by Alan Bristow
There was no petrol for the helicopters in Cochabamba, so we had to fly in forty-gallon drums from La Paz. Shell hired a Bolivian cargo company that operated a Ford TriMotor to do the job, and Bill Petrie shuttled back and forth to La Paz building up fuel stocks. La Paz airport was 13,000 feet above sea level, and fully loaded, the old Ford had difficulty staying airborne on take-off. Luckily, at the end of the runway the ground fell away very steeply into a valley 4,000 feet below, so the Trimotor could whistle downhill to Cochabamba and climb back up empty. After one take-off the Ford lost an engine, which meant it wasn’t going to stay airborne for long. Petrie was in the back desperately heaving out forty-gallon fuel drums to lighten the load, but the old crate was heading inexorably for a forced landing. In the middle of the valley there was a hill, like a child’s picture of a mountain, a conical projection with smooth sides and a tiny plateau on the top. In a magnificent display of skill the pilot greased the aircraft onto the top of this mountain, and it came to rest at the edge of the plateau with Bill Petrie having invoked every saint he could think of. It took several months to haul parts up the hill to rebuild the aircraft, and they flew it off.
It was with a feeling of immense pride that I looked on our first four helicopters after they’d been assembled and test-flown at Cochabamba airport. They were lined up with their rotors pointing heavenwards in a lovely straight line, waiting to fly the next day over the mountains to support a geological party that had established a base camp near Todos Santos. We had pulled it off! Eric Knight joins Douglas Bader in my personal pantheon of heroes.
Finding a route to Todos Santos was difficult. There were no reliable topographical maps, and it took some time to find a pass through the mountains at just under 14,000 feet. We asked the local Aereo Boliviano pilots what routes they took out of the valley – they flew DC-3, B17 and Liberator butcher planes loaded with carcasses up to La Paz, and they were damned good pilots. They had to be to stay alive in those mountains. We ended up with what we thought was the lowest route, and on that first morning Alan Green, Earl Milburn, Marcel Avon and I took off in the four Bell 47s to begin the forty-five-mile flight to Todos Santos. We soon realised that the heights marked on the maps were the merest speculation, and we were going to have to climb well above 14,000 feet. The Bell 47 was never designed to operate at such altitudes. The air became so thin that we were getting serious blade stall, when the blade going the opposite way to the direction of travel simply can’t produce enough lift. At maximum RPM and an indicated airspeed of about forty-five knots I reckon our true speed was about eighty, but there were fifteen minutes of real peril while we got through the gap at the top of the climb. It wasn’t just the machines that suffered – in the thin air, it took maximum concentration from all pilots to stay alert. Surprisingly, we flew line abreast the whole time. We squeezed through at the outer limits of the Bell 47’s capabilities, barely daring to breathe in case we upset the knife-edge balance of the helicopters, then we were through and descending towards Todos Santos. By the time we landed we had recovered some of our equilibrium – it’s amazing how quickly you can get over the shock when something dangerous catches you out – but I made it a policy that we would never take that route again. If necessary, we’d truck the helicopters through the passes or dismantle them and have them flown out as cargo. I’m sure we flew them to the absolute limit that day, but even though the other three pilots confirmed it, I don’t think Bell ever quite believed we’d done it.
Despite the challenges of operating in Bolivia we had very few accidents. The worst of them befell one of two de Havilland Beavers, single-engined fixed-wing transport aircraft we brought in to keep us supplied at our forward bases. Somehow the pilot managed to switch off the fuel cock in flight and the plane went down in a rice field, nosing over in the mud. The pilot was unscathed, I noticed as I fired him, but the plane was a mess. We had to hire a vast team of oxen to haul it out of the paddy by the tail, and it had to be completely rebuilt.
