Winds of Destruction: The Autobiography of a Rhodesian Combat Pilot

by Peter Petter-Bowyer

  One particular shopkeeper called Smiley gained most of our business because he had the best shop in town. I was there one afternoon when the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, even to this day, came gliding through the door. Dressed in white and obviously Eurasian, everything about this tall lady was so absolutely perfect that I wondered if I was looking at an angel. Moments later, her husband dressed in white slacks and jacket, came in. He was impossibly handsome and so neat despite the heat that I felt doubly sure that God had sent down His angels—but why to Aden?

  When the couple, whose English-speaking voices and accents matched their looks, left the shop to return to their ship, I could not remember why I had come into the shop. Smiley, realising I was in a tizzy over the couple, laughed and told me that they were film stars from India who stopped over in Aden from time to time on their many sea cruises to the USA and Europe.

  Having been brought back to earth, I remembered that I had come to buy something to take home to Beryl. One item I bought was an elaborately painted, hand-operated sewing machine called a Lion, a direct copy of the Singer sewing machine. Yvonne Stajer, Beryl’s sister, eventually took this machine to Canada where it is still rated as a good collector’s item.

  Smiley talked me into looking at some special German brassières that he said were tops in women’s underwear. Knowing no better, I took him at his word and looked at them; but I had no idea what size to take. He was gesturing cup size with his hand when I noticed an RAF wife in the shop who was about Beryl’s build. Much to my embarrassment Smiley called the woman over and I left with two pairs of bras and a set of seven knickers embroidered for every day of the week. When I gave these to Beryl she laughed, saying the knickers would not fit a ten-year-old; but she said nothing about the bras. For years they remained amongst her underclothing until, I guess, she found someone to give them to, unused!

  We were instructed to attend an Officers’ Dining-in Night that was quite unlike any I had known in Rhodesia. There were four RAF squadrons on base together with all the supporting services; so about a hundred officers sat down in full mess dress at superbly laid tables. Even before the main course was over, large quantities of salt tablets, ever present in bowls on the dining tables, were being thrown up into the fast rotating overhead fans that propelled them around the room like shotgun pellets. Next came little balls that exploded when thrown at any surface offering moderate resistance. Hilarious laughter, flying tablets, bangs and smoke filled a room that seemed more like a Goon Show set than a gathering of Her Majesty Officers. I must say we Rhodesians found it great fun, probably because such behaviour would never have been condoned at home.

  We received our flight briefings in the Station Operations Room where the air-conditioning was so cold that having to return to the hot air outside was like walking into a blast furnace. Doctors had told us that going from cold into the heat was more likely to bring on flu than moving from hot to cold, but none of us was any worse off for the twice daily Ops Room visits.

  The first briefing was for those of us who were new to the Aden Protectorate. This was for an orientation cruise up the eastern coast to the Oman border, along the northern border with Saudi Arabia, down the western border with Yemen then out to Pemba Island in the Red Sea.

  Along the route the features we would use in the following days were pointed out. Radar-controlled anti-aircraft guns along the Yemeni border presented a threat which necessitated both height and distance separation, which we plotted on our maps as we cruised by.

  The sheer height of the rugged mountains running along the north and west region impressed me more than I had expected. Steep slopes with tumble-down rocks and narrow ravines running into dry twisting wadis gave way to lush green agricultural strips between the mountains’ edge and the dry desert. Beyond the green, the dry watercourses followed haphazard lines that dissipated and were lost on barren sand. Clusters of mud-structured buildings were on every prominent hill adjacent to the green belts. Building on mountain foothills was to gain relief from high day temperatures and freezing cold air that settled over the desert floor at night.

  When we were issued with our maps, we were instructed to mark the boundaries of ‘Prescribed Areas’. The governor-general of Aden had to sanction these as ‘No Go Areas’ for all living souls, animals included. Any sign of life within a Prescribed Area demanded immediate Offensive action with air weapons best suited to terrain and target.

