Winds of Destruction: The Autobiography of a Rhodesian Combat Pilot

A short history of the Rhodesian Air Force

AT THE CONCLUSION OF THE Anglo–Boer War all seven Southern Rhodesian military units, which had participated with the British forces, were disbanded. However, in 1914 at the outbreak of the Great War in Europe, the Rhodesia Regiment was re-established. It served with distinction and remained in force until it was again disbanded in 1920.

A Territorial Force was formed in 1927 with 1st and 2nd Battalions of the Rhodesia Regiment based at Salisbury and Bulawayo. At the outbreak of World War II in 1939 the regular members of these battalions, together with a disproportionately large component of volunteers, were absorbed into British units in many theatres.

A Territorial Force Air Unit had been formed in 1935 and operated out of the commercial airport at Belvedere on the south-western edge of Salisbury City. Six Hawker Hart twin-seater fighter aircraft were received from the RAF in 1937 to add to an existing small communications flight. Combat pilot training commenced immediately, resulting in the first Rhodesian wings presentation to six pilots on 13 May 1938. Later in the year they were to prove themselves by flying the next batch of Hawker Harts from Britain to Southern Rhodesia.

With war clouds looming over Europe, the Territorial Force members of the Air Unit were called up for full-time service in August 1939 and by the end of the month the aircraft were on the move. Ten pilots (among them Lieutenant E.W.S. Jacklin, later to become the first post-war Chief of Air Staff) and eight aircraft left Salisbury on 27 August to fly to Nairobi—constituting the only aerial force available to Imperial Authorities in East Africa.

Nairobi proved to be merely a staging post on the route north, for within two or three days all the Rhodesian aircraft had been moved to the Northern Frontier District on the Abyssinian border. On 19 September 1939, the Air Unit officially became the Southern Rhodesian Air Force, and the flights on service in Kenya were designated No 1 Squadron of that force.

In April 1940, all Southern Rhodesian Air Force personnel were absorbed into the Royal Air Force and No 1 Squadron was redesignated No 237 (Rhodesian) Squadron. As a tribute to its preparedness, it was allowed to adopt the motto ‘Premium Agmen in Caelo’ (The First Force in the Sky).

By November 1941, No 237 Squadron was equipped with Hurricanes and was embroiled in the seesaw battles with the Afrika Korps and the Luftwaffe. In February 1942, it was ordered back to Ismalia in the Canal Zone before travelling yet farther east.

The next year was spent covering the Iraq/Persia sector with the squadron operating from such bases as Mosul, Kermanshah and Kirkuk. In March 1943, it returned to the Canal Zone where its role changed from army co-operation to fighter reconnaissance, flying Spitfires. A long spell of operations across North Africa followed, during which the squadron moved progressively westward.

But with the war obviously coming to an end, the squadron was gradually losing its all-Rhodesian nature. It became increasingly difficult to replace personnel who had completed their operational tour, and after two more moves to Italy and France the squadron was eventually disbanded in 1945.

But 237 was not the only unit to operate as a ‘Rhodesian’ squadron with the Royal Air Force. In 1940, No 266 Squadron was officially designated a ‘Rhodesian’ unit and the decision was made that aircrew from Rhodesia should be posted to it. The following year, No 44 Squadron of bomber command followed suit. In addition to the Rhodesians who fought in these squadrons, there were obviously many more who played their part in other Air Force units and in other theatres of operations.

During the six years of war, the total number of Rhodesians in Air Force uniform stood at 977 officers and 1,432 other ranks. Of these, 498 were killed—a proportion of one man in every five who went to war. But one further casualty of the war was the Rhodesian Air Force itself—certainly as far as Rhodesia was concerned. No 1 Squadron of the Southern Rhodesian Air Force had been turned into 237 Squadron that had then been disbanded. Further, the training element of the old SRAF had been absorbed into the Royal Air Force and had become the nucleus of the huge Rhodesian Air Training Group. But in doing so, it had lost its identity.

It was not, however, a situation that was to last long, and the vacuum was soon to be filled. In the immediate post-war period, men trickled back to Rhodesia after being demobilised from the British services. Some of them joined the Southern Rhodesia Staff Corps, generally at very low ranks, and it was from this nucleus that the Air Force was to arise again.

Many of the ex-Air Force members of the Staff Corps itched to re-establish military aviation, but prospects were far from promising. There was no money, there were no aircraft, and even the original SRAF buildings had been appropriated for use by new immigrants and for various government departments. However, the enthusiasts cajoled and persuaded, and eventually attracted to their cause Sir Ernest Guest, then Minister of Defence, and Colonel S. Garlake, Commander of Military Forces in Southern Rhodesia. The result was the provision of £20,000 sterling and the instruction to form an air unit. The financial grant was woefully inadequate, but there were almost limitless reserves of enthusiasm and resourcefulness to call upon.

