By the Skin of my Teeth: The Memoirs of an RAF Mustang Pilot in World War II and of Flying Sabres with USAF in Korea

by Colin Downes

  In the Far East by 1956 the ground counter-insurgency operations in Malaya forced the communist insurgent cadres to withdraw to camps situated deep within the almost impenetrable jungle of the peninsula of Malaya. The result of this was to relieve many villages, hamlets, rubber and tea plantations of the attention of the revolutionary elements in obtaining information, provisions and equipment in order to terrorize the population and to attack the authorities. Consequently, in order to survive deep in their jungle encampments the insurgents cleared areas of jungle to provide for small farms and holdings to provide crops and vegetables. To protect the cultivation from the attention of marauding herds of wild boar it was necessary to build protective fences. The height and density of the jungle made detection of the encampments from the air difficult, and whenever they were identified the Venom fighter-bomber squadrons were tasked with their destruction by bomb, rocket and cannon attacks. Suitable targets were few and indistinct, with the rocket attacks being unique in attacking the farm fences to allow the wild animal population access to the cultivation. The best that could be claimed from the attacks was that they forced the communist insurgents to move to other locations, with the consequent problem of supply logistics and in feeding themselves.

  The year was a busy one for apart from the Day Fighter Leader’s courses and the All-weather Fighter Leader’s courses, there were the visits to the RAF fighter squadrons overseas during the year. The Central Fighter Establishment also held its annual convention for fighter leaders from the RAF and Commonwealth air forces, with invitations to some foreign air forces to attend. Presentations were made on various specialist fighter subjects, followed by discussions on fighter tactics. In addition to these tours and the CFE conventions, the Central Fighter Establishment also toured overseas, visiting the RAF Middle East and the RAF Far East Commands as well as Commonwealth air forces in South-East Asia. The purpose was to lecture on the latest fighter developments and tactics. The personnel comprising the CFE visits usually consisted of a day fighter pilot, an all-weather fighter pilot and two specialist navigators flying in two Canberra jet bombers. As the day fighter representative I flew one of the Canberra on two of these tours, and it was my second tour of South-East Asia and the Far East that was the most interesting and eventful, during which we visited Pakistan, India, Burma, and the RAF in Malaya and Singapore.

  I enjoyed flying the Canberra on these tours, although the large Perspex cockpit canopy acted like a greenhouse while in the tropics. Even with a shade over the cockpit canopy it was still like a hothouse while on the ground; and even in the air despite air conditioning it was often warm work. As we flew at altitudes above 45,000 feet for long periods, pressure oxygen masks and suits were a normal requirement for long high-altitude flights, but we found them too hot and uncomfortable and we discarded them, trusting in the pressurization system to function correctly. On one occasion, when flying from Rangoon to Kuala Lumpur while climbing close to 50,000 feet to try and clear the inter-tropical front that moves up and down Malaya during the seasons, the cumulonimbus thunderheads towered above us and we encountered a lightning strike that entered the aircraft at one wing tip and exited at the other. The lightning strike caused the gyrocompass repeater in the wing to malfunction and despite efforts to degauss the aircraft, the compass remained suspect for the rest of the tour. One of the benefits of taking a Canberra on these long distance flights was the luxury of a navigator, with his navigation aids, to guide me, and the absence of concern over weather and fuel, which was often the case when flying single-seat fighters in the tropics. I should have liked the opportunity to have flown the B-57 (the American version of the Canberra built by the Martin Aircraft Company and used by the USAF in Vietnam) in order to compare it with the RAF Canberra. This aircraft had a conventional fighter type tandem cockpit that must have been preferable for operating in the strike and reconnaissance roles, although the aircraft weighed more than the British built Canberra. I also regret not flying the last of the Canberra line, the PR9. This must have been a very pleasant Canberra to fly with a raised pilot’s bubble canopy, although the navigator was still claustrophobically enclosed within the nose. The aircraft had an increased wingspan with hydraulically powered flight controls and although the maximum speed remained the same, the more powerful Avon 206 turbojets of 11,250 lb. st. greatly increased the Canberra’s rate of climb and raised the aircraft’s service ceiling to 60,000 feet.

