In March 1963, Capt "Boet" Swart of the SAS was transferred to
PTS to take over as our new CO in preparation for Smudge's return to
Abingdon. During his time with us Smudge had received a well deserved
promotion - he arrived as Flying Officer and went home a Flight
Lieutenant. He and Robbie Robertson left us in about August of that
year. I remember Robbie most clearly in the familiar pose of hands on hips
and with an indignant expression declaring "Ye canna di it" which was
his regular way of dismissing any option which he considered impractical or
dangerous. Terry Hagan opted to remain in Rhodesia and his transfer from
RAF to RRAF was arranged.
My "Air Crew Flying Log Book" tells me that by this time I had
completed 95 parachute descents, but unfortunately it tells me little
else. The log book was kept to record only the official version of flying
duties and any personal notes or narratives were frowned upon. I never
kept any other form of diary so what follows is my random recollection of many
incidents. Dear Reader, please forgive my tardiness in presenting without
any attempt to arrange in chronological sequence. I will simply recount
my memories of the wonderful fellows with whom I had the pleasure of serving.
Smudge Smith, our first CO, was a quiet unassuming man who never tried
to act the 'hero'. He simply got on with the job and quietly applied the three
"F" principle of instruction to his command. We all knew who
was the boss, so there was no need for anything more than intelligent guidance
and warm encouragement for his instructors. It was a sad day when we said
goodbye to Smudge, but his presence was not missed. He saw to it that his
successor was well versed in his own style, and as a new boy at PTS, Boet Swart
followed smartly in his footsteps.
By his own admission, Boet would recognize that he was not the greatest
parachutist - but that was not why he was there with us. He was a natural
leader of men and the entire staff took to him immediately. Beneath a
"devil-may-care" attitude, which at times may have made him appear to
be a complete buffoon, Boet had the strength of character to get the job done
right. Most importantly, he acknowledged that in parachuting matters
there were more qualified and experienced men than he so he was never guilty of
making difficult decisions without first consulting his staff.
During his sojourn in Rhodesia, Ft Sgt Robbie Robertson had performed
the function of Training Officer. On his departure it was considered necessary
to make a permanent appointment for this post. We five PJIs were ordered to Air
HQ where each was interviewed by a by a selection committee. Derek de
Kock was selected and was commissioned as Flying Officer and he became Boet's
right hand man.
Bill Maitland was promoted to WO1 and continued in the role he had
performed since our return to Rhodesia - that was the administration and
organization of matters other than direct training. Bill would frequently
fly as despatcher on basic courses and in continuation training and on the odd
occasion, to keep his hand in, would be out on the hangar floor getting
involved in practical para training. He never missed an opportunity to
jump as drifter or after despatching trainees.
His background as a chippy, with experience ranging from fine cabinet
making to heavy construction projects, made Bill the ideal person to oversee
the many varied tasks which later befell PTS. He demanded perfection in
every job we tackled but he was not so pedantic as to refuse acceptance of a
job less well done than he himself could have done it. Provided the
completed article was safe and functional, Bill would stand back and declare:
"Yeah it's OK. A blind man would be pleased to see it." I
heard that phrase many times as PTS performed a multitude of tasks far removed
from the training of paratroopers.
Mercer Thompson decided that he would like to experience something more
than the static line parachuting as practiced by us at the time, so he joined
the Salisbury Skydiving Club. Despite being a very competent parachutist
he had an unfortunate landing and sustained a complex fracture of his right
wrist. This was set in plaster and, because of the nature of the break,
the cast enclosed his fingers and had to remain for a long time. Being
right-handed this was a set-back but Jock was not going to quit too
easily. Driving his Alfa with one hand was impossible, so off he went and
bought a great big Ford Galaxi - V8 motor and automatic gearbox. That
solved the gear change problem and steering was simplified by the large knob
which he had fitted to the steering wheel.