Seismic work was intensive and hard, with explosives being laid in snake-ridden jungles day after day. Not only were the maps inaccurate in the mountain areas to the south-west of Cochabamba, but those for the areas in which the seismic work was to be done were seriously unreliable. I felt that there was no way we could start an operation without being able to map-read with a high degree of reliability. At a meeting with the other pilots, Marcel Avon said that he had a similar experience in featureless terrain in Indo-China and thought the techniques used there would adapt well to what faced us in Bolivia. There were several very wide rivers in the area, and by climbing to 4,000 feet one was able to determine the relationship, in terms of compass bearing, between the rivers, the foothills and the base camp. Marcel then flew from base camp to the bend in the first big river at sixty knots to determine distance. From that point, he flew almost at right angles to intercept another river that disappeared shortly thereafter into jungle, and again measured the distance, returning over the same track to double-check everything. On each flight, he was accompanied by another helicopter so that a balanced judgment could be made of our primitive mapping efforts.
Most of the initial geophysical work was to be done in the foothills running north-south about twenty miles from base camp. The whole area to the north of the rivers was covered with a canopy of trees from fifty to 100 feet high. After take-off from base camp, compass bearings were taken on a large group of trees that were yellow, almost golden, contrasting with the dense green of the rest of the forest. This distinctive patch of yellow trees was almost in the middle of the area that we were going to be flying in for the next month. Its position was established in relation to base camp, and it was used as a reference point. The next step was to apply triangulation. After a bit of reconnaissance, Marcel found a small area of very tall trees with dark green leaves that stood out clear of the forest canopy, and this gave us a good course to steer for base camp. A similar procedure was established to the south of the biggest river. All the pilots, including me, flew the resulting hand-made maps and were full of praise for their accuracy and practicality.
I’d been in camp about two or three days before the leader of Shell’s geophysical party, a Swiss chap called Eddie Frankel, was ready to start the survey. I decided to pull rank and pilot the first search with Eddie, who weighed about 175 lbs, and his Dutch assistant whose name was Winklemuller and who weighed about 210 lbs. Take-off was at 7.30 am on a clear day, and we headed north-west to pick up the big river and follow it to intercept the second river that disappeared into the jungle. The further I flew up the smaller second river, the more the tall trees closed in around me to form a cathedral-like arch until the sky was obscured for half a mile. It was necessary to fly about five feet above the river in order to maintain a rotor tip clearance of about twenty feet all round. As the arch began to close in, my speed decayed until I reached a point where the way ahead was completely closed. Fortunately, in the middle of the shallow, rocky river was a beautiful golden sandbank about fifteen feet wide and 120 feet long, on which I landed. The skids sunk into the sand to a depth of about six inches.
After we’d landed, Eddie Frankel lit up one of his Players cigarettes, which signalled to me that it was OK to light a cheroot of my own. There was a rustling in the jungle, and in the space of five minutes about two hundred tiny people appeared all around the helicopter, chanting, screaming and waving blowpipes and staves. I made a rapid retreat to the helicopter, grabbed the twelve-bore and loaded two cartridges – two shotguns were always kept on a rack in the Bell in case of who knows what. I walked slowly back to Eddie, who was trying to strike up a conversation with a pygmy chief dressed in a gunny sack. Most of the pygmies were similarly attired; each sack had the top cut out for the head, and armholes cut in the corners. They chanted, stamped in the water and crashed poles on the rocks. Eddie turned and shouted at me to put the gun away, which I did, with little enthusiasm. Winklemuller stuck like glue to his seat in the helicopter and didn’t budge, which
was probably the best thing he could have done.
Eddie spoke fluent Spanish but it was clear that he was not being understood by the pygmy chief. I felt we were in a seriously threatening situation. With a stroke of inspiration Eddie tried a little slapstick, putting two more cigarettes in his mouth and puffing away like a steam train. The mob greeted his sally with a gratifying degree of amusement. The pygmy chief made a sudden grab for the pack of Players and stuck two cigarettes in his mouth. Eddie leaned forward with his lighter and the little pygmy was soon spluttering, choking and spitting. Eddie’s action calmed the situation. The chanting stopped, to be replaced by a disconcerting silence.
