Number 43 Squadron arrived at Khormaksar from Nicosia in Cyprus in March 1963 when Sqn Ldr Peter Peacock was the Commanding Officer. Two months later, his replacement, Sqn Ldr Phil Champniss arrived and he remained in charge of the squadron until his departure in November 1965.
“In June 1999 Ray Deacon, who had served in Aden at the same time as I did, was doing some research for a book he was writing on the Hunter and asked me if I could let him have some memories of my time in Aden as OC 43 (F) based at RAF Khormaksar. The following paragraphs are a transcript of a tape I sent him at the time. Trying to remember specifics of a period after some thirty five years is not the easiest of tasks and I apologize for the inevitable inaccuracies that may have occurred.
I had flown the Hunter quite a lot having converted to the Mark 2 in 1955 when I joined my first squadron, 257, based RAF Wattisham in Suffolk. The Mark 2 was equipped with an Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire engine which was excellent when it was running but was prone to bearing failures which, to put it mildly, was decidedly unfortunate. From Wattisham I was posted to RAF Chivenor which housed the Hunter OCU and was equipped with Hunter Mark 1s and 4s. Both were powered by Rolls Royce series 100 Avons. I was then posted as a Flight Commander to No.14 Squadron based at RAF Guterslöh in Germany flying the Mark 6 Hunter which was equipped with the more powerful series 200 Avon. Halfway through my tour the trainer version of the Hunter, the Mark T.7, arrived, equipped with the series 100 engine.
Number 43 squadron was equipped with the FGA.9 Hunter which I had not flown
prior to my arrival. On
arrival at the squadron, I was shown the aircraft which was, nominally,
allocated to the Squadron Commander. When I looked in the cockpit I noticed that
there were two blanking plates on the lower starboard console covering what, in
my Guterslöh
days, had been a modification which allowed the pilot to test his low level fuel
float switches. I should mention that the fuel gauges in the Hunter at that time
were very reliable but tended to under-read at height but, and this was the
potentially embarrassing bit, over-read at low-level. In 1960 I was a display
pilot and I relied very much on the accuracy of the low-level float switches
which illuminated at 650 lbs per
side.
RAF Germany introduced a modification to provide a test facility but this was
removed when the aircraft was no longer serving in RAF Germany and thus I was
able to say to my predecessor that although I hadn’t flown a Mark 9 I had
certainly flown that particular airframe whose number was XE546. And the
explanation was that a large number of Mark 6s were converted to Mark 9s and my
log book confirmed that this was one such. A good start to my time on 43!
When I joined 43 we had 16 pilots but only about a dozen were deemed to be ‘operational’, i.e. cleared for operational sorties. It normally took about six months for a new pilot to be trained up to operational standard. One of the earlier operational missions was what became known as the Beihan Fort task. Beihan was an area on the Yemen border about a couple of hundred miles to the north-east of Aden. The ruler, the Sheriff, was very pro-Britain which made him very unpopular with the Yemenis immediately to the north of him and with whom the UK was, ipso facto, at war. There was a fairly large fort about a couple of miles inside Yemen territory although it must be said that the borders were very imprecise in that area. The politicians of the day ordered the destruction of the fort and, since there were no UK ground forces in the area, the task fell to the Hunters of Strike Wing; there were three Hunter squadrons, 43, 8, and 208, and a Shackleton outfit, 37. Eight aircraft were tasked and the OC Strike wing, Wg Cdr John Jennings, led the formation with the front four from 8 Sqn and I led the rear four. 208 were in Bahrein at the time. We each carried sixteen 3-inch rockets; they were in two rows of eight. The weather was fine and we had no difficulty in identifying the fort and, being made principally of mud, it was no match for the rockets. The pilots of 1417 flight, equipped with the Hunter FR.10, confirmed that the strike had been successful but it did excite the do-good brigade in the UK and there was quite a bit of adverse Press comment at the time.
We always flew with our 4 x 30 mm Aden canon loaded with HE shells and thank heavens we did because if you fired ball ammunition, which is what was used on the practice range, you’ve got yourself a fairly horrendous ricochet hazard which with one ‘donk’ is not to be recommended. In fact in my whole time out there I only heard of one ricochet and that was when a chap was far too close. Incidentally, you could select inners and outers, the two at the bottom of the gunpack or the two at the sides or you could select all four. Selecting the whole lot was enormous fun, but my gosh if you hadn’t done it before it used to frighten you as not only would it shake your feet off the rudder pedals, and that’s no exaggeration – it really used to clatter, but it would knock about 50 knots off your speed, not to be recommended if you are going slowly. The good old-fashioned Gyro gun site, which the pundits knock these days, but was in fact extremely reliable and if you flew it properly was very accurate.