  One interesting adjunct for me prior to the visit to India, was a short detachment to the Aircraft and Armament Experimental Establishment (A&AEE) at Boscombe Down to fly the Folland Gnat. The Gnat was a development of the ultra lightweight Folland Midge fighter from the drawing-board of a brilliant designer, William Petter. When Folland merged with Hawker Siddeley Aviation, Petter joined English Electric where he was responsible for the design of the Canberra bomber and the Lightning all-weather supersonic interceptor. My subjects for lecturing during the tour mainly involved the Hunter VI that was coming into squadron service with the RAF; as it was hoped the aircraft would be purchased by India. The Folland Aircraft Company was in the process of promoting the Gnat to India, and to assist in this process it was considered useful for me to have some knowledge and an acquaintance of the aircraft. Despite a reluctance by A&AEE to entrust one of their two Gnats to my care, higher authority prevailed and I flew the aircraft. An interesting aspect of my endeavours on behalf of Folland in promoting the Gnat to India was meeting the Folland sales director, Air Vice-Marshal Richard ‘Batchy’ Atcherley. Although I never served under him in the RAF I was well aware of his reputation, and I knew his twin brother David when he was Air Vice-Marshall, Senior Air Staff Officer Fighter Command during my time as Personal Assistant to Air Officer Commanding No. 11 Group. The Atcherley twins were famous in the RAF and both became air marshals. Their exploits were legion and being legendry it was often confusing to identify which brother was connected with which anecdote, although ‘Batchy’ was the better known. I particularly recollect one anecdote attributed to AVM ‘Batchy’ Atcherley when he was AOC 12 Group. He was flying a Meteor jet from one of his bases in the Group when the weather closed in. Flying control had difficulty plotting his position accurately due to the brevity of his radio transmissions. After several requests for him to make a longer transmission, ‘Batchy’ finally started to slowly recite ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ and on reaching the words, ‘Thy will be done . . .’ ‘Batchy’ interjected his transmission saying, ‘And you’ll be bloody well done if you don’t get me down quickly!’ It was a tale typical of the twins and could have been attributed to either of them. Sadly for the RAF, AVM David Atcherley disappeared without trace in 1952 while flying a Meteor from Egypt, where he was AOC No. 205 Group, to the armament practice base in Cyprus.

  The Gnat was a single-seat lightweight interceptor fighter and first flew as a private venture in 1955. A total of six prototype aircraft were purchased by the Ministry of Supply (MOS) for evaluation trials. This was an improvement over the MOS order of only three prototypes of the Hunter. The Gnat and the Vampire were two of the most enjoyable jet fighters to fly from a pure handling point of view, but both fighters had limitations as multi-role fighters. The Gnat was a pocket rocket and a lot of fun to fly. Because the Gnat was much smaller and half the weight of the Hunter, one fitted into it like a glove. The aircraft was an absolute delight to handle with a very impressive rate of roll. The single Bristol Siddeley Orpheus turbojet of 4,700 lb.s.t. gave it a high rate of climb with 45,000 feet reached in less than six minutes and a service ceiling of 50,000 feet. It was also fast with a maximum speed of Mach 0.98 and it had a useful armament of two 30 mm Aden cannon. However, operational limitations in fuel and overload stores made the aircraft unacceptable to the RAF as an operational fighter. The only export orders came from Finland and India, where it was manufactured under licence by the Hindustan Aircraft Company. In similar fashion to the original Hunter, the Gnat lacked the use of an airbrake, but whereas the designer of the Hunter, S
ir Sidney Camm, decided on a partial use of the aircraft’s flap to act as an airbrake, William Petter chose to use a partial lowering of the undercarriage when the ‘D’ doors would serve the same purpose as an airbrake in decelerating the Gnat. However, neither was an effective airbrake during aerial combat, although on the Gnat it may have provided a confusion factor for a following adversary. When the Folland Gnat became the Hawker Siddeley Gnat, the RAF recognized its potential as an operational trainer and ordered a redesigned two-seat trainer version. This aircraft served successfully as a trainer for the RAF until replaced by the British Aerospace Hawk multi-role strike-trainer. For many years the Gnat performed as the RAF’s official aerobatics team when it replaced the supersonic Lightning due to the reduced airframe hours and the high cost of operating the Lightning. Flying the mini Gnat could be compared to an enthusiastic motorist driving a Mini Cooper motorcar. It would have been interesting to have operated the Gnat single-seat fighter against the Mig-15, and even the Mig-17. All three fighters had a similar operational ceiling, but the Gnat was not only superior in speed over the Soviet fighters, it had a better rate of climb with a faster rate of roll and it had an armament capable of inflicting massive structural damage on the Soviet fighters at altitude. India ordered the Hunter while Pakistan ordered the F-86 under favourable terms from the United States. During the short Indo-Pakistan war of 1965, the Pakistan F-86s acquitted themselves well in combat against the heavier armed Indian Air Force fighters, claiming the destruction of twelve Hunters, two Gnats and four Vampires against an admitted loss of seven Pakistani F-86s. While staying in both the Indian and Pakistan air force messes I saw the squadron photographs with Hindu, Sikh and Muslim pilots operating together during the British raj. It was sad for me to think that those pilots subsequently fought against one another during the Indo-Pakistan war. Before this conflict started and when lecturing to both air forces on fighter aircraft and tactics, a common question asked by the pilots of both air forces was how to operate the Hunter and F-86 against each other.