That was all straightforward enough - what really impressed me was the
way he persisted with other difficulties. Writing progressed from an
untidy scrawl to a most presentable script. Smoking, not so loudly
proclaimed as a health hazard in those days, was something that Jock
enjoyed. Flicking a cigarette from a pack of twenty directly to his lips
was soon accomplished but that's as far as the easy route went. He
scorned the simple efficiency of a cigarette lighter. I watched fascinated many
times as he would, with his left hand only, remove a box of matches from his
pocket and deftly extract one match. Then holding the box with his little
finger against the heel of his hand he would strike the match using just thumb
and forefinger. All done in one hand only and that not his normal favored hand
- I have yet to see another man with such digital dexterity.
Ivor Thomas joined us some time later. He had befriended Terry
Hagan when they were both working as PJIs at Abingdon. Ivor's main
interest after Parachuting was Judo and he held the grade of "Black Belt -
First Dan". The wall to wall spread of coir matting on a thick felt
underlay at PTS was a perfect venue for judo workouts so Ivor soon had an
enthusiastic following who would join him for judo instruction during station
lunch breaks and at other quiet times.
I had the pleasure of accompanying Ivor when the local judo clan
assembled at the BSAP Gymnasium to meet and "fight" a visiting
Japanese expert. This fellow was about the same height as Ivor but was at
least double Ivor's weight. They met in the middle of the contest area
and after the honored greeting of bowing and touching hands they engaged in
combat. Ivor was fast and nimble, but despite his speed, he was, just
once, thrown and pinned by his large opponent. On many other occasions
action seemed, to my untrained eye, to come to a halt as the pair stood with
muscles flexed and expressions of strain and effort on their faces. The
net result was that Ivor was upgraded to "Second Dan" as his
technique was judged to be that good and he clearly could have gained more than
one fall if only his opponent was not such an expert and had not been built
like a brick outhouse.
On one occasion whilst in Ndola, Northern Rhodesia, a small party of
PJIs, during a lull in exercise activity, visited the public swimming
pool. We thought we had the place to ourselves, so after a refreshing dip,
commenced fooling around with some basic judo stuff, and were also being
entertained by Ivor performing some fairly intricate gymnastic moves.
Then appeared a man who had been watching our games. He told Ivor that he
was involved in organizing professional wrestling bouts and that he was sure a
suitable opponent for Ivor could be found. "It's all a lot of show
really. Your bouts will be rehearsed to look spectacular - nobody ever
gets seriously hurt and it does pay well." The thought of extra
spending money for an 'underpaid' air force sergeant was attractive but Ivor
declined the offer.
At about this time Frank Hales
joined the PTS staff on attachment from the Rhodesian Army. Frank had
seen many years of service in the British Army having joined as a boy
soldier. He had served in Malaya so jungle warfare was no new experience
for him and he was very much at home in the African bush. He was an
experienced parachutist when he came to us, so fitting in was not difficult for
a man of his caliber, who very quickly picked up the additional skills to
function extremely well as a PJI.
Boet Swart had been tasked with survival training for pilot trainees so,
typical of his uncanny knack for identifying staff strengths, Frank was very
soon his able assistant in this work. They would set off together with
the cadets and spend a whole week or longer in the bush, having started with
practically nothing to eat or drink. But they survived - not only
survived but actually enjoyed each excursion. On their return to PTS their
tales of the many unsavory things they had eaten in the bush almost put the
rest of us off our food.
Frank was a quiet, mild mannered man who seldom raised his voice and
almost never resorted to profanity. His tales of action in the jungles of
Malaya always had the ring of truth and were never presented in a boastful
manner. He would always lead by example and the lasting impression was -
never ask another to do what you yourself could not do. On the odd
occasion when he felt he had been let down or wronged by someone, Frank would
quietly utter his favourite curse: ":May his balls turn square and chip on
the corners." Very painful I should imagine.
Another area where Frank was most useful was on attachment as a
temporary instructor at the Outward Bound School in Melsetter. Persuaded
by Frank's glowing reports of his visits to this mountain region of Rhodesia, I
was, after qualifying as an assistant PTI, also able to inveigle the
authorities to allow me to perform the same function. I made two visits
to Outward Bound and on each I was assigned a section of what was described as
a standard male course - that is lads aged 18 to 25. I was kept quite
busy for three weeks instructing in basic fitness training, rock climbing,
abseiling, map reading and other necessary skills.