Under the leadership of Lieutenant-Colonel E.W.S. Jacklin, the dozen or so officers and men of the unit set about acquiring some aircraft. The Royal Air Force contributed a war-surplus Anson light transport aircraft, and then a major salvage exercise started. The men went on forays through the old RAF maintenance depots and even scrap dumps. Tools, raw materials, spares, supplies and even trained personnel filtered through to the little unit at Cranborne from all over the country. Eventually, using basic tools and equipment, the unit had rebuilt six scrapped and abandoned Tiger Moths.

On 28 November 1947, the Government Gazette No 945 carried the notice establishing the Air Force as a Permanent Unit of the Rhodesian Staff Corps, and this was the beginning of the Southern Rhodesian Air Force to come. The six rebuilt Tiger Moths were joined by six Harvard trainers purchased from the Rhodesian Air Training Group, and later twelve more Harvards were obtained from South Africa at nominal prices.

The work paid off in progressive expansion—more ex-Air Force personnel joined the unit, and gradually a varied selection of aircraft was acquired. By 1951, a Leopard Moth, a Dakota, Rapides, Ansons and Austers had been collected from a variety of sources, and the unit operated a small regular element with one active auxiliary squadron—No 1 Squadron.

By this time the Berlin Blockade, the clamping of the Iron Curtain across Europe and the onset of the Korean War had made it obvious to all that the preservation of peace was to be more a matter of armed preparedness than of wishful thinking. So once again the Southern Rhodesian Government made a contribution to the defence of the Commonwealth—this time it was in the form of two fighter squadrons.

From Britain twenty-two Spitfire Mk22 aircraft were successfully ferried out in spite of dire predictions and a certain amount of betting from a number of aviation experts. Fulltime training was then re-introduced in the form of the ‘Short Service’ training scheme.

In 1952 the Air Force moved from Cranborne to Kentucky Airport, which subsequently became the huge airfield jointly used by New Sarum Air Force Station and Salisbury International Airport. This was the first permanent home of the Air Force, and it was the first time that it had occupied buildings and facilities specifically designed for its purposes.

Increased obligations to the RAF and the need to modernise became issues in making the decision to withdraw the Spitfires from service. Painful though it was for all concerned, single-seater De Havilland Vampire FB9 jets replaced the much-loved Spitfires. Later T11 two-seater jet trainers were added.

In addition to the Vampire fighter/bombers, expansion continued with the acquisition of Provost piston-engined trainers. Seven more Dakotas and two Pembrokes were acquired to replace the Ansons and Rapides, and further aircrew and technicians were recruited. By the beginning of 1956, the Air Force boasted four active squadrons, two Vampire fighter squadrons, a transport squadron and a flying training squadron.

Africa was now being subjected to the first of many political changes leading up to the withdrawal of the colonising nations. The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was formed in 1953 and, in its turn, caused some major changes within the Air Force.

The title was changed to Rhodesian Air Force, with Queen Elizabeth conferring the ‘Royal’ prefix. As the Royal Rhodesian Air Force, the unit forsook its army ranks and khaki uniforms and adopted ranks and uniforms similar to those of the Royal Air Force.

But the major change of the Federal inception was one of scope and responsibility. From being a minor, self-contained force, preoccupied with territorial defence, the RRAF was now responsible for the defence of the Federation as a whole and was also to acquire wider responsibility as a part of the Royal Air Force’s potential in the Middle East.

At the conclusion of the Second World War, the RAF retained its RTG airfield, Thornhill, where flying training on Harvards continued. This was the largest and best-equipped RTG airbase sited close to the Midlands town of Gwelo. It remained an active RAF base until its closure in 1955 when it was taken over by the Royal Rhodesian Air Force.

With ever-increasing commercial flights in and out of Salisbury Airport, Group Headquarters decided to reduce congestion at the jointly used facilities by moving all Air Force training to Thornhill. Initially this was only possible for piston operations, using existing grass runways. Two years of work during 1956 and 1957 were needed to build a tar macadam runway with taxiways, concrete hard standings and a modern control tower, incorporating radar, before jet training could commence.

In line with RAF practice, the RRAF pilot-training scheme was known as a Short Service Unit (SSU). Successful applicants for pilot training were inducted as officer cadets for a two-year training course. Failure at any point in training resulted in the immediate release of a student with no obligation on either side. However, students who gained their wings and had completed advanced-weapons training had the option of either applying for a medium-service commission or returning to civilian life. Air Headquarters was under no obligation to accept those who applied for medium service.

No 1 SSU was inducted in 1952 with successive intakes occurring at six-monthly intervals. Tiger Moths, Harvards and Spitfires served the training needs initially until Provosts and Vampires replaced them. In 1956, the intake frequency was reduced to one intake a year when No 9 SSU was the first to undergo Basic Flying School (BFS) training at Thornhill.