With a combination of hand signals, body language, grunting and pidgin Spanish, over the next ten minutes the head pygmy and Eddie Frankel came to an understanding that they weren’t going to hurt us, because they needed ‘white man’s medicine’ to cure some kind of epidemic. Once this understanding had been reached we carried out the quickest-ever walk-round inspection of a Bell 47, took off and flew back to base camp unharmed. Eddie got on the phone to senior Shell management in La Paz requesting an urgent response to the pygmies’ cry for help. Without their co-operation it would be impossible to carry out the geological survey. Within ten minutes he had a call back saying a team of three doctors would arrive by Dakota at Todos Santos airstrip first thing next morning. Eddie and his colleagues joined me at a meeting with the pilots and engineers to discuss exactly how we were going to help the natives. It was agreed that two helicopters would be committed to an early morning departure, one flown by myself carrying two doctors, with Eddie and the third doctor flying as passengers in the second helicopter. Overnight, the helicopters’ landing skids were removed and replaced with flotation bags to give us a greater choice of landing areas.
Next day we flew back down the tunnel of trees to the same sandbar, this time to be greeted with cheers and laughter from the pygmy band. The atmosphere was joyful and friendly, quite different from our first meeting. Within a few minutes the doctors had established they were treating an epidemic of gonorrhoea. In view of the limited space, the second helicopter was moved downstream onto a larger sandbar, giving the doctors room to set up folding tables, chairs and equipment and a large quantity of cardboard boxes. The pygmies lined up in groups of twenty for inspection, very much like those I had experienced during World War II when one suffered endless jabs for this disease or that. The treatment went on for a week, during which time the other two helicopters were busy working with field geologists collecting rock samples, unmolested by the now-grateful pygmies. Indeed, they had been co-opted into Shell’s exploration. Eddie Frankel negotiated for canoes to be made available to move the geologists up and down the narrow rivers where helicopter access was impossible. Eddie was a level-headed, practical chap who ended up as a main Board director at Shell.
We did not know at the time that this tribe was well known for its head-hunting and skull-shrinking skills. Towards the end of the treatment period Alan Green spotted what looked like a big container on a barge that was jammed firmly in place on the riverbank by overhanging trees. Getting access to it was very difficult as it was steeply tilted in its tree-locked position. Eventually one of the engineers managed to climb down a ladder lowered from the helicopter and break a window in the container to get inside. In seconds he climbed back up as fast as any ladder has ever been climbed. Alan Green described him as being in considerable distress, his face ashen white, his whole body trembling. He was unable to talk coherently. Back at base camp he had calmed down enough to give a full description of what he had seen. Inside the container was a dental surgery with two large dentists’ chairs. In one chair was a woman, in the other a man, both with their heads cut off. A closer look the next day identified the container as a mobile dental clinic sponsored by the St Louis Mission from the USA.
Soon after we arrived in Todos Santos we had torrential rain, which led to flooding and a landslide that sliced through a nearby village, leaving many people stranded in peril of their lives. Alastair Gordon and Ken Bradley were the only pilots in camp when the call for help came, and flew immediately to the rescue. Over several hours they lifted untold numbers of men, women and children to safety, the first of many rescue operations in which Bristow Helicopters was to figure. When they got back to camp, Alastair and Ken were exhausted. Alastair attempted to light his kerosene stove but it exploded with a great whoomph! Somebody had put petrol in it by mistake. Alastair was blown out of his tent and lay motionless on the ground; we all thought he was dead. Luckily, he had suffered only slight burns.
Snakes were a constant problem, at work and at rest. Bolivia was home to some of the most poisonous snakes on earth – pit vipers and coral snakes, for many of which there was no anti-venom. We were warned that treatment in the field was pointless; the only hope was to get the victim to hospital as soon as possible, preferably with the remains of the snake that bit him. One morning when I was sitting at breakfast, the tent boy came rushing out of my tent screaming. He’d lifted up my sleeping bag and out had fallen a deadly coral snake. I ran over with a forked stick to find this thing wriggling about in the tent. It was quickly dispatched. Thankfully, I hadn’t been aware of the presence of my unwelcome sleeping companion.