In addition to work at the School's well-appointed base camp we walked
for days deep into the mountains in the neighboring territory of Mozambique
sleeping under the stars for nights on end. Those wonderful days were
filled with exciting sightings of game animals ranging from elephant, leopard,
a great variety of antelope, warthogs, porcupine and the ever present
baboon. The Chimanimani Mountains and the deep valleys were clothed in heavy,
almost jungle-like forests of massive indigenous trees - mainly mahogany.
The game, seldom disturbed and never hunted, seemed oblivious to our intrusion
into their territory. I doubt if this region will ever return to
such verdant splendor after the devastation of the war that followed. I
am told that after hostilities ceased huge areas of these beautiful forests
were stripped of hardwood and the game is definitely a thing of the past.
At the dissolution of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, end of
1963, all serving members of the forces were given the choice of either leaving
the service or continuing to serve in the country of their choice provided a
suitable post was available. Most of the officers and a large number of
the enlisted men opted to leave the SAS. The greatly depleted squadron
was re-located in the old WW2 RAF Air Training Group barracks in Cranbourne,
Salisbury. Recruiting began in earnest to bring the squadron up to
strength.
Demands on basic para training reverted to much the same as in the
earlier foundation days, so PTS had to do something about increasing the number
of PJIs. A notice in Air Force Orders brought a number of volunteers. Of
this lot Tony Hughes was selected and, in due course, he joined our ranks. Tony
had served as a technician in the Radio Branch and, prior to this course, he
had no parachuting experience, but his infectious good humour, and
determination to succeed, saw him through to the stage of being awarded the
coveted brevet. Other para trained men from the SAS and other army units volunteered
for training as PJIs and over the next few years we were joined by John
Boynton, Ralph Moore, Charlie Buchan, Mike Whiltshire and Ian Bowen.
As things became more serious it became necessary for Rhodesia to
increase the numbers of her combat aircraft. Our original PTS was set-up
in half of a hangar shared by No 7 Squadron (helicopters). They needed
more space so we moved. Our training area fitted neatly into one half of
the standard hangar so the same set-up was organized in the No3 Squadron
area. This made more sense as that was the transport squadron with whom
we were constantly working. So once again PJIs were called upon to
demonstrate their multiple skills but not to the same extent. Technicians
from the Ground Equipment Section did a lot of the moving and re-installing
work.
Once the SAS were again back up to almost full strength, the demands on
PTS were lessened, so we had time to consider other requests for our specialist
skills. The Safety Equipment Section was manned by males, unlike in the UK
where parachute packing had been done almost entirely by the Woman's Branch of
the RAF. Our fellows had for some time been requesting permission to do a basic
course and to experience the end result of their attention to detail when
packing our parachutes. This was eventually granted and volunteers from
Safety Equipment were given the chance.
Pilot trainees had, as a matter of course, spent time at PTS where they
learned how to control the parachute canopy, and how to make the proper
parachute landing fall, but that's as far as it went - ground training
only. Air HQ had some doubts about allowing their valuable air crew risk
injury by making a parachute descent, hence the ground training only
limit. Finally it was ruled that selected air crew could make one descent
but, to eliminate risk of injury, that had to be into water. Of course
rank does have its privileges so the first bunch included a disproportionate
number of senior officers.
That was a new experience for our sergeant instructors. Group
Captains, Wing Commanders and the like were alien beings who were to be saluted
and not addressed unless spoken to. Now here they were for instruction by
sergeant instructors. In true Rhodesian spirit, rank and status was
forgotten and all entered the task in hand with only one object - get the job
done and do it right. We performed a couple of these exercises and with
the assistance of the Games Department who laid on recovery boats, a fine
memorable day was enjoyed by all. PJI dispatchers jumped after the
aircrew sticks and joined them onshore at the Game Warden's place at Lake
McIllwaine. Recovery vehicles had been positioned with a plentiful supply
of liquid refreshment.
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