At the conclusion of BFS in December 1956, No 9 SSU had to move to New Sarum for the Advanced Flying Training (AFS) on Vampires because Thornhill was not yet ready to accommodate jets. The first course to undergo BFS, AFS and OCU (Operational Conversion Unit) at Thornhill was No 10 SSU. This was the course I attended.

Younger days

AT 13:15 ON 2 JUNE 1936, Doctor Ritchken’s regular lunchtime break was interrupted to attend to my mother who was in labour at the Lady Chancellor Maternity Home in Salisbury. No complications occurred with my birth and I was declared to be a strong and health baby.

My father and mother were both from England. Dad was born in Southampton and Mum in Brighton. Dad came from a long line of naval pilots who brought many thousands of ships safely down Southampton’s Water. Not surprisingly Dad had hoped to join the Royal Navy but he was rejected for being unable to differentiate between purple and mauve. So, in 1923 at the age of 17 he set out to see the world as a hired hand on a steam-powered cargo ship. In New York he explored the big city, wearing the only clothes he possessed—a rugby jersey and shorts. After roaming the seas he found New Zealand to be the right place to stay ashore and to try and settle down.

He did well as a lumberman. He also worked on sheep farms and played a good deal of rugby in his free time. There he met his lifelong friend, Alan Martin, who later became my godfather. Alan interested Dad in opportunities being offered by the British Government in far-off Southern Rhodesia; so they moved to Africa together.

Dad was christened Paul Charles Petter Bowyer. The third Christian name was in fact his mother’s maiden name. The Petters were, and still are, well known for their internal-combustion engines and other engineering successes. For instance, William Petter was designer and chief engineer of Britain’s Canberra bomber, Lightning interceptor and Gnat trainer. Prior to this, William’s father had designed the famous short-field aircraft, Lysander, which gave such excellent service to special agents and the French Resistance during World War II.

In New Zealand Dad’s banking affairs were getting muddled up with another Bowyer. All efforts to rectify the situation failed until Dad hyphenated his name—to become Petter-Bowyer. Though this resolved his problem and fitted a fashion for double-barrelled names in those times, the surname has presented its difficulties over the years.

When I joined the Royal Rhodesian Air Force my surname was short-circuited. Nobody could pronounce Petter-Bowyer correctly so I became known as ‘PB’. It is the name Bowyer that seemed to cause problems to many until I explained that my ancestors were men who equated to modern-day artillery-fire controllers. In their own day the Bowyers trained and controlled groups of bowmen in battle. During critical stages when British and enemy forces were closing on each other, it was the bowyers who gave bowmen their orders on aiming angle, draw strain, lay-off and release, for each volley of arrows launched against rapidly changing enemy formations. When BOW of the arrow launcher replaces BOUGH of the tree or BOY of youth, my surname comes out okay!

Dad was six-foot tall, good-looking and immensely strong. Not long after arriving in Rhodesia he attended a country fair at Penhalonga in the east of the country. Late in the evening he was walking past an ox-wagon where an elderly man asked for his assistance. Dad was happy to comply by lifting a large blacksmith’s steel anvil from the ground onto the deck of the wagon. When he had done this he became aware of shouted congratulations and slaps on his back from a group of people he had not noticed until then. The elderly man also congratulated him and with great difficulty pushed the anvil off the wagon. He then invited Dad to lift the anvil back onto the wagon, this time for a handsome cash prize that none of many contenders had won. Dad tried but no amount of cheering and encouragement helped him even lift the anvil off the ground.

Mum moved with her parents to Southern Rhodesia in 1914 when she was four years of age. Her father was controller of the Rhodesian Railways storage sheds in Salisbury. He, together with Mum’s mother, ran a dairy and market garden on their large plot of land, one boundary of which bordered the bilharzia-ridden Makabusi River, south of the town.

Mum attended Queen Elizabeth School in Salisbury where she acquired a taste for the high-society lifestyle of her friends, though this was not altogether to the liking of her middle-class father. She was christened Catherine Lillian Elizabeth but became known as Shirley because of her striking resemblance to a very beautiful and well-known, redheaded actress of the time. This nickname stuck to Mum for life; and she loved it. Her maiden name, Smith, on the other hand did not suit the image Mum desired. However, that all changed when she married Dad in early 1935.

Dad enjoyed the company of many male friends at the Salisbury City Club. It was from there that he went to register my birth following a lunchtime session to celebrate the birth of his first-born son. I guess he must have been fairly tipsy because he added an extra name to the ones he had agreed with my mother. To Peter John he added another family name, Hornby. In consequence, three of my names link me to family lines in sea, rail and air.

Two years after my birth my brother Paul Anthony (Tony) was born. Together we enjoyed a carefree childhood in the idyllic surroundings of the Rhodesian highveld. Our westward-facing home was set high on a ridge overlooking rolling farmlands, with the city of Salisbury and its famous kopje (Afrikaans for hill) clearly visible beyond the multi-coloured msasa trees and bushlands. From here our parents enjoyed breathtaking sunsets as they took their after-work ‘sundowner’ drinks on our spacious verandah.

