low cloud hugging the mountains in the distance towards Mozambique.
Keith Samler, accompanied by his SB colleague Ken Milne and the head of SB, Mike Edden, drove to Lake Alexander in Samler’s car. The Triumph 2000 pulled into the lakeside picnic area just after 06:00, as the last section of helicopters was landing. Samler took out his Super 8 movie camera and filmed the landing helicopters in the early-morning mountain air. Samler would film parts of both phases of Operation Dingo, the only moving record of the raids.
The last trucks bringing in the RLI 2 Commando heli-borne troops arrived. The clatter of rotors, whine of turbines, revving truck engines and people milling about in the dust gave the impression of absolute chaos, but there was order in the din. The RLI troops were positioned in front of their specific helicopter landing spot, in the same order they would be dropped off at the target. The SB men and other support staff were told which helicopters they would be flying in. Things quietened a lot once the last gaggle of helicopters had landed at 06:15 and wound down their engines.
The long section of gently curving dirt road at Lake Alexander that the planners had chosen as the assembly point worked well, except for one thing – the helicopters were spread a long way apart. The first helicopter was nearly half a kilometre from the last. This in itself was not a problem, but while the techs were refuelling the Alouettes, the pilots needed to gather around their squadron leader’s machine for a final briefing. This meant some serious jogging to get to and from Griff’s helicopter.
Mark McLean, flying a K-car, was one of the unfortunates who had to make up a lot of ground to catch up with the lead helicopter: ‘All the helicopters went to Lake Alexander and filled the LZ. I was parked well back, and had to cover quite a distance. We then got together for a chat, smoke and nervous pee. It was one of those situations where everyone was pretending to be casual, but they were quite tense.’