After we’d operated out of Todos Santos for fifteen days the base camp had to be moved to a new site thirty miles away. A camp move was a major event requiring a good deal of precise organisation, in particular to determine the weight of each underslung load as everything had to be moved by helicopter, including canvas bags full of theodolites and rock samples as well as tents, chairs, cooking equipment, aluminium crockery and so on, our fuel and lubricants and the engineers’ toolkits. I am pleased to say that to the best of my knowledge, not one camp move went wrong. This one took us to St Ignacio, a little village with a small green space in the middle, alongside which was a taverna and a picturesque Catholic mission run by a priest and two nuns who spoke a modest amount of English. It was a classic picture-book setting, with a sturdy wooden shack inside a three-acre paddock with cows, chickens, pigs and horses grazing securely behind a safety fence designed to keep jaguars off the livestock. The scene reminded me of pictures in books that I’d used to teach my children to read.
We were camped outside the village, getting ready to go north up the main river for geophysical samples. Eddie Frankel had been warned by the priest that there were jaguar all over the place – only a few days before, in fact, a mission boy had been attacked and eaten. Our first encounter with rapacious wildlife, however, was entirely unexpected. We had a number of directors’ chairs, with a gap at the back where your backside went, and the chief engineer on that job, Bill Petrie, suddenly realised he’d been attacked and bitten repeatedly by mosquitoes.
‘The bastards have bitten right through my trousers!’ he complained.
They had, too. His backside had swelled up to twice its normal size, with livid red bites all over. I put two bottles of calamine lotion on his bum – that’s all we had. Eddie Frankel didn’t think it was funny.
‘Better get some penicillin into him’ he said. ‘Things like that can turn nasty.’
So we administered a couple of jabs to Petrie’s backside, and he didn’t get much sleep that night.
As the night wore on we sat outside the tents furiously smoking cigarettes, cigars and pipes to discourage the mosquitoes. We had among our number an engineer called Robbie Robinson, an airframe and engine fitter who told us that his hobby was big game hunting. He had a collection of high-powered rifles with telescopic sights and told everybody he’d shot lion and elephant in Africa.
‘Tonight,’ he announced, ‘I’m going to shoot me that man-eating jaguar.’
His plan was simple. He obtained a chicken from the village, cut its throat and hung it in a tree perhaps thirty-five yards from the camp so that its blood dripped onto the ground. Then he loaded one of his rifles and sat in wait. Hours passed, and nothing disturbed the peace of the jungle
. Suddenly, Robinson stiffened as out of the darkness came two pinpricks of light, two eyes that moved cautiously towards the suspended chicken. Robinson slowly slipped the strop over his arm and raised the rifle as the rest of us sat still as stones. This thing stretched up towards the chicken, and crack! Robinson’s bullet flew true, and there was an ear-splitting squeal from the direction of the chicken.
‘Got him!’ shouted the triumphant Robinson.
We approached in a cautious gang, aware that we might have an injured jaguar on our hands. Some carried .45s ahead of them, others machetes. Suddenly a torch beam fell on Robinson’s victim. He had shot a big cat all right – a big tom cat from the village. Ridicule was his lot that night and ever after. He became known throughout Bristows as the Great White Hunter. Robinson did in fact shoot a couple of jaguars subsequently; they were plentiful in those parts, and quite fearless. They’d come through the camp at night, and would lurch against the guy ropes of the tents. It was a most unpleasant and disconcerting sensation to hear the thing breathing as it rubbed itself on the corner of your tent.
Mosquitoes, snakes and jaguars were not the only man-eaters we had to deal with. We had slumped gratefully into our camp after a hard day’s flying when Alan Green announced that he knew of a refreshing pool at the bottom of a waterfall, with a sandy beach where we could all go swimming. It was not far distant – a mile or so down a nearby path. We trooped down the path in line astern with towels and bathing costumes, and sure enough it was as he had described it, and idyllic little bower in which there was a clear pool refreshed by a beautiful cascade. Without so much as putting on a costume, Alan Green jumped into the water and swam across to the sandy beach on the other side. The rest of us raced to get our trunks on, but just as we were about to leap into the inviting water Alan yelled from the other side:
