Peter Petter-Bowyer - Winds of Destruction

I had asked Beryl to pick me up at Thornhill when I passed over on return from Gatooma. She would recognise my return by my changing engine revs up and down a couple of times over her house. However, I stupidly dived for a low-level pass over her house then climbed steeply to enter the Thornhill circuit. Considering I was behind the Air Traffic Controllers’ field of view, I was surprise that, almost immediately, Thornhill Tower broadcast “Aircraft flying low level over Riverside identify yourself." I owned up immediately but on entering the Squadron crew-room I received instruction to get dressed and report immediately to the Station Commander.

Wing Commander Wilson had seen operational service with the RAF during the war and, thereafter, became a prime mover in re-establishing the Southern Rhodesian Air Force. Many stories of this stocky, softly spoken and immensely strong man had reached our ears. One was that he preferred direct disciplinary action to conventional military processes. It was rumoured that, rather than give a man the option of court martial, he took offenders out of sight behind a hangar and laid them low with a couple of mighty blows. Because I was engaged, the CO had asked Beryl and me to baby-sit his two daughters on a few occasions while he and his wife Lorna attended official functions. Within his home it was hard to believe that this man could be anything but a gentle person. Nevertheless, I was very nervous when I reported to his secretary who wheeled me straight into the CO’s office.

I marched up to the front of Wing Commander Wilson’s desk and saluted. He sat looking me in the eye for a moment then came straight to the point by saying he’d happened to be visiting the control tower and while ascending the stairway had spotted an aircraft climbing steeply from low level. “Was that you”? he asked. I said it was. With no further ado he asked, “Do you elect to be tried by court martial or will you accept my punishment?” I accepted his punishment though I feared it more than a court martial. But I was not marched off to the back of a hangar.

Instead, Wing Commander Wilson said, very quietly, that I was to forfeit Christmas leave and be on duty as the Station Orderly Officer for twenty-four hours a day until my course mates returned from their leave twenty-one days hence. I could neither make nor receive private telephone calls and was disallowed any visitor for the whole period. This punishment was far worse than being taken behind the hangar because I had been looking forward so much to taking Beryl to Norrhodia to meet my mother and stepfather.

I was depressed and lonely when I started my rounds as Orderly Officer. However, Flight Lieutenant Mac Geeringh the Senior Air Traffic Control Officer, who had been something of a father to my course, came to see me on the first night. He let me know that he had been to see Beryl and had told her of a back entrance into Thornhill which, if used after midnight, would allow her to visit me undetected. He considered forfeiture of leave and being Orderly Officer without break was sufficient punishment. He felt being denied visitors as well was too harsh because, in effect, Beryl was being punished too. Mac had persuaded Beryl to visit me daily and said he would accept responsibility if the CO found out.

Beryl’s nightly visits were wonderful and she always arrived with hot coffee and sandwiches. Her parents could not understand why Beryl was going to bed very early and why her Dad’s car, a Vauxhall Cresta, appeared to be parked in a slightly different position each morning. Nevertheless, Beryl and I got away with the secret visits, or so we thought.

When, in 1967, Air Vice-Marshal Archie Wilson interviewed me upon my promotion to Squadron Leader, he let me know just how much he knew of my many misdemeanours over the years. The first of these was Beryl’s nightly visits to me. With a twinkle in his eye he said he would have been disappointed, for Beryl’s sake, had I not disobeyed his ‘no visitor’ ruling.

When the guys came back from leave, it was good to be off permanent duty and return to flying, even though we had to continue on Provosts for another two months because the Vampires were away on their first detachment to RAF Aden.

Whereas most of the pilots, technicians and aircraft of No 1 Squadron were involved, Group HQ had decided to withhold moving the balance of the squadron to Thornhill until one week before the detachment was due back from Aden.

Far from being disappointed by the delayed jet conversion, my course saw possibilities opening up for involvement in future overseas deployments. I was given Flying Officer Alan Bradnick as my instructor for the period, which I found refreshing. He smiled easily and spoke a lot in flight.

Apart from consolidating on general flying standards, it was a pleasure flying with little if any pressure. However, an unfortunate flying accident marred an otherwise easy-going period. It involved a mid-air collision.

Four aircraft were practising formation with emphasis given to slick formation changes. At the time of the incident Bill Galloway was flying lead with his instructor, Flying Officer Mike Saunders. Gordon Wright was with Flying Officer Alan Bradnick as No 4.

The formation was in echelon starboard in which Bill would have been nearest camera and Gordon farthest away.

Lead called “Box, Box go”, whereupon No 3 and No 4 initiated a drop in height and moved left to their new positions. In this, No 3 moved to echelon port (nearest camera) and No 4 moved to line astern behind and below the lead aircraft. Flying conditions were typically bumpy and Gordon had moved too far forward. Unfortunately his aircraft rose as the lead aircraft dropped and his propeller chopped off the lead’s elevators.

No 4 fell back out of harm’s way but the lead Provost pitched nose down and, with no elevator to control pitch, settled into a moderately steep dive from which there was no hope of recovery. Flying Officer Mike Saunders jettisoned the canopy and ordered Bill Galloway to bail out immediately but he stayed with the aircraft to steer it away from a built-up area in order to crash in open veld. Only when very low did Mike abandon the aircraft. His parachute opened in the nick of time and he suffered a very heavy landing with the fireball from the stricken aircraft very close by.

THE ARRIVAL OF VAMPIRES FROM Aden is indelibly embedded in my memory. The fellows who had remained in Salisbury while most of 1 Squadron were away in Aden were now at Thornhill with all the ground equipment and one Vampire T11. Everyone at Thornhill, including the wives of the squadron guys, assembled on the flight lines to welcome the boys back.

The first formation of four in echelon starboard came in low and fast to make a formation break. Lead banked sharply pulling up and away from the group. Nos 2, 3 and 4 followed suit at two-second intervals. This manoeuvre placed the aircraft on the downwind leg, equally spaced for a stream landing off a continuous descending turn to the runway.

No war film ever impressed me as much as those screeching jets taxiing to their parking positions. All aircraft closed engines as one with the pilots climbing down from their machines. They had just completed the last legs from Dar es Salaam via Chileka in Nyasaland, so large patches of sweat substantially marked their flying suits and Mae West survival vests. Removal of bone domes, incorporating inner headgear with oxygen mask and headphones, revealed untidy, wet and flattened hair. Their glistening faces, deeply marked by the pressure lines of masks and huge grins made the pilots look really macho. A further three formations arrived and soon the place was full of jet aircraft and happy people.