A follow-on of the strike was that we had to mount CAPS (Continuous Air Patrols) over the area for a few weeks which must take the Nobel Prize for the most boring flying in the world. We would load up the aircraft with extra drop tanks and cruise around at about 2000 feet above the ground just in case the Yemenis decided to have a go at the small Army garrison that had been deployed to the area. We had to fly at low speed to allow us a reasonable time on patrol whist still allowing us enough fuel to get back home. Hardly an operational posture! Just as an aside, we could not carry any rockets because the outboard pylons had to carry the extra fuel tanks. We never saw any sign of the Yemenis although the Army often said that they could see the Yemeni aircraft just as soon as we left! I don’t think so!
But then came the Radfan campaign and that was quite a different kettle of fish. The Yemenis had been successful in whipping up a fair amount of fervour amongst the local tribesmen in an area about 100 miles due North of Aden under the banner of FLOSY, that stood for Federation for the Liberation of South Yemen. There was a deal of mayhem and the UK decided that the ‘rebellion’ must be put down. Quite a large army contingent was flown in and the Hunters were tasked with providing whatever air support was needed. Unfortunately 8 Sqn were deployed to Bahrein and 208 Sqn were in Kenya participating in the celebrations for Independence. It always seems to happen that way! The result was that 43 Sqn had to meet the task until the other two squadrons could be recovered. The task took the form of three distinctly different requirements:
This required two aircraft to patrol a defined area and attack anything that appeared ‘suspicious’. The vast majority of the areas were just barren ‘rockscape’ and there was no movement at all. So no action. However, on several occasions we were tasked to attack a specific target in one of the areas and this involved the use of our primary Ground Attack weapon, the 3-inch rocket fitted with a High Explosive head, that dated from the Second World War era and was popularly known as ‘The drain’. The rocket was a very effective weapon but it was quite difficult to aim accurately, having a trajectory of a house brick. The problem was that it was quite a slow weapon and therefore had a very large gravity drop between firing and reaching its target. Occasionally you would have one where the fins had become distorted giving you what was known in the trade as a ‘twirler’. Instead of going straight ahead it would start barrel rolling and if you were on the range with one of these, you would call “twirler” over the R/T and hope the Range Safety Officer (RSO) didn’t think you’d just goofed when you aimed. The Hunter is fitted with a gyro gunsight and it had a specific setting for rockets which involved tracking the target with the bottom of the sight in order to effectively raise the nose to compensate for the gravity drop. Unfortunately this tended to make the gunsight pendulous and this in turn made it essential to track the target for significantly longer than when tracking for the use of the guns. But with practice it was quite normal to deliver the weapon within ten yards of the target, though the presences of cross winds made the task decidedly more difficult. We could fire our rockets in salvos of two or let the whole lot go at once. At one stage we ran out of HE heads and had to fall back on concrete heads but against a mud target, they were almost as effective as high explosive heads.
The second type of support was when we were tasked to destroy a specific target which was causing the ground forces a problem or was deemed by the Intelligence people that it be removed. Either way, the planning was the same and we usually had photographs to aid target recognition. Quite often, for these pre-planned sorties, we had the services of a Forward Air Controller (FAC). This was, in the vast majority of cases, an Army officer of the unit being supported and who had sight of the target. He would, by reference to, hopefully, distinctive ground features, guide the pilot to pick up the target visually. Unfortunately, and this is in no way meant to be a criticism, some ground features can be very distinctive to onlookers on the ground but the absolute opposite when looking from the air. “There is a small tree just in front of the target” is all very well but if it’s small then the chances are you won’t see it from the air. And on the other hand the pilot may well be able to see dozens of small trees, or none at all! But safety is paramount and the golden rule is that if the pilot isn’t sure that he’s got the right target then don’t fire. There were many times when there was doubt in the pilot’s mind and one way that we evolved to eliminate this doubt was to fire off a few rounds of cannon at what was thought to be the target and wait for confirmation from the FAC that it was the correct target. This sounds a bit ‘hit or miss’ (excuse the pun) but we always knew the Forward Line of our own troops so the risk of a friendly fire incident was minimal. There was one very dramatic exception to this assurance which I will come on to later.