Both Mum and Dad worked. Dad had his own heavy-transport business, Pan-African Roadways, and Mum was personal secretary to the Honourable John Parker who headed up the Rhodesian Tobacco Association. So, with the exception of weekends, Tony and I were left from about 07:00 until 17:30 in the autocratic care of our African cook, Tickey. Tickey was the senior man over Phineas (washing and ironing), the housekeeper Jim (sweeping, polishing and making of beds), two gardeners and, during our younger years, someone to watch over our every move. Such a large Staff was commonplace in Southern Rhodesia in those days.

Tickey was a fabulous cook. Mum had taught him everything he knew but Tickey had a knack of improving on every dish he learned though the names of some gave him difficulty. For instance, he insisted on calling flapjacks “fleppity jeckets” because the common name of the African khaki weed, black jacks, had stuck in his mind as “bleckity jeckets”.

We had more black friends than white for many years and we really enjoyed their company. Together we hunted for field mice and cooked them over open fires, before consuming them with wild spinach and sadza (boiled maize meal—the staple diet of the African people). Only people born in Africa will understand why Tony and I enjoyed these strange meals, squatting on our haunches out in the bush, just as much as roast beef and Yorkshire pudding taken at the dinner table!

Whenever possible, we limited our lunch intake to keep enough space so as to be able to join our African friends for sadza, gravy and whatever they produced as muriwo (supporting relish). Meat was usually cooked extensively to give it a burnt surface from the barely wet base of a three-legged cooking pot set over a small fire. Once the meat was ready, spinach, tomatoes and onions might be added and cooked until well done. On a separate fire a larger pot was used to boil water before mielie-meal was added in small quantities and stirred continuously with a mixing paddle until the texture was just right. All participants in the meal would then wash their hands in a communal bowl and squat on haunches in a circle around two and sometimes three bowls of food.

Only one hand was used to scoop up a lump of boiling hot sadza that was then manipulated into the shape of a rugby ball, sufficient in size for three mouthfuls. Severe burning of fingers was avoided by knowing exactly how to use the side of the index finger during pick-up, immediately followed by quick thumb and finger movements to change the point of contact of the steaming lump. The end of the lump was then dipped in the relish for each bite, following strict observance of sequence to ensure that everyone had equal share. All the time someone within the circle would be talking. These were noisy affairs with much laughter. There is no such thing as silence during an African meal. Tony and I loved every moment of those far-off but never forgotten delights.

A gravel road running behind our spacious gardens served the line of homes built along the ridge on which we lived. Across this road lay various fruit and cereal farms and a big dairy farm. Beyond these lay a large forested area, full of colourful msasas and other lovely indigenous trees, through which ran two rivers. The larger of these was the Makabusi in which Tony and I were forbidden to swim because of bilharzia. Needless to say we swam with our mates whenever our wanderings brought us to the inviting pools bounded by granite surfaces and huge boulders. Being laid up in bed with bilharzia seemed a more attractive option than attending school. But try as we did, we failed to pick up the disease.

Ox wagons were still in use on the farms. This gave ample opportunity to try our hands at the three functions of leading the oxen, wielding the long whip and manning the hand-crank that applied brakes on downhill runs. The black men whose job it was to do these things were amazingly accommodating and never seemed annoyed by our presence.

When old enough to do so, Tony and I rode bicycles to David Livingstone School some four miles from home. I neither liked nor disliked school, but dreaded the attention of bullies who cornered me on many occasions. Dad told me one day that all bullies had one thing in common—they were very good at meting out punishment but cowardly when receiving it. Dad also told me that to accept one good hiding was better than receiving many lesser ones. I got the message and waited until the biggest and meanest of the bullies cornered me in an alley. I climbed into him with everything I had. He tried to break free but I pursued him with vigour until I realised that he was crying like a baby. Not only was I left alone from then on, I assumed the role of protector for other bullyboy victims. The attention I received from the girls was very confusing but strangely pleasing!

Tony and I were blessed with angelic singing voices and were often asked to sing for our beloved grandparents. We took this all for granted until one day we attended a wedding in the Salisbury Anglican Cathedral. After the service I got to talk with one of the choirboys. From him I learned that he had just been paid two shillings and sixpence, the going rate for singing at weddings. That added up to a lot of ice-creams; so Tony and I joined the Anglican Cathedral choir that very week. Dad was horrified when he learned his sons had joined the Anglican choir, though he never said why. Mum thought it a good idea.