  Along with our maps, we were issued with cards in English and Arabic that the RAF nicknamed ‘gooly chits’. In the event of coming down beyond secure locations, a pilot was to hand his gooly chit to the first person he encountered. The chit offered a £10,000 sterling reward for returning a pilot, alive, to any British authority. However, there was a problem with this. The Yemeni Government offered twice this amount for any British serviceman brought in, whether dead or alive. We heard some terrible stories about mutilated bodies of downed pilots being dragged for all to see through the streets of Sana, capital of Yemen.

  Some specially trained Army and Air Force men assigned to roam within and beyond the Prescribed Areas were employed to find the locations of the communist-backed terrorists who were waging a war of independence against Britain. These specialists were also highly trained to conduct forward air control (FAC) of strikes by bombers and fighter-bombers against enemy targets.

  We had been told of these individuals who spent long, dangerous periods in the desert turning them into pretty strange characters who needed to return to base from time to time to regain some level of sanity in safe and civilised surroundings. I saw two of these men whose skin was almost black where their Arab clothing had not given their otherwise white skin protection from the sun. They were on recall for six weeks of total rest and recuperation. They seemed to stick to themselves and their eye movements and physical actions made it clear that they were ‘different’.

  From time to time the special agents, known as Air Liaison Officers (ALO), called for strikes within Prescribed Areas and sometimes as punitive actions against headmen who were known to be assisting terrorists. It was easy enough to respond to calls for air actions against terrorists, but punitive strikes against headmen required a great deal of preparation. When any headman had been identified as having assisted terrorists, the British Governor-General had to approve punitive action before it was taken.

  If this involved an air strike, photo-reconnaissance was flown to positively identify the headman’s house and pamphlets were airdropped or hand-delivered to every person in or near the headman’s village. This was to allow the headman time to empty his home and to let his people know the British were going to punish him for being a bad lad for having helped terrorists. The pamphlets told everyone the day and time that the headman’s house was to be destroyed and suggested were they should go for their own safety. The venue chosen was invariably a high position to give everyone a good view of the event.

  Such an occasion occurred whilst we were there and I witnessed the event when Varky and Randy were tasked to destroy a three-storey house that was separated from neighbours by very narrow streets. To cater for the flight path of 60-pound. squash-head rockets, only one direction of attack was possible.

  The ALO identified the ridge on which he and a large gathering of people were assembled, and we could see them all clearly. Varky’s salvo of four rockets scored direct hits on the house. To start with, the combined effect of the explosions seemed to have taken out the entire village until the huge dust-cloud drifted off to expose a heap of rubble where the headman’s house had stood. Only a small portion of the bottom storey, at the rear of the downed house, remained above street-level. I thought there was no more to be done, but Randy fired a pair of rockets with such accuracy that no damage extended across the road and no portion of the house remained standing.

  The ALO said everyone, including the headman, was very impressed but the headman’s immediate neighbours were very disappointed that they would not be able to claim for damag
es from the British Government.

  We had only been in Aden ten days when I was tasked to accompany Flight Lieutenant Buster Web of the RAF, who was to be the RAF’s Air Liaison Officer (ALO) to an Army convoy travelling from Aden to Dhala in the mountains. My job was to assist Buster and learn something about British Army–Air Force co-operation.

  The Royal Rhodesian Air Force had trained Buster but, together with Barry Raffel, Cyril White, Bernard du Plessis, Roy Morris and Doug Bebbington, he had left Rhodesia on completion of his SSU course to join the RAF. The latter four officers were destined to rejoin the RRAF but, at that time, they were all flying Venoms on No 8 Squadron. Why Buster had remained behind in Aden when the rest of his squadron was in Cyprus, I cannot say. I only remember him saying he was not too keen about the Dhala route, which he referred to as ‘ambush alley’.