The third type of mission was when we were called in for close support when the ground unit considered that only air support was the quickest way of removing a potential, or actual, risk. We kept two pilots at cockpit readiness at Khormaksar throughout the daylight hours for this task. One could be airborne within five minutes and in the target area in a further ten. Immediately to the south of the operational area was a landing strip which housed the Army HQ. A member of the Brigade staff was a Brigade Air Support Officer (BASO). Throughout the Radfan campaign this post was manned by an RAF officer, Sqn Ldr Roy Bowie. He had direct radio contact with the Operations Room at Khormaksar’s Strike Wing HQ. The pilots on standby were in continuous contact with the Ops Room. When the BASO received a request for Close Air Support he would, after verifying the practicality of the request, pass it direct to Khormaksar who would relay it to the pilots on standby who would immediately scramble and, at maximum speed, head for the general operational area having selected the BASO’s radio frequency. When within radio range the pilots would make contact with the BASO who would then brief them on the general nature of the request. He would then give the pilots a Contact Point (CP) which was one of about ten pre-briefed such geographical points on the ground which all pilots knew by heart. These points were identified by a letter of the alphabet. The BASO would pass the FAC’s callsign and instruct the pilots to make contact with the FAC on a dedicated frequency. Once radio contact had been made with the FAC he would describe the nature of the target. He would then give the pilots a heading and time to fly at 420 knots. This combination of heading and time would put the pilots over a point at which to commence their pull-up to a height which would enable them to achieve a 30 degree dive angle having turned through 90 degrees at the top of the climb; left or right depending on the FAC’s briefing. The FAC knew the standard distance covered in the pull-up and the turn in and adjusts the heading and time to make good the pull-up point. The FAC will select a left or right turn in depending on which direction gives the pilot the optimum chance of visually identifying the target. Once the pilots have acknowledged receiving the time, heading and direction of turn information, the FAC will then give them a description of what they should see at the top of the dive. The pilots then manoeuvre their aircraft to make good the heading and speed over the designated Contact Point. If all goes according to plan then the FAC will make visual contact with the aircraft as soon as they initiate the climb. The FAC will then start commentating with the aim of leading the pilot’s eyes from what he can see during the pull-up until he can identify the target. It’s a good system and provided that both the FAC, and the pilots, do as they’ve been trained to do then it works.
In the Radfan we were fortunate in that there was no Air Opposition and the enemy had no effective anti-air weapons apart from small arms. So one could afford to complete an orbit if necessary and there was always the option of firing a few rounds of gunfire to confirm the position of the target. Occasionally we would run out of fuel, or ammunition, before the task had been completed, or, as often happened, there would be another task allocated to us when in the area but which we couldn’t complete. In such an event we would call Khormaksar Ops to scramble another pair of aircraft to complete the task. Things didn’t always go to plan and there was one very near miss when we were tasked to take out a particular house in a row of five in a quite large village. I led the particular sortie and we had no problems from identifying the exact house that was the target. It was a very calm morning and there would have been no excuse if we’d missed. The rockets did their job and I felt quite pleased that the sortie had gone well. When I landed I was surprised to see the Squadron’s Ground Liaison Officer (each Squadron had its own Army Major on full time attachment as a GLO) waiting on the pan as I climbed out of my aircraft. He was a super chap called Tom Couper and he really was excellent at the job and his knowledge of things Arabic in the area was quite incredible. He didn’t look very happy! My heart sank as I dreaded the possible news that we’d knocked down the wrong house. He put my mind at rest when he confirmed that we had got the right house but he then said that immediately behind the house was a small mosque that no one had noticed and certainly no one had told me! He asked if any of our rockets had overshot and I confirmed that, if anything, mine would have been on the short side because I thought I was a bit out of range. The other pilot also confirmed that he would have erred on the short side as he too felt he was out of range. An FR.10 from 1417 Flight was already on the way back with the post strike photographs and we waited in trepidation to see the results. In the event we had not hit the mosque though the house had come down very, very, close to it! But from then on we always demanded pre-strike photos of any target in any sort of built up area.
We were working very hard and we were down to eleven operational pilots and I became very concerned that we would be unable to keep up the pace unless we could get some more pilots. One of the detached squadrons was returning within a few days but I still felt that we should bolster our numbers by at least a couple. I went to see the Station Commander, Gp Capt Blythe, and explained my concern. He had converted to the Hunter but had only a few hours on the aircraft and certainly had never had any operational training. He asked me if I had any ideas and I said that I would be happy to choose three of my best non-op pilots who were still under training in their work-up phase and fly them with one of my more experienced guys on operations but under the closest of supervision. He agreed and I said I would fly with one of the best young pilots I had who was a guy called John Thomson. He eventually became C-in-C Strike Command and would undoubtedly would have become CAS but, tragically, died whilst still C-in C. He was, incidentally, Godfather to my son. But he exceeded my wildest expectations in the trips I flew with him and I asked the Station Commander to listen in to the RT whilst we completed the initial sortie so that he could hear, at first hand, what we were trying to do, and more importantly, how we were doing it. Within a week we had an extra three operational pilots which eased the load for the rest of us which, as the next few paragraphs will reveal, was just as well!
We were normally on standby sitting in the cockpit prior a forward air controlled sortie. A Brigade Air Support Officer (BASO) was based at an airfield which started life being called Thumeir, a little strip 1,300 yards long and about 100 miles north of Aden which for some reason was later renamed Havelain. BASO had an HF radio link back to Tactical Wing HQ at Khormaksar and he was responsible for issuing the order to scramble. When the order arrived you would get airborne as fast as possible and when the weather was good, which it usually was, you could fly to Thumeir with your eyes shut. On arrival we would do a couple of orbits during which we were told what contact point to head for. There were a whole series of them, about 50 to 60 miles from Thumeir and all coded by letters, not very clever but it saved mentioning the name and you’d belt off there. Whilst en-route the Forward Air Controller (FAC) would come on the radio and give you a heading, a target description, a time and the speed at which you should fly. They assumed you were flying at 420 knots and would know how much ground you would cover by the time you pulled up for the rocket dive and how much more ground you would cover as you turned through 90 degrees to begin your attack. As you pulled up he would guide you to the target by reference to ground features. This wasn’t as easy as it sounds – absolutely fine when you’re on the ground saying bushy top tree (except there weren’t any that you could see) but what might look like a damn great feature down there – the big hill in front of you, you can’t see it because at 3,000 feet, you’re above it. So we devised a system that took all the guess work out of it. Once we knew we were on a safe heading, we would give a few little bursts of 30mm at what we believed the target to be. Although a 30mm shell would spoil your whole day if it hit you, it didn’t pack the punch of a 60lb HE rocket. As your quick bursts hit home the FAC would make any correction according to the fall of shot (a gunnery term), such as, left 100 yards or the building just behind the one you aimed for or whatever. If there was still doubt, we’d go round and do another quick burst of canon fire until we got it right. It all sounds a bit old fashioned but it was very effective. Once having established which building it was, you could then go around and do an almost academic attack, where you get your speed right and make the most of the dear old Hunter’s stability, bloody great wing, to plant the 3 inch drain comfortably within 10 yards, half that with sufficient practice. We would keep attacking until we ran out of rockets or got deployed to another target.
Most of the time, FAC sorties were flown in pairs as hauling a four-ship around with you was a bit cumbersome and unnecessary. It was better keep a second pair back at Khormaksar and call base ourselves – “Scramble the next pair, we’re leaving and we haven’t finished the job”. It was not unknown to piss about for some considerable time and not actually find the target or it would prove to be not what the FAC wanted. So if we pulled off the target we would call the next pair in ourselves. And that was the pattern we flew; it was rather nice because you could be on the beach by half-passed-four in the afternoon having actually having done “a job of work” and a very exciting job of work too.
There was one event that I shall never forget and it made an absolute nonsense of all the ‘rules’ that we made. I got a call very early one morning from Wg Cdr John Jennings to say that I was to report to his office immediately and to bring one of my most experienced pilots with me. He wouldn’t say any more on the phone so I called a guy called Roger Wilkins who was, by far, the most experienced pilot on the squadron having previously been a Sergeant Pilot for several years. We got to the Wing Commander’s office in about twenty minutes and he told us that an SAS patrol had been ambushed at first light that morning and they were unable to move from their location and their CO had asked for urgent air support. The problem was that they would be unable to have radio contact with us and indeed their exact location was unknown as they had moved from their original, briefed, location. Roger and I were airborne within twenty minutes and headed for the operational area.
I made contact with the BASO who explained that he was not in contact with the unit but was getting his information from the SAS’s own HQ at Khormaksar which, believe it or not, was about fifty yards from my own Squadron HQ! The BASO had a rough idea of where the unit was but it was an area of about four miles square in the north of the operational area. I knew the area pretty well and he and I agreed that we would fly over the area and confirm that the unit could at least hear us even if they couldn’t actually see us. The lines of communication were tortuous to say the least but, after what seemed an age, the BASO confirmed that they could hear us but couldn’t see us but they thought we were to the north of them. I shifted our orbiting a couple of miles to the south and waited for a response. Again after what seemed a week the BASO said that they could now see us but we were still well to the north of them. At least we were reducing the area of uncertainty! I completed another orbit, further to the south, and waited for advice. This time we were much closer to them but I had no idea just where they were on the ground. The only thing I could do was to fire a few rounds on a northerly heading and erring towards the northern edge of my previous orbit. Success! The unit could see my fall of shot asked me to aim about three hundred yards to the south and a similar amount to the West. Roger Wilkins had been patiently following me around but obviously there was no point in him firing until we knew that it would be effective and, more importantly, safe to do so. I fired a few more rounds and received a further correction and a request that we fire some of our rockets. I confirmed with Roger that he could see my last fall of shot and I then fired four rockets at the latest aiming point. Roger did the same and finally we got a message that the result was very satisfactory as far as the unit was concerned. But I had still no idea just where they were but if they were happy then so was I! By this time we had only sufficient fuel to stay in the area for a further fifteen minutes so I called Khormaksar and ordered the scrambling of a further pair of aircraft to replace us. As soon as I was in RT contact with them I explained the situation and confirmed that they could see where my rockets were landing and that they were to use that as an aiming point. Roger and I then left and headed for home for a rapid refuel and re-arm.
We were back in the area in forty minutes which worked out well as the pair that had relieved us were just about to leave. And the sortie followed the pattern that had been set and the unit seemed very pleased with our efforts but we still couldn’t see them, or their attackers for that matter. And we were able to keep aircraft overhead for the rest of the day although it was hard work for us, and even more so for the groundcrew. But obviously we would be unable to provide any support once the light faded and I had to make sure that the unit was aware of that fact. I flew the last sortie that day and left with a very heavy heart as I felt we were letting the beleaguered unit down but there really was no more we could do. And we still hadn’t seen them! Tragically my foreboding was justified. The unit had to make a run for it and in the process lost three of their number including their CO, Capt Edwards. As soon as it was dark, the remaining five (or it could have been seven) managed to escape and headed for Thumeir, some 17 miles away. But there was an extraordinary act of heroism by one of their number, Cpl Baker. He had been shot in the knee and yet managed to run about twelve miles back to the Army’s HQ. He couldn’t run as fast as his mates so he, obviously single-handedly, did a sort of ‘Ramboesque’ act and sprayed the pursuing tribesmen with his Armalite rifle as they rounded a corner and then he made good his escape whilst the attackers sought to ‘regroup’! Baker did this on at least a couple of occasions.
About three days later I was sitting in my office when my adjutant told me there was someone in the crewroom who wanted to see me. I went to the crewroom and there was this very fit-looking soul with one knee heavily bandaged. It was Cpl Baker who had discharged himself from hospital and just wanted to came and say ‘thank you’ to the squadron. It was a very emotional moment for me! During the course of our discussion he told me that our rounds had fallen about twenty yards from their position at one stage and it was probably just as well that I didn’t know that at the time! But he had been in Malaya three weeks previously and I asked him which country he preferred. He said that he preferred Malaya because he felt much more comfortable fighting in the shade! One of the most impressive men I’ve ever met. But the whole episode amply demonstrated the absolute necessity of having reliable communications. I’ve often wondered since that time how things might have been so different if that had been the case.
We decided to have a ‘Families Day’ so that, hopefully, the wives and kids could come on to the base and see what their husbands and fathers actually did for a living. I decided that we would not actually fly but we would try and make the hangar look ‘interesting’ with bits of ground equipment and a weapons display. We always had at least one aircraft in bits and on this particular Saturday was no exception and formed a good 'static' display complete with commentary.
Bear in mind that this was the mid sixties and to own a car was the exception rather than the case. But everyone needed wheels of some kind and most of the pilots, certainly those on their first tour, bought Vespas or a similar type of little 50cc bike. We had about a dozen of these and someone suggested that perhaps their owners could work up a little formation display for the Families day. No sooner mentioned than the owners were off and riding! John Thomson was going to lead it and there was frantic activity with the briefing board and dozens of sticks of chalk as various formations were studied and positions allocated. All good stuff and at least it would be something different! But there was only a week before the day itself so rehearsal time was a bit short and the only sensible practice time was at the end of the flying day and that only left a couple of hours of daylight at the most. John came to see me with about three days to go and said that they had settled on the format and the display would last about ten minutes and would conclude with a drive-past at which he asked me if I would take the salute! He then said they would drive past from left to right in an echelon starboard and then he would lead the ‘break’ and circle to have them all lined up in front of the ‘dais’ and then do a formation engine switch off, salute, and dismount.
It did seem to be fun and I said I would be delighted to take the salute. John said that the final practice was to take place on the Friday and asked that I be there for that one. The practice was fantastic and I’ve never laughed so much as John was bellowing orders for the various formation changes but every now and then his orders were swamped by one of the riders missing a gear; a 50 cc at full throttle in neutral is very, very noisy, and no one knew what to do next! But they got through to the end and the drive past was absolutely perfect, and very funny. And so to the day itself. I must say that it went off very well and we sold gallons of tea and stickies which swelled the Squadron coffers. And so to the formation demonstration. It was even funnier than the rehearsal that I’d watched. One manoeuvre involved riders approaching each other from two opposite corners of a square, a la Household Cavalry at the Horse of the Year show. Two of the riders got the timing slightly wrong and collided! No problem; quick remount and rejoin the fray and they went past again to tumultuous applause from the crowd. Then came the formation drive past, break and dismount. Well that was what was supposed to happen and the first part certainly did. The actual drive past was immaculate and I saluted at the appropriate time. But they just kept on going and no attempt was made by John Thomson to lead the break. If he didn’t go then nobody else could. I watched in disbelief as the entire formation rode off the pan into the sand and all crashed! They were only going slowly and nobody was hurt. The audience were in absolute hysterics and even more so when they heard John Osborne, the number two, asked John Thomson why the **** he hadn’t led the break. “I couldn’t turn because my clutch lever was jammed in the pocket of your overalls!”
A great day and one I’ve never forgotten.
A quick story re XE546 and Saudi! In late 1963, 43 Squadron was detached to Bahrein for the regular roulement. One Saturday morning I got airborne early to do some gunnery practice on a target being towed by HMS Ghurka. My number 2 had gone u/s on start-up so I was on my own. The weather was superb but when I’d finished my ammo I started to return to Bahrein but was informed that the airfield had fog. I was still in the clear at ten miles and certainly couldn’t see any sign of fog. I said I would join for a visual circuit and noticed the odd whisp of fog which could only have been about thirty feet thick. On finals I ran into it and overshot but thought I’d have another go but flying a higher circuit and finishing with a steeper approach. Silly boy! Got myself into a bit of bother and came remarkably close to clipping an aerial that was on top of the Officers’ Mess! So I said I was diverting to Dhahran which was the nominated diversion for the day and I knew that the weather was fine there, and it was. I explained to the Brit ATC guy, they were all employed by International Air Radio Limited, IAL, that I was diverting due to bad weather at Bahrein and he cleared me to land. I taxied to a deserted ramp and was met by a USAF major who was the remnants of a training mission that had converted the RSAF to the F-86. Unfortunately they had run out of spares and the aircraft had all been put into long term storage! He took me to his crewroom and gave me a cup of coffee.
I had been there about twenty minutes when a very pleasant RSAF major came in and asked me if I was the pilot of the Hunter. I said I was and he asked me to go with him. We drove for about five minutes to a rather tatty hut and he ushered me into one of the rooms. He then astonished me by saying, ‘I’m afraid that you are under arrest for violation of Saudi airspace, flying a warplane over the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with guns that are still hot and having a camera on board!’ I tried to explain that I had diverted from Bahrein because of fog but he was having none of it. He said that he had to go and speak with ‘higher authority’ and would be back shortly. And he locked the door as he left! It was now about nine-thirty. At about eleven-thirty he returned with an Army Colonel who looked all of eighteen but he did speak superb English. He repeated the allegation and I repeated my explanation. He said that he would have to check with Riyadh and I then said that I wished to see the local representative of the British Embassy. He completely threw me by saying that the nearest British diplomat was in Jeddah, over a thousand miles to the East and there were no phones! After another couple of hours he returned and said he was sorry for the confusion and I was free to return to Bahrein. Great, but please could I have some fuel. He replied that I could provided that I paid for it! This was in the days before credit cards and the only money I had was four English pennies that I’d carried in my overalls since Wattisham ever since one of our number bailed out and couldn’t use a handy telephone box!
I went back to my aircraft and I had about fifteen-hundred pounds of fuel which I reckoned was just enough to get me home provided I had absolute priority to land. I phoned the Station Commander at Bahrein and told him that I would be airborne in ten minutes and could he make sure that I did have priority as I was a bit short of fuel. He replied to the effect that they had closed the airfield and so it was all mine! I took off from the taxi-track as I didn’t want to waste any fuel trundling all the way down to the runway in use. Probably the shortest take off run I’ve ever had! And sixteen years later I was back in Dharhan but I kept very quiet about my previous visit!
Towards the end of the campaign we had to deal with an increasing number of what I shall call ‘political’ targets. These were always buildings of one sort or another and always had a connection with an individual whose loyalty to Britain was, shall we say, doubtful! It was considered, at that time, that a salutary ‘message’ could be sent to any others, of the same persuasion, by destroying the selected target but of course it was absolutely essential that we didn’t knock down the wrong one! To reduce the risk to an absolute minimum we devised a procedure that worked very well. We would dispatch a member of 1417 Flight about fifteen minutes ahead of us and he would positively identify the target with the FAC using his guns if necessary. We would then approach at about 6000 feet above ground. We obviously knew the rough area in which the target lay and when we had about ten seconds to go I would call the FR.10 pilot who would then pop over from behind the nearest hill and illuminate the target with his guns. We then started our dive and we had all the time in the world to track the illuminated target. The procedure worked a treat and certainly surprised the FAC who, literally, never us coming until our rockets struck.
It wasn’t always that straightforward. I was involved in an incident which shouldn’t have happened. I was leading a pair of aircraft and my wingman developed a problem en-route and had to return to Khormaksar. It was a straightforward air proscription sortie which involved searching a relatively small area looking for anything that seemed out of the ordinary. Whenever we did this the ground forces would stop operating their guns and so the area was known as a ‘guns tight’ area. I was poling along minding my own business when I heard, and I mean ‘heard’, this loud bang and my aircraft actually shook. I though at first that I’d had some unserviceability but the aircraft was flying perfectly normally and then I noticed some smoke on the ground. I immediately climbed to get out of any possible danger and saw another puff of smoke on the ground. I called the BASO and he said they were unaware of any offensive activity. I decided that as I was about to leave anyway I would save any further investigation until I was on the ground back at base. I was debriefed by my GLO and related the incident and he said he would investigate. About ten minutes later he came back to me and was looking decidedly embarrassed! Apparently ‘guns tight’ didn’t apply to mortars! I pointed out that a mortar shell strike on our aircraft was pretty terminal and we would have to think again if the mortars were going to be cleared to fire when we were in the area. From that day onwards ‘guns tight’ applied to mortars!
My last endearing memory of my time in Aden had absolutely nothing to do with ‘Operations’! It always seemed very odd to me that when one of our aircraft reached such a decrepit state that it was beyond the capability of our local Maintenance Unit to repair then we would ferry the aircraft back to the UK for a total refurbishment! I did a couple of these ferries, in both directions, and one was truly hilarious. We always ferried in pairs for obvious reasons. This particular trip involved staging through Jeddah for the first time and involved me returning my own aircraft, XE546. The actual route was Aden-Jeddah-El Adem-Malta and then the UK or a stop in Nice if the weather was dodgy. The specific route I was given by our illustrious HQ involved us in backtracking about 150 miles south once we’d left Jeddah. I never knew the reason why but apparently it was a condition of the Diplomatic Clearance for entering Saudi Arabian airspace. That was all very well but this extra mileage meant that we would have to complete the last 100 miles or so to El Adem on foot! I explained this little difficulty to our HQ but they said that I’d have to negotiate with the Saudi authorities once I got there. Helpful! The diplomatic clearances only lasted for twenty four hours so it was essential that we got to Malta on the first day.