The organist and choirmaster were Mr Lillicrap and Mr Cowlard respectively—names that caused much amusement and some confusion for us. Nevertheless they were good at their work and taught us a great deal about singing. But going to church was a totally new experience for me because the nearest I had come to knowing about God arose from questions I had asked some years earlier when driving past one of Rhodesia’s famous balancing granite rock formations.

I asked Mum how the rocks had been placed in such precarious positions. When she told me that God had put them there I wanted to know how many Africans He had used to lift such massive rocks so high. I’m sure she gave me a sensible answer but it obviously went right over my head. Dad on the other hand planted information in my small mind, and it stuck. He told me that all of God’s tools are invisible. Some that we know and take for granted include gravity, magnetism, light, sound, radio waves and electricity, simply because we can measure them. However, those tools of God that we know about but cannot measure, such as our powers of thought and love, are substantially less in number than those of His tools about which we know absolutely nothing. These are the ones that control the stars, the air above, the rocks, trees and grasses on the surface as well as the oceans and the depths of the earth. Strangely, with all he said, including something about God’s dwelling-place, heaven, Dad did not mention Jesus. This is why the Anglican experience was entirely new to me.

While World War II was raging in Europe, Dad was in Air Force uniform in Rhodesia. Like all Rhodesians, Dad wanted to get to where the action was but the Royal Air Force needed his expertise in transport, right where he lived. This was to support the Rhodesian component of the vast British Empire scheme established to train badly needed aircrews. Dad was disappointed, embarrassed even, but Tony and I saw him as a star and revelled in the situations that the war had brought into our lives.

One of the RAF’s Rhodesian Air Training Group (RATG) stations, Cranborne, was just out of view from our house behind the carpet of intervening trees. However, the Harvard Mk2 training aircraft would come into view immediately after take-off. These noisy machines filled the air around us with their ever-changing sounds all day and night as they ploughed around the circuit.

With so many aircraft flying so many hours it was inevitable that mishaps occurred both at and beyond the airfield. On occasions, engine failures and student errors caused crash landings on and beyond the airfield. Some of the crashed machines came down where Tony and I could get to inspect them. Harvards, which still fly in many clubs around the world today and remained in service with the South African Air Force right up until 1996, possess amazingly strong airframes. Those that came down in the bush and farmlands around our home had all ploughed through trees before coming to rest. Though buckled and bent, not one machine we saw had shed wings or tail planes. The unique smell of those crashed aircraft was too wonderful and we clambered in and out of the cockpits at every opportunity. Sharing ultra-thick dry sandwiches and lukewarm tea with RAF guards and salvage crews added to memories that remain clearer to me today than yesterday’s happenings.

My mother’s three brothers all went off to the war in Europe. John Smith was an air gunner on Halifax bombers and was posted missing after the second 1,000-bomber raid into Germany. His body, along with those of his crew, was never found.

Eric Smith was killed in a most unfortunate accident while leading his Spitfire squadron back to Britain at the cessation of hostilities in Italy. This was a cruel loss considering he had survived many months of Offensive action in the Desert and Italian campaigns.

Bill Smith, incensed by the loss of his brother John, lied about his age to get into the Fleet Air Arm at age seventeen and saw active service in the latter stages of the war. Later he joined the auxiliary force in Rhodesia, which became the Southern Rhodesia Air Force. Dad’s only brother, Steven Bowyer, left his gold mining occupation in Rhodesia to join the RAF as mid upper gunner on Halifax and Lancaster bombers. He survived many missions, including the one on which Guy Gibson died

Tony and I could not fully comprehend the loss of two uncles. Even though we had known and loved both of them, we did not understand the enormous pain their deaths had brought to Mum and our grandparents. We only comprehended the glamour of our Dad in uniform, bringing home many high-ranking officers and gracious ladies to the Sunday swimming parties for which he and Mum were renowned.

Towards the end of the war Dad lost his arm in a freak accident. As Officer Commanding the RATG motor transport fleet, he had visited Thornhill airbase near Gwelo and was on his way to Heany airbase near Bulawayo. Along the way he realised that he still had a document that he should have left at Thornhill. As he was approaching a bridge on a steep downward slope he spotted an RAF truck, still some way off, coming towards the bridge from the opposite side. Dad crossed the bridge and pulled over just short of a point where the road commenced a right-hand sweep. He put out his arm and was waving down the oncoming driver with a view to handing him the document for delivery to Thornhill.

Unbeknown to Dad, the airman driver had been drinking and panicked when he recognised his CO’s Staff car. Instead of slowing down, he accelerated. The truck drifted on the corner and passed Dad’s car in a mild broadside with the tail sufficiently off-line for the extended number plate to rip Dad’s arm off just above the elbow.