  An Army Arab levy drove the open Land Rover in which Buster and I travelled behind the armoured vehicle carrying the convoy commander who headed the long line of vehicles. Numerous armoured vehicles and covered trucks stretched back about two kilometres. Our drive started by crossing the centre of the main runway at Kormaksar, this being the only route from Aden to the interior. Once through Shaykh ‘Uthman we entered the open desert which was hot, dusty and boring.

  In the late afternoon, camp was established about five kilometres short of the mountain range that ran square across our route. The extreme cold of the desert and the loud incessant crackling and chatter on the Army radio network made it seem a very long night.

  Before sunrise we had coffee and set off on a road along the bed of a steep-sided gently winding wadi (watercourse) running through mountains for most of the remaining distance to Dhala. At the end of this wadi the road left the watercourse to climb up the southern side of a steep mountain face known as the Dhala Pass. On the opposite side, high rough mountain faces overlooked the narrow roadway all the way to the high plateau where the village of Dhala stood. This was the section that gave the route the name ‘Ambush Alley’. The entire wadi line and, more especially the pass itself, offered perfect terrain for terrorist ambushes. They could hide in strength amongst rocks and scrub, attack from behind excellent cover, then melt into the rugged countryside behind.

  We had been running up the wadi for about an hour when the lead vehicle came to an abrupt halt and the commander leapt out onto the road. Behind us all vehicles bunched up and stopped as soldiers ran to take up defensive positions under a barrage of loud commands. Buster went forward to the Army commander to establish what was going on. I saw the Army commander pointing to the right mountain ridge as they talked. Buster then shouted to me, “Call Air." I had absolutely no idea what the fuss was about nor did I know how to call up aircraft because I had not been told how to. So, having heard RAF pilots use a callsign in jest, I transmitted, “Pig’s Arse, Pig’s Arse, this is Dhala ALO. Do you read? Over.”

  To my surprise and great delight I received an immediate reply. I said where we were and two Venoms arrived overhead in less than a minute, by which time Buster had returned to our vehicle. He told the Venom pilots that one soldier had been hit. This may have been a lone sniper but there was no way of knowing if more terrorists were about. The jets made passes along the ridges even though there was virtually no hope of seeing bandits in that rough country. The real value of the Venom presence was to dissuade anyone from taking on the stationary convoy.

  A large-calibre musket round had passed through the side of one of the convoy trucks, ripped away half of a soldier’s right buttock, and lodged in the seat between two soldiers sitting opposite him. Buster requested the lead Venom to call in a Twin Pioneer transporter to uplift the casualty back to base.

  For almost an hour we waited for the Pioneer. I did not hear or see this twin-engined high-wing light transport aircraft until it was already rolling along the floor of the wadi. It was amazing to see that it had landed on unprepared ground then picked up the casualty without stopping engines. Immediately the Pioneer took off in a reverse run of no more than 200 metres. Its pilot told Buster on radio that his casualty was all smiles because he knew he would be flying back to Britain before the day was out. “Wait till the morphine wears off, most of the poor bugger’s arse is missing.”

  The rest of the trip to Dhala was uneventful and we spent a pleasant evening with the OC of the Army company we had come to relieve and return to Aden. I was amused to hear the amiable posh-speaking Army major progressively revert to his natural Cockney accent as gins and tonic took effect. The next morning we were on the road again and reached Aden that evening following a disappointingly trouble-free trip.

  On the 16th November 1959, I flew wingman to Varky on a call to strike a specific location near the base of the deep Wadi Adzzh that ran through the highest mountain range northeast of Aden and close to the Saudi border. Terrorists were reported by an ALO to be based up at this specific spot. We ran east along the mountain ridge with Wadi Adzzh on our starboard side. As Varky came abreast of the target location he called “Turning in live" and rolled right into a steep dive down the deep valley. Smoke was streaming from his guns as I followed about 1,500 meters behind him. His strikes were concentrated and easy to see.

  When Varky broke off his attack and pulled up left, I started firing all four 20mm cannons with my sight set high above the target. I had not fired all four cannons together before and revelled in the noise, airframe shudder and the sight of my very first rounds exploding right on target. I was impressed by the length of time the firing continued before all four guns stopped as one.

  I then turned hard to port pulling up sharply to align with the short eastward leg of the wadi. The only route out was straight ahead and over the top of the mountain, because the wadi turned ninety degrees south followed by ninety degrees east that was way too tight a route to follow. As soon as the aircraft was angled for the summit, I realised I was in deep trouble because my speed seemed insufficient to make the ridge ahead. The Mlanje mountain experience in Nyasaland immediately came to mind and my breathing went into overdrive.

  Full power had been applied the moment I pulled out of the attack, so all I could do was aim for the crest and pray. After an agonisingly slow climb, the mountain face was cleared by no more than ten feet and my FB9 was very close to stalling. Having passed the crest in a fifty-degree climb, I was able to allow the aircraft to pitch down to twenty degrees nose-down to regain flying speed. This was achieved very close to the ground on the plateau beyond the ridge, but I was able to breathe normally again. Varky was miles ahead of me turning starboard for base. By turning inside him I caught up quickly enough, but said nothing to Varky about my close shave with the mountain until we were back on the ground.

  In the crew-room I learned that when firing all four cannons the usual speed build-up was severely curtailed, necessitating 7,500 rpm to be set to ensure adequate acceleration throughout the dive, particularly where such a steep climb-out was necessary. I had nearly lost my life for want of such simple yet vital information that I should have been given during my OCU. Immediately the other junior pilots were briefed on this matter.

  The very next day I returned to Wadi Adzzh on a routine armed patrol, this time with Randy du Rand. I ran my eye along the path I had flown the previous day, then along the wadi’s passage south then east to where it broke out onto the desert floor. At this point I saw two camels standing close to a crude single-floor mud building on the desert floor tight up against the base of the mountain. Immediately I turned in to attack the building knowing that terrorists alone were in this area. Four Squash-head rockets were launched and I pulled up really hard to clear the mountain under which the target was sited. When I looked back, I saw the camels running south into the desert but could see nothing of the house because of the dust from the explosions. After one orbit the dust had drifted away and I could see that the house had been flattened but, in almost childish enthusiasm, I turned in again to attack the immediate surrounds with cannon fire. This time I had set the a
ppropriate power and cleared the mountain with ease. So far as I recall, someone on the flat desert had shot at Randy and whilst I was doing my thing he was trying to find the man to give him a ‘snot squirt’.

  When we returned to base I reported my strikes to the operations staff. The RAF Squadron Leader in charge of the Operations Room consulted the map and told me that I had taken on a target just outside the ‘Prescribed Area’. For some reason the area’s eastern boundary had been extended along the wadi’s south leg straight out into the desert. In consequence the final east leg of the wadi opening to the desert plus the eastern corner of the mountain range lay outside of the official ‘no go area’.

  I was really worried that I had made this error but the Squadron Leader, who was not a particularly friendly type, told me not to be concerned. He had no doubts that the target was legitimate. But he gave me hell for not killing the camels with my cannons instead of wasting ammunition on a worthless piece of real estate. He emphasised the need to have taken out these animals because they constituted vital transportation for terrorists. The thought of killing animals with cannon fire appalled me, but this requirement had not been spelled out strongly enough in earlier briefings.

  Set in the old extinct volcanic crater of Shamsham mountain was the Arab town called Crater. We were all advised not to visit this potentially dangerous place that was strictly off limits to all servicemen during the hours of darkness. Nevertheless, Eric Cary and I were keen to make a visit to Crater town and went there by taxi one Thursday afternoon.

  Once through the mountain tunnel leading into the crater, we entered a world of strange sights, sounds and smells. We walked around the narrow streets that bustled with folk moving to-and-fro into open-sided shops and amongst hundreds of street vendors selling an amazing assortment of herbal drugs, vegetables and cooked food. The smells were very inviting but the swarms of flies crawling over prepared food and vendors’ faces dissuaded us from trying anything.