  Another interesting and versatile fighter similar in concept to the Gnat which I should have liked to have flown was the Northrop F-5, a lightweight supersonic fighter that first flew in 1959. Although not adopted operationally for the USAF, it was exported as the Freedom Fighter to many air forces around the world that were friendly to the US. It was comparatively inexpensive, easy to operate, and with a good performance it had the attraction for developing air forces of being capable of supersonic flight. The USAF eventually used the two-seat trainer version of the aircraft and they also used a development of the F-5 as a realistic ‘enemy’ fighter for training in aerial combat. I recollect at a CFE fighter convention an American pilot describing and praising the F-5’s flying qualities, while making the graphic analogy that flying the aircraft was like a blissful dream, until one woke up wondering what to do with it! Such a description could well be applied to both the Vampire and the Gnat operationally. However, the Gnat did have some success in aerial combat during the Indo-Pakistan wars.

  One particularly interesting feature of this tour, after our presentations to the Pakistan Air Force in Karachi, was to visit the restricted area of the North-West frontier of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the Pakistan AF base at Miramshah. This had been an important air base for the RAF in covering this hostile frontier area. The PAF at Miramshah entertained us with an amazing variety of the local tribal kebabs, and I felt it prudent to use my navigator as our official taster by claiming sovereign protection as pilot. Peshawar was another interesting port of call with its diverse arms industry, where identical replicas of every conceivable type of rifle was produced with rifled barrels made from mild steel rods used for reinforcing concrete. Although the appearance of these rifles was impressive, their range and accuracy was not because the first few rounds fired turned the rifles into smooth bore guns. A particularly interesting excursion from Peshawar was up the Khyber Pass to the Afghanistan border with the many memorials along the pass to the British Army regiments in their skirmishes along the frontier with the Afghan tribesmen. At the old Tochri fort in the Khyber Pass surrounded by barren brown hills, I tried to imagine how it was during those fractious years on the NW Frontier; and it seemed incongruous to be sitting on the green sward of the fort eating tiffin while listening to a Tochri Scout bagpipe band.

  Flying on to India I recollect the magnificent views of the Himalayas as we passed Rawalpindi and Kashmir on our way to the Delhi. After our presentation to the Indian Air Force our hosts very thoughtfully arranged for us to visit Agra to see the Taj Mahal. My enjoyment of this, as we motored with the car windows open in the 100°F-plus heat, was marred by a blast furnace effect that seared the eyeballs. Flying south to Calcutta we ‘night stopped’ at Benares; and again the memory of this memorable place is of the intense heat as North-East India waited for the rains to come to relieve the drought and famine. The Indian Air Force entertained us to lunch in their mess; while a frail looking punka wallah endeavoured to get more movement in the slow moving punka fan overhead by attaching the cord to his big toe, and lying on his back while pedalling as if on the Tour de France. We stayed at a hotel overlooking the mighty River Ganges flowing from the snows of the Himalayas in Nepal, down to Calcutta and into the Bay of Bengal. That evening, while sipping a gin and tonic on the terrace, I watched as devoted Hindus carried out their ritual ablutions in the holy river. Occasionally, an unidentified body drifted by, until a swirl in the brown water indicated its disposal by a patrolling Ganges crocodile. It is unlikely that any of the bodies completed the journey to Calcutta, our last stop in India before flying on to Burma. Calcutta, the capital of Bengal, was a traumatic experience for the uninitiated, with its appalling poverty and teeming millions living, sleeping and dying in the streets, among the sacred and untouchable cows. A city of the quick and the dead; Calcutta is the only place I can recollect where children were deliberately mutilated in order to carry on the ancient profession of begging.