The truck roared off into the distance, leaving Dad with not a soul around. He could not easily get the severed arm into the vehicle because it was hanging outside the door on a substantial section of skin. He leaned out with his left hand and managed to bring the arm inside. Blood was spraying everywhere in powerful spurts bringing Dad to the realisation that he would be dead in less than a minute if it continued. The door panel of his American Dodge was made of compressed hardboard. Through this panel he managed to drive the exposed bone and press the flesh tight up against the surface to stem the blood flow. He then drove like the wind for Heany. On arrival at the main gate, the duty provost marshal failed to understand Dad’s frantic calls to lift the security boom. Instead he ambled to the car, looked inside and keeled over in a faint. Dad had no option—he smashed through the boom and drove straight to Station Sick Quarters where he kept his hand on the horn until help arrived. Shocked and now in pain some forty minutes after the accident, he surprised the doctor and Staff by not only remaining conscious but for being fully articulate.

Reverting to me—the matter of what I wanted to do in life came early. Having passed through the usual stage of wanting to become a driver of the beautiful Garret steam engines that Tony and I loved to watch labouring up the long hill from Salisbury station or racing fast in the opposite direction, I settled for surgery. When I was about nine years old, the war having just ended, Dad and Mum told me that they had booked a place for me at Edinburgh University for 1954.

When I turned eleven and Tony was nine, our secure little world fell apart. We woke one morning to discover that Mum had left Dad. We loved our parents dearly and simply could not understand why things could not go on as before. In a relatively short time, in a blur of insecurity, uncertainty and confusion, Tony and I learned that Mum and Dad were divorced and that we were going to a boarding school in the Vumba Mountains near Umtali, as founder members of Eagle Preparatory School. When we checked into this brand-new school we found ourselves with another twenty youngsters ranging in age from nine to twelve.

Frank Carey and his small Staff had come from the Dragon School in Oxford, England, to establish Eagle School. He intended to emulate a style of teaching he knew and believed in. Our environment was wonderful so Tony and I settled in easily, and quickly regained lost confidence. The style of teaching was quite different from that we had known and new subjects, including Latin, French and trigonometry, were brought in immediately.

In our first year at Eagle, Mum remarried and moved with her husband, Group Captain Berrisford-Pakenham, to farm in Mkushi in Northern Rhodesia. Dad had bought a farm and lime-works near Cashel Valley in the foothills of Rhodesia’s eastern border mountains. Tony and I alternated our school holidays between Mum and Dad, which was fine for a while but we both hated being away from Mum for such long periods.

On return to school at the beginning of the second year we learned that Dad had married Joan Shevill who had a daughter of my age and a son of Tony’s age. Jennifer and John were in boarding at Umtali High and Umtali Junior schools, respectively. Our first holiday with the new family on Moosgwe Farm went well, though we were all a bit uncertain of each other. Thereafter relations became strained because Tony and I were only present on alternate holidays and because my stepmother loathed my mother, whom she never ever met.

Visits to Mum were too wonderful for words. Much of this had to do with the fact that our stepfather, Berry, had gained our absolute trust by never interfering in matters that did not concern him, but always giving sound advice and clear answers to any question we asked.

Berry had served with the British Border Regiment where he had risen to the rank of colonel. He then switched to the RAF, accepting a considerable loss in seniority simply because he wanted to fly. In the RAF he rose to the substantive rank of group captain. To have achieved the same level of rank in two substantially different forces was a remarkable achievement considering he was only forty-two when he retired from service and immigrated to Rhodesia.

The ranch on which Berry and Mum farmed, in partnership with two other ex-servicemen, was vast (36,000 acres) and absolutely beautiful. Apart from running big herds of Afrikaner and Red Poll cattle, large quantities of tobacco were grown and cured. We lived in pole and dagga (mud) thatched houses for many months with communal kitchen and dining hall constructed in like manner. Peter, Michael and Marcus Gordon, though younger than Tony and me, were good friends who, like us, enjoyed living in the crude accommodation so much more than the brick homes that came later.

During the 1949 Christmas holidays with Dad we learned that Tony and I would not be returning to Eagle School but were moving to government schools in Umtali. We were heart-sore about leaving the Vumba, which had been a happy place. Had the reason for moving—money—been explained to us, it would have been much easier to understand why we had to step-down, in line with our stepsister and stepbrother.

We moved to Umtali High School in January 1950. I boarded in Chancellor House, whereas Tony went to the junior school and boarded in Kopje House. From the outset I enjoyed Umtali High School, which catered for boys and girls. Unfortunately the subject levels I had reached at Eagle School were substantially higher than the grade into which I was first placed. I was immediately moved up a grade but, again, I had covered its levels. Any thought of elevating me further was rejected because I would have been two years younger than the youngest member. My brother was in a far worse position for having to stay at junior school.

By the time new subject matter came my way I was fourteen years old and had been in a state of idleness for over a year. Somewhat bewildered, I found myself struggling to learn for the first time in my life. Nevertheless, I managed to pass all examinations and moved up another grade with Jennifer, my stepsister. But instead of remaining in the upper academic stream, as expected, we were both placed in what was know as Form 4-Removed where subject levels were slightly lower than those being taught to some of our previous classmates, now in Form 4A. I did not understand this, but accepted that I would have to do another year at school before writing the Cambridge Certificate examination. Good results in these examinations qualified one for a Matric Exemption, which was crucial for acceptance into Edinburgh University.

On the 2 June 1952, my sixteenth birthday, the whole family attended a dance at the Black Mountain Hotel in the small village of Cashel. Any occasion at the Black Mountain Hotel was great fun, but this particular night turned out to be a depressing one for me. It brought about another substantial turnabout in my life. Dad chose that night to take me out into the cold night air to tell me that, with immediate effect, I was being taken out of school.

Schooling for Rhodesian whites was mandatory to the age of sixteen, so I could not have been removed before that day. But now Dad was telling me that my headmaster, Mr Gledhill, had told him that I was wasting my time at school and that I had no chance of gaining the all-important Matric Exemption needed for Edinburgh. Though totally shaken, I accepted Dad’s word, never realising that he was acting under direction from my stepmother who had absolute control over him. Another thing I did not realise at the time was that money was the root of the problem. I can only guess that Dad, who had used up most of his financial reserves to buy his farm and implements, was wholly responsible for Tony and me, whereas my stepmother, who was financially better off, following the death of her first husband, took care of Jennifer and John.

I worked with Dad on his farm, Curzon, which he had bought after selling Moosgwe and its lime-works. All was fine for a short while before things went horribly wrong. My stepmother decided I was too big for my boots for daring to offer a suggestion on how to improve the surface of the tortuous roadway leading up to the farmhouse set on the edge of a high ridge.

My self-confidence was already sub-zero when I was told I would be going to work for Freddie Haynes on his cattle ranch, Tom’s Hope, near Cashel. Dad said this had been arranged to give me experience under the care of a successful rancher. Later my stepmother let slip the real reason. She hoped that Freddie, an Afrikaner, would subject me to a hard time to ‘sort me out’. As it happened, Freddie and his English wife Sayer, together with his old father Hans Haynes, were very kind and I learned a great deal from them.

A strange thing happened whilst we were dipping cattle in the foul-smelling brown liquid of the deep plunge dip-tank through which the cattle had to swim regularly for tick control. Old man Hans Haynes had an Australian-style stock whip in his hand and, with a huge grin on his face, he told me that I could use the whip on him if I dived into the dip-tank and swam its full length. Being an Englishman I was certain this old-timer Afrikaner was inferring that I lacked the guts to meet such a challenge. Without hesitation I stopped the flow of cattle and dived into the tank. When I emerged from the slippery ramp at the far end I was choking and my eyes were burning badly.

The horrified herdsmen rushed to me with buckets of clean water, which they splashed on my face and poured all over my sodden clothing. When I regained control of my sight and caught my breath I went to the stunned old man and demanded his whip. This he gave me, then stood back expecting to be lashed. I smiled and handed the whip back before running off as fast as I could to a nearby dam to clean myself in an attempt to stop the awful burning that was consuming me from my head to my toes.

When she saw that I was sopping wet, unable to walk normally and reeking of dip, Sayer Haynes, who was a qualified nurse, became furious with Freddie and his father. She ordered me to undress and take a shower before inspecting my body in detail and applying dressings to awkward areas that were already raw and peeling. I stayed in bed for almost a week and was spoiled by everyone. The old man kept saying he was really sorry; that he had absolutely no idea that I would respond so rapidly to a challenge he claimed was made in jest.

Freddie Haynes had many outbuildings behind his beautiful home, with superb stables and all manner of implements and goods in storerooms. I asked him if I could use some of the poles and timber lengths stacked in one storeroom to build shelving in others so that I could get order into the hundreds of items that were in disarray. He welcomed the suggestion and was very pleased with the final result. In consequence of this, Freddie told my father that I was very good with my hands and implied that I should be in an occupation that would fully utilise this talent. For the first time in his presence, I broke into tears when Dad suggested to me that I should become an apprentice carpenter and joiner. Embarrassed by this emotional breakdown, I reminded Dad how I had always told him I wanted to use my hands for surgery.

Being the only young person on the ranch, I missed contact with my own age group. So, having given Dad’s suggestion some thought, the idea of going to town for an apprenticeship became more attractive. I moved to the Young Mens’ Club in Umtali and commenced my apprenticeship with Keystone Construction early in 1953. I got on well with everyone and did well in learning crafts that included cabinet-making, machining, joinery and site construction. I was able to see my brother Tony regularly, which was great, but I recall the envy I felt whenever he went off on his holidays to be with Mum and Berry.

Late in the winter of 1956, I ran from my work place to watch four Venom jet fighter-bombers of No 208 RAF Squadron. They were on a goodwill tour of Rhodesia and Umtali was one of the many centres the jets visited so to excite thousands of gawking citizens. All they did was a simple high-speed tail-chase inside the mountains ringing the town. But the sight and sound of those machines immediately decided me that the Air Force life was for me.