I’d planned to leave at 0900 but when I came to start my aircraft, it wouldn’t. This was not unusual and the Avpin starter would fail to get up to the required revs and would automatically shut down; known in the trade as a ‘whee-phut’. Correctly it was known as an ‘A’ failure. Normally it would behave at the second time of asking but mine wasn’t going to play ball. You’re allowed one more try but clearly my aircraft didn’t want to leave Aden and the third attempt was unsuccessful. One had to wait 45 minutes for everything to cool down so I and my wingman, Cliff Middleton, climbed out and returned to the crewroom for a pint of squash. At the next attempt my aircraft started but Cliff’s didn’t! Back to the crewroom.
About a couple of hours later we tried again and this time both aircraft behaved and we took off en-route to Jeddah. This is only about an hour and a half’s flight and we arrived at about midday to be met by a USAF Top Sergeant and an eighteen year old chap in a very smart suit who was an under-under First Secretary at the British Embassy! The USAF man was a technician with a couple of USAF Providers (C-123) which is like a twin-engined Hercules. He sorted out a fuel bowser and I confused him by saying that we couldn’t refuel until I had released the air pressure in the fuel system by loosening a screw in the top of one of the 230-gallon ferry tanks. This was a perfectly standard procedure and the American offered to get me a screwdriver but I said I didn’t need one because I had a penny coin which would do the trick, and it did. The American gave me rather an odd look! I then said that I would need some oxygen to top up the aircraft but he said they hadn’t got any! We checked our aircraft again and the gauges said that we had more than half a tankful so I decided to continue on the grounds that the next leg was only slightly longer than the first. I then asked the American if there was an area radar at Jeddah and he said that there was only an airfield radar that had a range of about fifty miles and even that range could only be obtained if the aircraft was above ten thousand feet. That piece of information solved the backtracking problem! I was anxious to get going but my aircraft wasn’t so keen again. I could tell by the sound of the starter that I was short of internal electrical power. I didn’t want to risk another aborted start so I told Cliff to keep his engine running whilst I conferred with the American technician. I explained that I needed an external power supply and he immediately said that he could use the output of one of the Providers. But they were a couple of hundred yards away and so I thought that it would not be possible to adopt his idea. Wrong! He was authorized to taxi his aircraft so that’s exactly what he did and lashed up a connection to my aircraft and certainly I’ve never heard the starter going so fast and my aircraft positively leapt into life! We took off towards the west and I had briefed Cliff that we would stay at low-level for about eight minutes heading west and then climb on a north-westerly heading to clear Saudi Arabian airspace as soon as we could! Saudi ATC wished us a good flight!
The leg to El Adem must be the easiest navigation task of all time. Just keep the Red Sea on your right and when you hit the coast line to the Med, turn left! In fact one can cut the corner and we made El Adem with no problem and we hardly seemed to use any oxygen at all! The turn round at El Adem went well and I was getting really anxious to continue as the possibility of having to land at Malta’s Luqa airfield in the dark was becoming very real. And we weren’t supposed to ferry at night! But the dreaded Dip Clearance problem was ever with us although the further west we went then the more ‘sensible’ the authorities became. But we were still in North Africa. Both aircraft started at the first attempt and then my aircraft decided that it liked El Adem and so refused to let me motor the canopy shut! This sometimes happens when the micro switch in the hood rail stays shut so the whole thing thinks it’s already shut and cuts off the power to the motor. But I could see the switch protruding so this wasn’t the cause. One can de-clutch the canopy and I did this hoping that sliding it manually shut and then immediately re-clutching it might just do the trick. I would know because the hood seal would inflate if the canopy was in the shut position. I slid it forward as hard as I could and I’ve never been so pleased to see, and feel, the hood seal inflate!
The leg to Luqa is relatively short and we went there as fast as we could and beat dusk by about ten minutes! We stayed in the transit mess and were feeling extremely tired. But we had to pay the Gut the obligatory trip for a few beers but we really didn’t do it justice since sheer fatigue caught up with us but we both had a cracking night’s sleep and were in no hurry to depart the following morning on what should have been the last leg. But with the following morning came the news that although the weather at Luqa was fantastic the same could not be said for the UK generally and Kemble in Gloucestershire, our destination, in particular. The forecast was for things to remain bad for the entire day but should be better the following day. I decided that we would make an overnight stop in Nice which would at least get us closer and give us more fuel to cope with any diversion if we were prevented from landing at Kemble the following day. But then my aircraft threw a real wobbly! It just refused to do anything when I tried to start. Dead as a dodo! We climbed out and a Corporal of the starter crew asked me what the problem was and I explained that I couldn’t start and relayed the problems I’d been having since leaving Khormaksar. He then astonished me by saying that it was probably my starter box and that the box was exactly the same as the starter boxes on the Canberra PR.9s that were based at Luqa. I should mention that wasn’t the only astonishment that I was experiencing at that time. This Corporal was a native Maltese and was a locally recruited member of what was, in effect, a Maltese Air Force! He said that he was sure he could ‘cannibalise’ a Canberra starter box and make mine serviceable. And within an hour, he had! So off we set only this time I had to get Cliff to give me a hand with my canopy as I couldn’t slam it shut hard enough to depress the micro switch.
The leg to Nice is very short and we arrived at about midday in the middle of summer, and the tourist season! Taxiing around Nice in the middle of the tourist season is a very distracting business. There are balconies full of very ‘comely wenches’ and keeping one’s eyes on the taxi track, particularly when one doesn’t know where one is going, is not an easy task! But we were to be parked in an area which I can only describe as a scrap yard. Actually this wasn’t altogether inappropriate judging by the state of our aircraft! We shut down and climbed out and I immediately noticed that my starboard Maxaret braking unit was having a fit of the sulks and was weeping all over the place. Cliff and I looked at it and I said that I thought my part of the ferry might just have come to a grinding halt. I then noticed a chap walking towards us who was wearing a pair of white overalls. I thought that was all we needed; a Frenchman coming over to gloat over an Englishman in a spot of bother. But he then said, in perfect English, that we appeared to have a problem with the Maxaret unit and he then asked whether I remembered him! He was English and an ex-RAF Junior Technician and had been on 14 in Germany when I was there! A small world. But the great thing was that he said that he could tighten up the unit and stop it leaking albeit it might only last a couple of trips before it might start leaking again. I explained that I only had to complete one more trip before the whole aircraft was due to be refurbished. But I asked him what he was doing in Nice and he explained that he was with a couple of Bristol Freighter aircraft from Channel Air Bridge based at Southend and they were detached to Nice for the summer ferrying cars to and from Corsica! He immediately began to work on the troublesome braking unit and after about ten minutes he had stopped the leak and pronounced it to be OK for at least a couple of trips! Fantastic!
At this stage a local rep from BEA turned up, on a bike! He was our ‘agent’ and said he’d booked us into a local hotel and had a car waiting to take us there. We got our overnight bags and he went off to fetch the car. He took us to the Hotel Roxy, in one of the sleazier parts of Nice, and which would have been pushed to rate a single star! But it was in the middle of summer. Our involvement with things technical followed us into the hotel when my wash-basin decided to retain all the water in it! A call to reception didn’t help since the plumber had finished for the day. I used Cliff’s basin and we contributed a fair amount to help France’s balance of payment problems that evening and retired a little the worse for wear!
The following morning, having confirmed that the forecast improvement at Kemble had materialized, we tried to get going but, once again, my aircraft wasn’t going anywhere. There are two ‘quick’ fixes for a misbehaving starter and the guy who fixed my Maxaret unit knew both of them. One is to pour boiling water down the air intake of the starter and the other is to blow compressed air up the exhaust of the unit. Neither ‘fix’ worked on this occasion. There was nothing for it but to call the UK for help and I sent a telegram to RAF Chivenor asking them for assistance explaining that I needed an engine mechanic. Four hours later a Hunter T.7 arrived flown by a guy called John Walker, later to become Air Chief Marshal Sir John Walker, together with an engineer, an Armament Officer!
I suggested that they go back to the hotel and book themselves in and at least the engineer could have a look at my wash basin problem! Meanwhile I went to ATC and explained that I would have to cancel my flight plan as we had a technical problem and I didn’t know when we would be leaving. I went back to the aircraft to retrieve my bags and said to Cliff that I was going to have one more go as I really had nothing to lose! And obviously my aircraft was impressed by my determination and promptly started. This was too good a chance to be missed so I told Cliff to help me with my canopy and then get into his aircraft and start up and I would make my peace with John Walker later! I re-filed my flight plan over the air, not really legal but the ATC officer was the epitome of helpfulness, and we were given priority over the scheduled airline traffic and set off for Kemble. The weather was gin clear all the way and I was very pleased to see Kemble from at least 100 miles. Which, frankly, was just as well because one of my generators was on the blink and my starboard fuel gauge had given up all pretence of being in the slightest bit interested! And just to make the point my brake chute fell off as soon as I deployed it on landing. I didn’t need it but thought I’d use it because we rarely did. Silly me!
And that was just about the end of my time on 43. I had an absolute ball and although I had the privilege of commanding two Harrier Squadrons later in my career nothing could match the fun and sense of achievement that I had during my time in Aden. Mind you I often think that it was just as well the rules in those days were not quite so strict; there must have been at least a dozen times when my actions would have warranted court-martial in today’s climate. Hey Ho!
