Winds of Destruction

by Peter John Hornby Petter-Bowyer

  Six three-metre-square elevated frames, numbered and set in a line, were covered with cardboard for Provosts firing .303 guns. Individual scores were recorded by physically counting the number of stick-on patches used to cover fresh bullet holes. Vampire 20mm gunnery targets were the same except that the frames were covered with stretched hessian. Scoring was also by physical count but paint was used to daub fresh strikes.

  Hunter strike.

  The same gunnery targets could not handle Hunter 30mm shoots because a single strike on any section of the frame collapsed the target. Because of this, Hunter gunnery was done on the rocket target with reliance being placed on the Range Safety Officer’s ability to judge Effectiveness of each strike. Kutanga Mac was better at this than any pilot, so Hunter gunnery training was usually deferred on those rare occasions when Mac was not available.

  The rocket and dive-bombing target was one and the same, sited about 800 metres from the master and closest secondary quadrant huts. The ‘Bull’s eye’ aiming point was a simple circular pyramid of earth that was regularly covered with whitewash. This pyramid lay at the centre of a broad-lined circle whose radius was fifteen metres. The Canberra bombing target was two-and-a-half kilometres from the master and farthermost secondary quadrant huts. It comprised a single, high pyramid of earth covered with white rocks to make target acquisition possible for the long distances involved in high and medium level bombing.

  Weapons demonstration

  THE DATE OF THE AIR-WEAPONS demonstration was set for 12 May 1964. The guest of honour was to be the Prime Minister, Mr Winston Field, whose Rhodesian Front (RF) Party had come to power following an overwhelming victory at the polls in December 1962. Well-known Federal personalities such as Sir Roy Welensky, Sir Godfrey Huggins and Edgar Whitehead had gone and a new breed of politicians was firmly in control.

  Every RF minister had seen military service in WWII and many were farmers. With the RF still settling in to govern a country facing uncertain times, Rhodesian citizens’ morale needed boosting. A demonstration of the country’s air power was expected to be helpful in this regard, though Air HQ was aiming more at establishing itself with the new breed of politicians who appeared to understand the importance of balanced military strength.

  With the able assistance of Warrant Officer Nobby Clarke, I established the lay-out of targets, seating design and location, a public address system, catering plans, parking areas for aircraft and cars and so on; all of which the CO approved. With Nobby’s men and input from Thornhill’s workshops, all targets and adequate spectator benches were constructed with time to spare. There was, however, a need for extra hands to mix mud and to hand-plaster pole and thatch structures that constituted some of the targets. I asked for and got all officer cadets of both courses then undergoing pilot training.

  No 17 PTC, being the senior course, was hoping to give 18 PTC most of the hard graft but I scotched this by separating their tasks and locations during working hours. But, out of working hours, the members of 18 PTC had a pretty torrid time. Wherever this junior course went its members had to carry teddy bears, all having personal names. No matter who a junior cadet met, he was obliged to introduce his teddy by name, then introduce teddy to the individual. This and other demeaning impositions certainly had the desired effects. The juniors so hated their seniors that they had become welded into a unified group.

  Beryl, Debbie and Paul came out to Kutanga to visit me one day and were taking tea when the junior course, having showered away mud from their bodies and dressed in clean clothes, came in for refreshments. They set themselves up in a line to introduce their teddies to Paul then Beryl and finally Debbie. I was amused to see that every teddy was being placed at Debbie’s feet, all gifts for the little girl! Things changed when the senior course arrived. In reverse order each member of the junior course came to Debbie, apologised for his error, and retrieved his teddy, much to Debbie’s disappointment.

  Notwithstanding their clean clothing, the junior course was ordered to bury a three-foot snake that the senior course had killed out on the range. First a narrow vertical grave had to be dug. When the grave was ready we watched the solemn funeral procession for a snake being borne horizontally by every hand of the junior course to the site of its vertical burial. As they marched slowly along they sang a mournful dirge composed by the senior course, their dislike of their seniors showing clearly on every face.

  Group Captain Whyte was very pleased when he flew to Kutanga to inspect the entire set-up but became annoyed when press photographers arrived, uninvited. They gave the CO a bit of a run-around wanting to film aircraft in their attack dives because this would not be possible on the day of the demonstration. The CO obliged by arranging for Nos 1 and 2 Squadrons to lay on a Hunter and a Vampire for the purpose. He then asked me to fly my Provost on both high- and low-level attack profiles. For the low-level profile the CO told me to make sure one particular photographer would be put off asking for anything else.

  The ‘particular’ photographer was waiting as I descended to pass over him low and fast. I could see him all the way and hoped he would chicken out because my wheels were almost in contact with the ground during the final run of 300 yards to where he stood; but I was forced to pitch up very, very, close to him. Apparently he did not budge an inch when the propeller passed over him at about three feet. He simply swung the camera around to film the aircraft climb away.

  Flight Lieutenant Ian Douglas Smith, North Africa 1942.

  On the very day of the weapons demonstration we learned that a new man had replaced Winston Field as Prime Minister. None of us knew who Ian Smith was at that time and had no way of knowing how this WWII pilot would influence everything we did and thought.

  However he did not attend the weapons demonstration because he knew that Winston Field was really looking forward to the event, having been invited as guest of honour.

  On a small knoll comfortable padded seats were set out for VIPs in the shadow of a secondary quadrant hut. Below this, row upon row of fixed wooden benches provided seating for the African chiefs and other guests.

  AVM Bentley sitting with the chiefs and Civil Service observers.

  The first demonstration was announced as four Provosts peeled over in line astern diving steeply, each to deliver eight British-made 28-pound fragmentation bombs against the closest target that was about 500 metres away. The loud crrrumping denotations of each cluster of bombs following close upon each other had all the African chiefs and African soldiers diving for cover with loud cries of fear. When the Provosts cleared, they all rose cheering, dusting themselves off, laughing loudly and slapping each other on the back.

  For the next two hours ever-noisier attacks had the spectators enthralled, but none more than our black countrymen who, to the end, bubbled and babbled after every noisy airstrike. Following the last bang spectators were moving off for drinks and lunch when four Hunters came in from the rear of the stands flying very low close to supersonic speed. This gave everyone the greatest fright of all and even caused that ‘particular’ photographer to drop his camera. The entire demonstration had proved a resounding success.

  Early weapons testing

  WHILST PREPARING FOR THE WEAPONS demonstration, I was required to fly a number of tests for Wing Commander Sandy Mutch who was then Staff Officer Operations at Air HQ. Working for him was a private engineering company seeking to improve two locally manufactured weapons and develop a new one. Twenty-eight-pound fragmentation bombs and their equivalent practice units were undergoing tests to prove new impact and airburst fuses. My involvement in this was straightforward because these bombs had been in use for some time.

  The use of locally designed and manufactured fragmentation and practice bombs resulted in considerable savings in both cost and foreign currency. The fragmentation bombs were specifically intended for Canberras but could be delivered by any weapon-carrying aircraft. Ninety-six of them could be dropped from a Canberra bomb bay in a rippled release from a locally d
esigned and manufactured carrier device nicknamed the ‘bomb box’. The practice bombs, which fired a small smoke marker charge on impact, were used for training by all the strike aircraft.

  The Staff Officer Armaments, Squadron Leader Ken Gibson, and two assistant armourers had brought all the bombs and fuses to Kutanga Range. Use of a dedicated Provost piloted by me and operating out of Kutanga made loading, air releases and on-site inspection quick and simple.

  Included for first tests were eight prototype sixteen-gallon napalm bombs that had not previously been used by the RRAF. Napalm was considered an excellent weapon for bush warfare but its use invariably attracted considerable criticism from a number of world bodies. In an attempt to disguise the real purpose of these units, they were referred to as ‘frangible tanks’, giving rise to the abbreviated term, ‘Frantan’. The early Frantans comprised of three sections fashioned from 1.5mm mild steel sheeting. These were a short conical nose, a central cylinder incorporating filler cap and suspension lugs and a tail cone incorporating a fuse pocket. Welded together these formed the 1.8-metre-long Frantan. In early tests Frantans were filled with reject aviation gas and soap flakes that together produced a sticky gel. I was very concerned when I learned that the test units were fitted with modified phosphorus grenades to ignite the gel.

  The use of phosphorous igniters was what concerned me more than the fuel gel, though I did not know why at the time. Four sorties were to be flown with two Fantans per sortie delivered singly at low-level onto open ground. All went well with the first three sorties though I was surprised by the high level of radiated heat on the back of my neck.

  On the last sortie one of the Frantans refused to separate from the carrier even when high ‘G’ and excessive yawing was applied. There was nothing I could do but land with the ‘hang up’. Having touched down and rolled along the grass runway for some distance the Frantan came away from the carrier, bounced up into the tail plane and ignited. A fiercely hot fireball engulfed the fuselage right up to the cockpit for just a moment but I rolled to the dispersal area none the worse for the experience. Apart from mild scorching of my neck, similar to sunburn, and blistered paint on the aircraft’s rear fuselage, fin and tail plane no real harm had been done. Had the Frantan dislodged at slower speed the outcome might have been serious.

  A close inspection of components revealed that the suspension lug, upon which the Frantan hung on the carrier hook, had been the cause of the hang-up. This was rectified and I flew many further Frantan tests after locally designed ‘multi-directional inertia pistols’ had been fitted to fire the flash-powder charge that assisted in bursting the tank to free and ignited gel.

  During these trials I got to know Wing Commander Sandy Mutch better than before. Though still bulldoggish in manner, he listened to my opinions about our air weapons in general and grudgingly agreed that most were totally unsuited to the type of conflict we seemed headed for; counter-insurgency warfare. I committed these same opinions to writing and, through Group Captain Whyte, the paper was submitted to Air HQ.

  The result was that the CO received a reply asking, “What does that puppy PB know about weapons effectiveness? Had he seen how 60-pound rockets destroyed German trains and how 1,000-pound bombs blew buildings to smithereens, he might be wiser." I knew very well that our weapons were effective in conventional warfare but nobody seemed interested in considering anything beyond the small fragmentation bombs and Frantans I had been testing for bush warfare. Twelve long years were to pass before I was taken seriously and, eventually, given authority to develop locally manufactured weapons that better suited our needs.

  Deaths of Bruce McKerron and Henry Elliot

  ON THE AFTERNOON OF 22 June 1964 I was returning to Thornhill from Salisbury cruising at 15,000 feet. Strictly speaking the Provost was not permitted to operate above 10,000 feet because the unpressurised cockpit was not equipped with oxygen. However, out of curiosity, I was establishing the aircraft’s performance at that level. I suffered no ill effects and watched my nails continuously to make sure there was no bluing of the cuticles, an early sign of oxygen deficiency.

  When I switched radio channel from Salisbury Approach Control to Thornhill, I was asked to divert to the Jet Flying Training Area. A mayday call had been received from Bruce McKerron who was flying an FB9 but nothing had been heard from him since. I made a long, full-powered descent directly towards a major feature named Umgulugulu where I intended to commence my search. Along the way I called Bruce repeatedly whilst scanning for any sign of smoke.

  There was no reply and I saw no smoke. Over the massive granite dome of Umgulugulu, I looked down on the white painted numbers made by successive Pilot Training Courses. The smallest simply read ‘14 PTC’ and each PTC number was larger than the preceding one. 18 PTC was the largest and whitest having recently been put there above the others.

  PB with Bruce during his BFS.