Right away I looked into joining the Royal Rhodesian Air Force but soon recognised two major problems. The maximum age for trainee pilots was 21 and a Matric Exemption was mandatory. For reasons I cannot recall, I made an appointment to see the company MD, Mr Burford. I wanted to tell him about my wish to be an Air Force pilot, notwithstanding the fact that this appeared to be an impossibility.

Of small build, dapper and very well spoken, Mr Burford always struck me as being too refined and gentlemanly for the world of construction. In his always-courteous manner he treated me in a gentle, fatherly manner. Before I could tell him of my hopes, he was telling me that the Board of Directors had decided to take me off the bench and get me cracking in quantity surveying—as a first step to management and later, maybe, to become an active shareholder in the company. I should have been pleased by such news but it all went straight over my head because it in no way fitted with what I had come to talk about, and I told Mr Burford so.

I told him of my original dream to become a surgeon and all that had happened to bring me to being an apprentice in his company. From the moment I mentioned having been taken out of school prematurely I detected agitation in Mr Burford’s face. Before I could get to the matter of joining the Air Force, he cut in to say he could not accept that my withdrawal from school had been based on academic limitations considering the results of my NTC examination reports, all of which he had seen. Without further ado, and in my presence, he telephoned my old headmaster. Mr Gledhill told Mr Burford emphatically that he had not told my father that I was wasting my time at school. He said, however, that he would update his memory from my records and phone back.

While awaiting the call, I told Mr Burford that I had lost all desire to become a surgeon and that, although I desperately wanted to join the Royal Rhodesian Air Force, I was faced with major problems. Firstly, I had no Matric Exemption Certificate and, secondly, application for the next pilot intake was already in train. If I failed to get into the force on the current intake, I would be too old for the next one.

Mr Burford could not reconcile my original desire to be a lifesaver through surgery with my current wish to become an airborne killer. I told him I did not see things that way and that I considered both professions were for the protection of life. Nevertheless he tried to get me back to thinking surgery and even offered financial assistance and accommodation with his brother who happened to live in Edinburgh. This conversation was broken short by the return call from Mr Gledhill.

The headmaster repeated that he had at no stage given my father any reason to withdraw me from school—quite the opposite. On file was a copy of a letter from him to my father urging my immediate return to school. On the basis of my overall examination results, Mr Gledhill said that I would have passed Cambridge Certificate and almost certainly would have gained the all-important Matric Exemption. Mr Burford then asked Mr Gledhill if he would be prepared to repeat that in writing, to which Mr Gledhill gave an affirmative reply. Mr Burford also asked if his letter could be addressed to Royal Rhodesian Air Force Headquarters, for me to include in my application for pilot training. Again Mr Gledhill acceded and, true to his word, the letter was in my hands the next day.

Through Mum and Berry I had met the Northern Rhodesian politician Roy Welensky at his home in Broken Hill. This happened long before he became Prime Minister of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. But now as Sir Roy Welensky, heading the Federal Government, he gladly provided me with the written character reference required by the Air Force Pilot Selection Committee.

Having filled in all forms, I rode out to Dad’s farm on my AJS 500-single motorbike to get his signature of parental approval. Dad was happy to do this but, while searching for a pen, my stepmother interrupted, “Not over my dead body will you sign that application form.” That stopped Dad dead in his tracks. I could not believe what I had heard nor could I understand why Dad would not stand up for me in what he had first supported.

Why was I being stopped from doing something that would be good for me and without cost to family? The sad look on my father’s face told the whole story. I deliberately rode off gently rather than expose my incredible pain and anger by storming off at high speed.

Although, up until this time, my stepmother had done all in her power to crush me, I shall be eternally grateful to her for giving Tony and me two fantastic sisters. In years to come, Brigid and Mary married Jock McSorley and Doug Palframan whom Tony and I both consider the greatest and most lovable brothers-in-law any man could wish for.

Everything was complete, but for Dad’s signature—I even considered forging it but changed my mind. Instead I returned to Mr Burford for advice and this resulted in a consultation with his lawyer. The lawyer pointed out that the unsigned signature block read PARENT/LEGAL GUARDIAN. He drew a line through LEGAL GUARDIAN and told me to send the forms to Northern Rhodesia for my mother’s signature. Mum signed the form in spite of her deep concerns, having lost two brothers to flying with her only surviving brother already serving as a pilot in the Royal Rhodesian Air force.

Mine was one of over 350 applications received for No 10 SSU (Short Service Unit) training. Of these only thirty-five applicants were accepted for the final pilot selection process at New Sarum airbase. I was lucky to be one of these and even luckier to be one of the eighteen candidates to receive instructions to report for pilot training on 3 January 1957.