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.
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 not 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.
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.
As Petrus alighted from the vehicle he was attacked by some of the gang with knives and was mortally wounded. Other members of the gang were attempting to drag his wife and children from the vehicle but Petrus somehow managed to get back to the driving seat to bulldoze his way through the road obstruction. He drove a short distance before dying at the wheel. The vehicle impacted the low verge of the road and stalled to a halt just short of a steep drop off the mountain’s edge. By this time all the doors had been locked from inside.
The terrified survivors knew the gang was back from their shouted abuses as they made an attempt to force open the doors. When this failed, the gang tried to light fuel streaming from the fuel tank damaged by the road obstruction. Thanks to wet matches and the timely approach of another car, the attack was broken off and the gang disappeared into the night.
Petrus Oberholzer was the first white man to die in an act of war since the Mashona Rebellion sixty-seven years earlier. The ZANU men responsible for his death were not yet armed with guns although these had become available to their Zambian-based rival ZAPU back in 1962. We knew that ZANU had started training in China in September 1962 so, considering the nature of the attack, it was feared that Mau Mau-styled operations might be opening up. These fears faded with time and armed offensives held off for twenty-one months.
Flying Wing Adjutant
IN AUGUST 1964 MY JOBS for Group Captain Whyte had been completed and I returned to flying instruction. My students were Officer Cadets Barry Roberts, Terry Jones, Blake Few and Steve Kesby. Teaching three of the students was straightforward but Blake Few suffered badly from airsickness.
I decided to apply on Blake Few the same treatment that had worked so well for Dave Hume. This time it was a dismal failure and I probably did Blake more harm than good because he continued to be sick, though less frequently. Nevertheless, this was enough to place his flying career in question. He transferred to Air Traffic Controller duties until, some years later, he returned to flying having overcome his motion sickness problem.
During the period of this course I flew two sorties with Officer Cadet Bill Buckle who I heard had the reach of an orang-utan. The average pilot had to undo his shoulder harness lock to reach over to the far side of the instrument panel to select two magneto switches for engine start-up. Bill could do this without unlocking shoulder straps, so far was his reach. Nobody could work out how he did it because he was a man of average height and his proportions were normal.
I had become bored with flying instruction and was longing for a posting. It came at the beginning of 1965 when I was moved to the newly established post of Flying Wing Adjutant. I was in this post for only nine months but enjoyed the break and was able to fly whenever I felt like doing so. I was also called upon to fly with Harold Grifths and Brian Jolley who were undergoing instruction in the Flying Instructors School.