  I looked at 15 PTC, which was McKerron’s course, and for some unaccountable reason sensed from it that Bruce was dead. It took me a while to spot the thinnest wisp of white smoke rising way back along the route I had just come. With nothing else to work on I flew to this point where a small fire was burning along a thin line of grass half way up the slope of a granite outcrop.

  Looking back along the line of burnt grass I could see a black smudge on a flat rock surface at the base of the outcrop but could see nothing resembling aircraft wreckage. Then, a little way off, I noticed a group of men signalling wildly and pointing to a pyramid of newly cut branches. I made a slow low pass over six men who were all waving with one hand and pointing at the pyramid with the other. This, I was certain, was where the body of my ex-student lay so I returned to Thornhill having passed the men again waggling wings to signify that I had seen them.

  In Royal Rhodesian Air Force colours, four of the five original Alouettes. Salisbury Airport is above the rotor mast of the nearest helicopter and New Sarum Airbase lies on the other side of the longest runway in Africa.

  Our Alouette III helicopters had recently arrived in Salisbury and by pure chance one had just landed at Thornhill. I was asked to accompany Flight Lieutenant Rex Taylor and Doctor Kirk to the crash site. Not the best occasion for my first helicopter flight!

  Upon landing we were met by four African males who all talked at the same time. In their own language I requested them to take down the branches to reveal Bruce’s body that was covered by a brand-new raincoat whose owner made sure we knew this. He gladly accepted a £5 note to have it cleaned.

  On removal of the coat we were met with a very dismal sight. Bruce’s parachute was still strapped to his body, the ‘D’ ring still firmly set in its retainer pocket. Apart from Bruce’s legs having being pushed into his torso, his head was flat and both blue eyes were bulging out. This was clearly the result of a very high-speed impact with ground. The thing that struck me immediately was that every joint in the right arm had dislocated and the arm lay out to twice its normal length. This could not possibly be attributed to ground impact. Rex agreed with me that Bruce had bailed out in a steep descent, probably a stabilised spin, and his right arm had caught the tail plane. With such damage to the arm we were certain that Bruce had been knocked unconscious and knew nothing thereafter.

  Keith Corrans headed the Board of Enquiry whose findings concurred with our assessment. I remember how frustrated Keith was with the verbal evidence given by many Africans who claimed to have seen the aircraft come down. Not one story fitted another so Keith was forced to submit a report based on his reasoned assessment of events.

  Exactly six months after this tragedy, one of Bruce McKerron’s coursemates, Henry Elliot, died in another FB9 accident. He was returning to Thornhill from the Bulawayo area at night and was under Thornhill Approach Control. He was given a heading to steer and instructed to contact Radar Control when level at 6,500 feet. The radar controller observed the aircraft approaching on the correct heading before the blip disappeared off his screen.

  Henry did n
ot respond to Approach Control or radar calls so another Vampire was guided by radar to the point Henry’s aircraft had last been seen. Immediately he arrived in the area the pilot located a fire making it clear to all that Henry had flown straight into the ground. We learned later that Henry had not been feeling well before this flight but, refusing to let this be known, went ahead with his navigational training flight instead of going to bed.

  Henry Elliott had dated Beryl’s sister Yvonne for some time but this changed and he was then courting a lovely girl. Wendy Miller was well known to Beryl and me so the CO requested that we go to her home to break the news to her. Wendy was in bed and had been asleep for some time when we woke her. This was my first experience of conveying bad news and it was every bit as hard to handle as I had imagined.

  Henry Elliott.

  First terrorist action

  FIVE MONTHS EARLIER ON 4 July 1964, when Americans were celebrating Independence Day, a brutal act heralded the start of terrorism and savagery in Rhodesia. A gang of thugs of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), styled the ‘Crocodile Gang’ and led by William Ndangana, set up a simple roadblock with rocks and tree branches on a mountain section of the Melsetter road. It was late at night when Petrus Oberholzer and his family, travelling in their VW Kombi, were forced to a halt.