OurStory

By Peter Langley

The MG TF was loaded with all my worldly possessions, they fitted into a couple of suitcases and in a box my prized collection of Elvis Presley long playing records, I think I owned every Elvis LP that had been released in Rhodesia. I left Fort Victoria for Salisbury on a windy, rainy day, the 2nd of December 1962. I was due to start with the Royal Rhodesian Air Force as a Clerk GD with the rank of Senior Aircraftsman, the same rank as a Lance Corporal in the army, on Monday. The wind was blowing in my hair, the rain had stopped and I was off on a new adventure. Just before getting to Umvuma I had my first “moment”. I had to get off the strips to allow an oncoming car to come by and the little MG decided to do a very fancy side-step. The rear end started to slide out and because of the mud on the verge the car and I were covered in great dollops of mud. A great piece of driving on my part to recover the back end and get us back on the two strips of tar that made up the main road to Salisbury. The windscreen was covered in mud, no fancy windscreen washers then. Stop at the garage in Umvuma, clean off the mud and on our way again.

I arrived at the guardroom at New Sarum air force base that evening and was shown to my temporary quarters. There was no room for me in the Airmen’s Mess and I was given a room in the Officer’s Mess. No contact was allowed with the officers and I had my meals in the correct mess as befitting my lowly status, the Corporal’s and Airmen’s Mess. After a few days I moved to my new accommodation, the Sergeant’s Mess. Again, no contact allowed with the senior N.C.O.’s but at least I had a room to sleep in.

Next step, I had to go for a medical at SSQ (Station Sick Quarters)l, I did all the “breathe in and out” tests, had my heart and lungs listened to, blood pressure taken, eyes looked into, ears illuminated by the doctor’s torch, things stuck down my throat and all the other required tests that a prospective recruit had to go through. Then came the colour blindness tests, I was given a book with a whole bunch of coloured blobs on each page and asked to tell the doctor what I saw in each one. I failed the test. The doctor wanted to send me home. Total despair. How could I possibly go home and admit that I had failed to get into the air force because I was colour blind. I explained to the doctor that I was only signing on as a clerk and would not be flying Vampires, Canberras, Percival Provosts, Dakotas or any of the other precious aircraft that the air force had at the time. He relented and I was allowed to pass on to the next stage of my recruit life.

Off to the Stores where I was issued with my kit, how I managed to get back to my quarters with that mountain of clothing, shoes, duffle bag, etc. remains a mystery to me. We were issued with every thing from No. 1 uniform to cuff links, collar studs and aviator dark glasses. I had no use for the dark glasses and I think I gave them away to one of the other guys who had lost his.

My room was next to the parade ground and the base Warrant Officer had a parrot that would give the orders for an entire ceremonial parade while marching around his cage, cross the floor, up the side, across the top and then down the other side. His sequence of orders was perfect and I am sure that it the S.W.O. had gone off sick with a sore throat the parrot could have taken over the parade without any one missing a step.

I was spared the routine of morning inspection, parade and then breakfast as I was to work in the Registry at Air Force Headquarters that was situated in Dolphin House, Moffat Street, Salisbury. Our transport left at about 7,30am and there was no time for us to engage in that form of entertainment. I was a glorified filing clerk working with a Sgt. and a couple of Cpls and SACs and 2 lovely ladies, civilians, who treated us younger “Erks” as sons. I became very friendly with Audrey Mathews who was married to “Captain” Mathews, far older than she. They had two daughters, Susan, who became a good friend of mine, and a married daughter who I never met. “Captain” Mathews had served in the Colonial Police Force and had been stationed in West Africa before he retired and emigrated to Rhodesia. They lived in a lovely stone walled house in Mabelreign and I was invited there on a number of occasions.

After shuffling files for about six months I was sent to New Sarum for a promotion course from SAC to Cpl. We had to learn to type, the pass mark was 25 words per minute and I managed to get through all that and the subjects that we as Clerk GD were supposed to know. We also had to do some “square bashing” for our passing out parade and with the dim memory of my school cadet days I managed to sort out left from right and to do an “about turn” without falling flat on my face. The high light of my stint at Ground Training School was “Guard Duty”. We had to report to one of the hangers used for parachute training. The Air Force had a couple of seconded R.A.F. parachute instructors. “C” Squadron, Special Air Service were doing their parachute training at New Sarum and all the “toys” were there. We used to jump off the static line attached to a huge fan in the hangar roof and come screaming down about 30 feet to land on a couple of old coir mattresses that were placed to avoid any broken bones. Totally against regulations but it was great fun.

I was on perimeter guard one night when I saw a figure carrying a lantern walking across the hard standing where some of the Canberras were parked. I shouted the challenge “HALT, WHO GOES THERE!” and not having received a satisfactory answer I stuck my Lee Enfield No. 4 Mark III rifle, with bayonet fixed, into his face and after scaring the life out of the intruder, marched him off to the Guard Commander. My first P.O.W! I was so proud of myself. It turned out he was one of the labourers on duty (in civilian clothing) and he was switching on the lights around the hard standing to warn aircraft that there were other aircraft parked in the area. In mitigation on my part, he did not have his “restricted area pass” with him so I was fully justified in taking him in.

The guard detail all slept in the hangar while on guard duty and we would be woken during the night to go out and do a stint. The worst duty was at the boom into the “security” area. It was winter, cold and lonely. No body to talk to, no place at all to sit and no smoking. Two hours of staring into the shadows left by the lights and seeing all sorts of imaginary threats to the country’s security looming out of the darkness. The midnight to 2,00am shift was the most dreaded.

There was a Spitfire Mk XXII mounted on a plinth just inside the entrance to New Sarum air base, this aircraft was later removed and completely re-built by ex-RAF Capt. Jock Mallock. It was later sent to South Africa and then sold to someone in the USA. What a loss to Southern Africa of a great aircraft. I saw one of the last flying examples of a Spitfire during a flying day at the Swartkops Air Force Museum in Pretoria shortly before it crashed, a total write-off. I also saw a Percival Provost trainer at Potchefstroom during a flying day there. That particular Provost last flew from Bulawayo before being “moth-balled” and taken off flying duties. I once saw an “accident report” on a Provost that had been landed rather roughly by a student pilot, the wings were bent up from the fuselage like those of a German “Stuka” and after a bit of straightening it was back on strength and flying again.

Some time later a Canberra came in for an emergency landing, its main wheels had failed to come down and lock. The pilot landed it on the grass alongside the runway and the only damage was to the two engine covers that got badly dented and scraped where they had come in contact with the ground!

While I was at New Sarum I had to take my Air Force driving licence. I was informed that all that the instructor wanted was for you to do a “proper” “U” turn on the road between the base and Salisbury airport. We duly set out in an old Bedford van, fortunately I had driven one in my stint with the Roads Department and was familiar with the gears and other controls. We approached a suitable side road, the instructor told me to turn around and go back to camp. I drove on until I was just past the turn-off, stopped and reversed into the side road, after making sure that there was no following traffic, again after making sure it was safe to proceed, drove forward and headed back to camp. I had been fully briefed by my compatriots and had executed the perfect maneuver. I was duly given my Air Force driving licence that was later put to good use.

I went home on leave shortly after this in the little MG. I was bowling along happily and just after going through Umvuma there was a loud banging and rattling sound right next to my left thigh. I stopped to inspect the damage. The engine mounting had broken and the front of the engine had dropped down lifting the back of the gearbox up so that the prop shaft was hitting the bodywork between the seats. A school friend of mine, Alan Heasman, arrived soon after this and after loading my suitcase into his Morris Minor, we continued on to Fort Victoria. I got hold of Doug Candy, an old family friend, and he arranged to have the MG towed into Fort Victoria where he welded up the engine mounting at the local Ford garage, Duly & Co. Ltd., where he was working as a mechanic.

During this time I bought a B.S.A. 500cc motorcycle from one of the Corporals. It was a “Gold Star” ex-B.S.A.P. and went reasonably well. The MG had been giving a lot of trouble, it would splutter and bang on the way in and out Salisbury and my mechanical knowledge was limited to making sure there was enough petrol, oil and water for the car to run. One of the other Cpls had an Austin Westminster A90 sedan and we came to an agreement, he got the MG and the BSA and I got the A90. I used the A90 for about seven years after this and it never gave a moment of trouble, all I did was give it regular services and change a couple of tyres in the whole time that I owned it.

At this time Air Force Headquarters was in Dolphin House in Moffat Street, a couple of blocks from the center of town with a few high rise office blocks close to us. The great moment came when we received our first two Hunters. Flt Lt Frank Gait-Smith, my cousin Valerie was married to him at the time, was one of the pilots. They had decided to “buzz” Air Force H.Q. and came screaming down Moffat Street just above the buildings doing a formation fly past over Air Force HQ. The noise was incredible, the first time the residents and workers of Salisbury had heard two Hunters flying low. It was a tearing, screaming sound that shook all the windows in the area. I noticed some workers washing windows on one of the buildings opposite us and when I looked in that direction after the Hunters had gone past I could swear there was one less on the platform they had been standing on, it was about 3 floors up off the ground. How he got down without injuring himself is a mystery but there were no complaints in that regard. Many other complaints came in about people almost having heart attacks, budgies collapsing and little old ladies fainting.

The mention of complaints reminds me of “Ma” Bogie, she was the widow of an ex-mayor of Gwelo and lived on a smallholding close to Thornhill Air Force base. “Ma” Bogie had chickens and she loved them. There were files in Air Force Headquarters dating back to the days of the Empire Flying School. There were at least five of these files, all crammed to capacity of letters of complaint from “Ma” Bogie. She complained that “those young men in their flying machines” were scaring her chickens and they would not lay their daily quota of eggs, not eat, were loosing their feathers, not crowing and all the other dreadful things that can happen to chickens. The advent of jet engined Vampires and Canberras was too much for her and her poor chickens. Then came the Hunters, they would scream over her chicken run on their way in to land and this sent them into an absolute frenzy. I am not sure how many of her prized laying hens died of heart failure but the compensation bill ran into many, many pounds. We were still on the old Imperial system then. Her husband had donated a clock to the town of Gwelo and it had a place of honour in a grand granite tower in the town’s main street. The Air Force was granted the “Freedom of the City of Gwelo” and the ties between the town and the air force were very strong.

We were allowed to go up in Dakotas in the evenings after work when they were doing “circuits and bumps,” practicing taking off and landing. The Daks had paratroop seats, fold up canvas slings along the sides and we would fold these up and try to run up and down the aircraft as it came in to land and take off again. Just standing in the tail area was nearly impossible but trying to run was totally out of the question, great fun trying it though.

I was given the task of escorting the Air Force soccer team, all members of the General Service Unit, guards and drivers, from Thornhill Air Force base to Bulawayo where they played against the RAR (Rhodesian African Rifles). We flew from New Sarum in one of the C4 to collect the soccer team and then on to Bulawayo. On landing in Bulawayo there was a loud bang from the undercarriage, one of the main landing wheels had burst as the brakes on that wheel had locked. Fortunately the main wheels were in sets of four and no real damage was caused apart from bits of rubber all over the runway. The soccer team were un-loaded and sent on there way to go and defend the pride of the Air Force against the “brown jobs” and we had to do a “chicken parade” down the runway while we waited for a spare wheel to be flown to us from New Sarum in a Dakota. I could not figure out why they didn’t carry a spare wheel under the wing or something. We had to wait about 3 hours before repairs were completed and we could take off on our return trip. We landed at Thornhill with no mishaps and then on to New Sarum. It was getting dark by this time and it was great to see the blue flames shooting out of the stubby exhausts of the Rolls Royce engines. The C4’s were later sold off after the break up of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland as we no longer had an overseas commitment and some of them were converted to vehicle carriers, the whole nose section was cut off and a loading ramp fitted in front with the cockpit above the new front loading doors.

Armed with my Air Force driving licence I was allowed to drive the staff cars and would occasionally drive the “boss man”, Air-Vice Marshall Bentley, to various official functions when Sgt Marufu, his normal driver, was off duty. I also had a great trip to the air force firing range near Que Que when the RRAF put on a firing display for all the big wigs to see how potent their air force was. I was one of the drivers who had to ferry the guests from the landing strip to the stands where they could watch the display. Once again, the faithful old Daks were used and we would load 5 passengers into the Ford Zephyr 6 Mk II staff cars and by skillfully dodging aircraft landing or taking off, ferry them to the tea tent prior to the display. We drove from Salisbury to the range the day before, had dinner at the range, slept in a tent and after an early breakfast, off to start our taxi duties. We had been briefed the night before how to avoid coming into contact with aircraft on the ground especially while the were using the runway to land and take off and were looking forward to playing “dodgems” with the Daks. We had to travel up and down the runway to get from where we collected our passengers to the tea tent where we dropped them off. Everything went off without a hitch and after “taxi” duty we joined the others to watch the display.

The SAS put in a parachute drop from some Dakotas and then together with the RLI who had been dropped in by Allouettes, attacked an enemy strong point with rifles, mortars and machine guns. The strong point was a collection of grass huts in a small clearing in the bush. The Provosts then came in to give close support to the ground forces, they were armed with bombs and machine guns and would dive in vertically like the German “Stukas” did in WWII to release their bombs in the dive and then come around again and straff the area with machine gun fire.

Then it was the turn of the Vampires to come in and attack a convoy of vehicles with their 20mm cannon. Some of the vehicles had petrol in them and very soon they were blazing away from the strikes by the incendiary rounds that had been fired. A concrete fort was later attacked by the Vampires armed with air to ground rockets. The pilots later told me that the Vampire was the most accurate firing platform to fly in the air force. There were soon bits of concrete flying in all directions. The Hunters came in and did a low level ground attack with naphtha incendiary bombs and cannon fire from their 30mm cannon. By this time the convoy and fort had been thoroughly destroyed.