  Our next port of call was Rangoon, capital of Burma, with its romantic Victorian image and its magnificent golden pagoda, where we walked in stocking feet through refuse and ‘whatever’! The departure of the British was very evident as the golden city looked shabby, worn and run down while governed by an obscure and impecunious communist military regime. Although our presentations in Burma could be considered as entirely academic with the declining national economy and the Burmese Air Force flying obsolete aircraft, it was interesting to note that the audience contained women officers, who proved to be a distraction and a restraint on any risqué witticisms during the presentations. I wondered how much of the highly edited presentation would be of interest to recipients in Moscow. Our hosts very kindly decided to take us sightseeing and flew us up to the ancient capital of Mandalay, with its many pagodas on the Irrawaddy River. I must confess that having been brought up on a diet of Rudyard Kipling, and my experience at the Golden Pagoda, I found this rather disappointing. However, the flights to and from Mandalay were certainly interesting and attention grabing.

  The last two legs of our journey in South-East Asia took us firstly to Butterworth to speak to the RAAF squadron operating the Australian built F-86 Sabre. While there we visited the island of Penang, before flying on to Kuala Lumpur to give a presentation to the RAF. After a quick sightseeing visit to the Cameron Highlands, we left for RAF Changi and the island city of Singapore, terminating our outward journey with a convivial stay in Singapore.

  In 1956 some of us at CFE were involved in the Suez fiasco. I travelled out to Cyprus for a short stay to fly with and observe the Venom fighter-bomber squadrons. The Suez operation was a failure with incompetence on the grand scale and was an outstanding example of the breakdown that can occur between political and military thinking. The resultant fiasco owed much to the British Government’s failure to define both the kind of war it wished to conduct with appropriate targets in pursuit of the political objectives. Clauswitz, in declaring that war is nothing more than th
e continuation of politics by other means, assessed the rights and wrongs on whether such action was successful or not. The political vacillations of the British Prime Minister, Anthony Eden, and his government, allied to the interminable period of preparation, guaranteed failure and gave the Americans and Soviets time to respond. Anthony Eden gave little thought to whether Britain had the military capacity to achieve his political aims against a totally hostile country, and his political objectives certainly exceeded the military capacity to achieve them. The British lacked not only a casus belli for a coup de main, but also the capacity for prompt action. The French, with the experience of recent operations in Indo-China and Algeria, were frustrated by the tedious complexity of British planning and the slow build-up of forces. Eden deliberately kept senior civil servants, military experts and his Foreign Service officials and ambassadors in the dark as to his intentions. Senior commanders were denied any knowledge of the political aims of the Cabinet. When asked by Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery for his political objectives and aims Eden is reported to have replied, ‘To knock Nasser off his perch’! It was said at the time that of the twelve different plans prepared for the invasion of Suez, Eden chose the thirteenth.

  Operation Musketeer for the retaking of the Suez Canal had three phases. The first was the obliteration of the Egyptian air force by attacks on the airfields. The second phase was the destruction of military installations. The third phase was an airborne and seaborne assault against Port Said and the occupation of the Canal Zone. The Egyptians were informed of targets beforehand to reduce civilian casualties and to this end the RAF bombers were restricted to a maximum bomb of 1,000 lb. To minimize interception of the RAF bombers by the Egyptian Air Force, the Valiant heavy bombers from Bomber Command operating out of Malta and the Canberra light bombers operating from Cyprus, flew at night and bombed from 40,000 feet. The result of all this was that few Egyptian aircraft were destroyed in the raids and Cairo International Airport was bombed in error. During the second phase of Musketeer, the Venom fighter-bombers with their Second World War 3-inch rocket attacks were very ineffective, and were not assisted by instructions to alert their targets before attacking them. During the third phase of Musketeer, the intended naval bombardment of Port Said in support of the landings was cancelled to minimize civilian casualties. The resultant humiliating withdrawal of the Anglo-French forces proved to be a political disaster for the irresolute British Prime Minister, who was a sick man at the time and who resigned from office the following year. Only the Israelis, and to a lesser extent the French, had a true appreciation of what was required for a rapid offensive to achieve their aims before the United Nations could react. It was for the Israelis a major victory against the Arab threat in clearing the blockaded port of Eilat, the capture of the Gaza Strip and the Sinai and the defeat of a much larger Egyptian army that was threatening Israel.