occasions, seemed to go straight over his head.
Some time passed when Odd Job, then operating out of Thornhill, was tasked to fly the Station Armament Officer to Kutanga Range. As well as being the S. Arm. O, Flight Lieutenant Don Annandale was responsible for administering Kutanga Range, whose staff he visited regularly. When he had completed his work and was ready to return to Thornhill, Don learned that Odd Job had told the range staff he would be showing them a slow roll before heading for Thornhill.
Don refused to board the Cessna saying he would use road transport to get home. Odd Job assured Don that he had only been pulling the rangers’ legs and that he had no intention of rolling his aircraft. Relieved by this, Don climbed aboard.
Once the aircraft was airborne, Odd Job climbed for height and dived for a fast, low-level run past the master quadrant hut. This was standard practice and Don did not worry about it. But when the aircraft was climbing away from the pass, Odd Job commenced a slow roll. He reached the inverted position all right but then scooped into a steep dive in the second half of the roll. The aircraft was too low and struck the ground in a high- nose attitude with wings level. Odd Job died instantly.
Don was thrown through the windscreen over the propeller and flew through the air surrounded by burning fuel that followed him to where he came to rest. By the time the three black crew of the fire Jeep reached him, Don’s rich red hair and his clothing had been burned away and his skin was hanging in sheets from his blackened, bleeding body. Amazingly Don was on his feet and got into the front seat of the Jeep unassisted. He urged the shaken driver, “Get me to hospital—I’m dying.”
The driver set off for Que Que, which was forty minutes away. He drove as fast as the Jeep would go but fifteen minutes out from Que Que the vehicle failed to negotiate a road bend, left the tarmac paving and went into a broadside before flipping over as the wheels struck soft sand. Once again Don went flying and crashed down in soft sand and rolled to a halt with sand and dust embedded in his suppurating flesh. The three black firemen were unhurt.
A farmer driving from Que Que came upon this awful scene and immediately turned around to take Don to hospital. On his admission it was clear to attending doctors that there was no hope of his survival because Don had third degree burns to over 90% of his badly battered body. He survived a couple of agonising days during which time he bravely briefed his lovely wife Pat on exactly what she must do when he was gone. Don’s grieving family and the Air Force were badly shaken by the loss of this superb officer through the harebrained actions of a stupid pilot.
Recce training and Willie de Beer
GROUP CAPTAIN DICKY BRADSHAW RETURNED from a liaison visit to Portuguese forces operating against communist terrorist factions in Angola. Whilst there he was given a briefing on the visual reconnaissance methods the Portuguese Air Force had developed for slow fixed-wing aircraft operating at 1,500 feet above ground. Dicky was taken on a recce flight to see for himself and was very impressed by all he saw and learned. Upon his return to Salisbury he lectured a number of pilots in the matter of visual reconnaissance. But only in me did he find a pilot who was genuinely interested in all he had to say because I had already experienced some recce successes, albeit conducted at low level in helicopters.
Because of this, Dicky Bradshaw tasked me to join No 4 Squadron on an exercise that Squadron Leader Peter Cooke was conducting in Wankie Game Park. My task was to introduce the fixed-wing pilots to visual recce. Though this was a pleasant enough task it really was a matter of the blind leading the blind because I had not yet acquired any experience in fixed-wing recce. Using my Alouette as a perfect platform from which to observe the ground, I was able to show 4 Squadron’s pilots how to correctly employ sunlight to follow freshly laid trails from the air. But it was impossible to simulate operational conditions such as I had encountered in Tete, so my part in 4 Squadron’s training exercise was really a waste of rations. Nevertheless it was good to spend time with Peter Cooke and his crews who were flying the newly acquired Trojan aircraft. I shall say more about this aircraft shortly.
I also met up with Willie de Beer who I had not seen since the buffalo hunt that ended in the death of the lone terrorist during Operation Nickel. Willie had a young lion that followed him wherever he went. This playful animal took a liking to my helicopter. Leaping in and out at every opportunity, he chewed any loose item he could find. This did no good to my flying helmet or my Air Force cap, which the brute tore to shreds.
The 4 Squadron technicians put the cub onto the flat rear fuselage of a Trojan with a view to taking a few photographs for the Squadron Diary. The little guy immediately ran up the fuselage, along the starboard wing and flopped down at the wing tip. A Lion beer bottle was placed between the cub’s paws for a snap shot. When developed it was submitted to Castle Breweries in a failed attempt to swell squadron funds from an envisaged Lion Beer advertisement.
The ever-playful cub became over-excited one evening and sank its teeth and claws deep into Willie de Beer’s back and shoulder. It was amazing to see how Willie managed to keep still whilst drawing the lion’s attention to a fly switch he flicked around. When the cub let go, Willie removed his shirt to inspect and clean up the wounds. I noticed that the puncture marks were very deep and black in colour.
Not too long after this Willie had two hairy encounters with full-grown lions. The first involved a lioness that wandered into his thatched home in the Wankie National Park and inadvertently cornered his frightened wife in the bedroom. A neighbouring ranger responded to her screams for help but was killed by the panicking lioness before she broke clear just as Willie arrived. He was knocked down and slightly injured by the escaping animal.
The next encounter occurred when Willie had to shoot a large lioness that was killing villagers’ cattle in the Tjolotjo Tribal Trust Lands. His first shot only wounded the lioness, which immediately attacked Willie and sent his gun-bearer running for safety. Willie had the presence of mind to ram his left arm way down the lion’s throat but he was being savagely clawed all over his body while his left arm was being mauled by the cat’s huge teeth. It was impossible for Willie to use his rifle as he frantically called for his gun-bearer to come back and help him. After a while the trembling man arrived. Willie, holding the gun-barrel to the lioness’s head, instructed his shaking gun- bearer to manoeuvre the rifeinto the right position before telling him to pull the trigger. His scars bore testimony to this awful experience, which he was lucky to survive.
Trojans
THE TROJAN AIRCRAFT THAT 4 Squadron operated was nothing like the Trojan aircraft originally ordered. During October 1964, AVM Bentley initiated inquiries through the Ministry of Rhodesian Affairs in Washington in his attempt to find a suitable training aircraft to replace our ageing Provosts. He made it known that such replacement