A Canberra did a high level fly past, we could just make out the con-trail it was so high, the next moment a Hunter flew over the stands at ground level, stood on its tail, opened up the throttle and shot up after the Canberra. Within seconds the con-trails of the two aircraft joined together, the Canberra was “dead”.

It was now the turn of the Canberras, in the first attack two of them were armed with about 100 “alpha” bombs each, these are designed to hit the ground, bounce up about 6 to 8 feet and then explode, showering an area the size of two rugby fields with white hot shrapnel, not a place to be out in the open. The noise and blasts from the multiple explosions from the strike was very spectacular. Two more Canberras then dropped 1 000lb bombs about a mile away from us, the first had a contact fuse and on striking the ground it blew up with a huge ball of flame and smoke. It must have caused a lot of damage in the immediate area. The second bomb had a 25 second delay and was dropped on fairly soft ground, it went off after the delay and exploded with a huge bang. A great spout of dirt and dust rose out of the crater leaving a huge hole in the ground.
Some time later, in response to a challenge from the South African Air Force pilots, a galvanized dustbin was placed on the runway at the same firing range. A Hunter flew in at full attack speed, the inscription on the now chromed dustbin that later stood in the Officers’ Mess read “Two shots fired, one hit!”. A number of the other officers I knew were later to spend some time as guests of Robert Mugabe in Chikarubi prison for their alleged part in the sabotage raid on Thornhill when a number of aircraft were destroyed on the ground. By the way, the SAAF were never able to repeat the feat of knocking out the “Jungle Dustbin” as it was later called.

I later saw the full effect of an air to ground attack by Vampires firing rockets in the bush war. I had by then joined the BSAP “A” Reserve. A group of “terrs” had been chased into an area of granite kopjes “gomos” (mountains)and had gone to ground. It was difficult to get ground forces to close on them due to the close cover the granite boulders gave the terrs. It was decided to call in the “Blue jobs”. Three Vampires came in and fired air to ground rockets, then ran out
of explosive head rockets and came back for the next attack using concrete practice heads. The effects were devastating as the concrete heads burst open on hitting the granite boulders and the splinters went flying in all directions. Talk about “making a plan.” Sanctions were starting to bite at the time and explosive heads were in short supply. Not much was left of the “terrs” apart from bits of webbing and other equipment. A police PATU unit was involved in the final sweep to clear the area and no one was left alive to take to court and be charged with terrorist activities. The early days of the bush war was a police action and the BSAP were heavily involved but eventually the police were obliged to hand over to the army as they did not have the trained manpower to fight all the incursions that were taking place.

I was promoted to Cpl and made Orderly Room Corporal. A great job, part of my task was to make out duty rosters for guard duty, one officer and one non-commissioned rank, every night to guard air force H.Q. The greatest enemy we had to face at that time was the drunks who used to relieve themselves in the alley next to the building. I also had to type up Part II Orders that dealt with transfers, promotions, leave and all the other personnel functions the Station Warrant Officer and I had to cope with to keep ourselves busy.

Guard duties consisted of the Duty Officer spending the night in the Ops Room on the 2nd Floor and the Duty NCO staying in the Orderly Room on the 1st Floor. We were not supposed to mix with the Officers but I became friendly with some of them and we would spend a few pleasant hours chatting and playing cards in the Ops Room. The Duty Officer was not allowed to leave the Ops Room and we would order our evening meal and I would take it up to him when it arrived from the local café. I became good friends with Sqn Ldr Robbie Blair and Wing Cdr Marsh and when Sqn Ldr Blair was made Officer Commanding HQ Unit my life became far better. The previous OC HQ Unit, a Flying Officer, did not like me at all and made my life as difficult as he could. He retired and Sqn Ldr Blair, who later sold me my first insurance policy, took over. A few years after I had left the Air Force I gave one of my Alsatian’s pups to Wing Cdr Marsh. The pup turned out to be a beautiful specimen, light golden brown in colour and very well built.

Towards the end of my stay in the air force it was decided to move Headquarters to Milton Building. These were owned by the government and far easier to secure from a security point of view. Vincent Building, the home of the High Court, was just across the road. I was given the task of burning all the excess files and other papers that had accumulated over the years. Everything was loaded onto a truck and we went to the Ian Fleming Hospital where everything was burned in the hospital incinerators, this was the most suitable controlled environment available.

I “bought” myself out of the Air Force at the end of December 1964 for 20 pounds. I had signed up for 3 years service and had to buy myself out when I decided to leave before my contract had expired to take a better paying job with government. I started working with the Central Statistical Office and after a short while wangled myself a transfer to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

Peter Langley
5567 Cpl RRAF
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Thank you to Peter Langley for sharing his memories with ORAFs.
Tag: Rhodesian Air Force