CLIMBING TO THE TOP
FIGHTER COMMAND – AGAIN!
1955-1956
I was not exactly filled with joy when, on a cold dreary winter’s day in late December 1954, I arrived at Bentley Priory to take up my new post. As I was unable to move into a tied quarter straight away, I was depressed at the prospect of living a bachelor’s life in the mess for at least six months. Despite this gloomy outlook, I quickly settled down in ‘plans’ and soon realised that I had the best group captain’s job in the headquarters.
There was a very friendly atmosphere as most of the staff officers were friends who had fought together, had experienced the differing fighter rolls; and had served in most theatres of war. Together there was a vast amount of expertise to be called upon in the planning of a much smaller air force, which had to be adapted to changing world politics. Work was a challenge and a joy as effective plans were vital to contain the expected enemy attacks from the east. There were no signs that the Cold War was getting warmer and plans had to be made that would allow us to deter what we understood to be the threat from the Soviet bloc.
In this role I worked closely with Paddy Dunn who, as air commodore plans, was my immediate boss. Our job was to produce both short and long-term plans to counter the perceived Soviet threat. It was an awesome task. Our long-term plan was to improve our defences everywhere. The short-term plans involved our own Fighter Command stations where we had to make sure that our fighter airfields would be able to operate in the event of an attack on them.
In order to develop these plans, we had meetings with and briefings from all branches of the RAF, the army and the Royal Navy. We also visited the US Air Force bases, SHAPE, NATO HQ in Brussels, MI5, GCHQ in Cheltenham, and the communications station near Malvern. The result of these briefings and visits was the decision that, in times of tension, dispersal would be the solution for the fighter stations. It was further agreed that, to counter any attack by Russia, there would always be aircraft on stand-by for immediate take-off. Reinforced concrete-sided pens were set up on the perimeters of fighter airfields. Aircrew were at readiness day and night. Such was the nature of their job. Thankfully these measures were never put to the test.
The long-term plan demanded much thought and even speculation. Our knowledge of the threat, supplied by the intelligence agencies, was limited. This plan was naturally not published but remained top secret. Over thirty years later in l989, after the break-up of the Soviet bloc, when much was revealed about the Soviet military machine, it became clear that in its last years we had over-estimated the Russian capabilities. They had problems of their own too.
Whilst living in the mess I decided to reduce the boredom by practising my night-flying. For some reason I targeted West Raynham midweek. Imagine my surprise when I was called in by the AOA to be told that I was doing too much! In those days ‘desk wallas’were encouraged by the Air Ministry to keep up their flying skills by getting in as many hours as we could. Consequently, during my time at Bentley Priory I made every effort to keep up my flying, mainly taking a Meteor from Bovingdon. On one occasion in October 1956 I ‘borrowed’an Anson for a weekend trip to Scotland. The length of the runway at Leuchars was the sole reason I survived to tell the tale of this trip. Half way down the runway just after taking off, the engines of the Anson made a terrible clanking noise and cut out. I put the Anson down on the remaining runway just coming to a halt seconds before hitting the sea. The subsequent investigation revealed that the Anson had been refuelled with paraffin rather than aviation fuel. A potentially deadly mistake.
At the beginning of March I took up the offer of a ‘hiring’ in Dev-ereux Drive, Watford. After two months separation the family were again together. Het’s struggle with a large, difficult to heat, quarter had been lightened by our civilian batman – Steward (an apt name) – who had been allowed to ‘stay on’ after I left. We stayed in Watford for a couple of months before moving into quarters at the Highway in Stanmore. Elisabeth, whom we had left with friends at West Rayn-ham, joined us there at Easter.
At just about the same time two of our greatest friends also moved into quarters at The Highway, a small ‘patch’ of ten houses. Pete and Annette Brothers, James and Di Leathart and the Rosiers constantly provided any help needed by the others. We were all ardent party-goers and an excuse for a party came when, in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List on 9th June 1955, I was awarded the CBE. Subsequently we all kept in touch visiting each other frequently. Our children became close friends too. Fighter Command in l955 and ’56 was the place to be with its many official functions attended by all mess members. Non-attendance was unthinkable. Now I am told things are very different. Mess functions are very few and far between.
Bentley Priory was a happy place to work. During my time I was involved in disbanding the Auxiliary Air Force, but the work was not all destruction as planning for the future air force was my primary job. To keep in touch with the current thoughts in the workplace, I frequently visited our stations in the United Kingdom, and RAF airfields in Germany.
My two years at Bentley Priory stand out as a time of broadening my education. The constant visits and briefings expanded my knowledge of the desperate problems that were facing the UK at that time. Thankfully, our plans were never tested by the Russian hordes.
In June 1956, whilst at Bentley Priory, I was included in a delegation headed by the Air Minister Duncan Sandys, to visit Russia. This visit was undoubtedly the highlight of the posting. Earlier that year a delegation from Russia led by ministers Bulganin and Krushchev had been invited to the United Kingdom. One of the places that they and their experts visited was RAF Marham, a bomber station in Norfolk. Whilst they were there a suggestion was made that the RAF pay a return visit. To most at the time this idea was almost unimaginable.
However as a result, on 23rd June eight of us including the C-in-C of Fighter Command, Sir Thomas Pike, set out, accompanied by a large press contingent, into the virtual unknown as guests of Marshal Zhukov. We left Heathrow on a Saturday morning in a Comet 2. It was the first flight of the Comet since it was grounded eighteen months previously following the loss of one in the Mediterranean. I am told by my wife that there was a cloud of doom and gloom among the wives seeing us off that morning. However, my three children seemed very cheerful.
The Russians had arranged a most interesting ‘business’ trip including visits to the air academy and a nuclear power station, and very much ‘guided’ trips around Moscow and Leningrad (previously and now again St. Petersburg) where we visited the Winter Palace. We were much impressed by what we were allowed to see of these cities and even more by the ambassador’s wife, Lady Hayter, when, at a dinner in our honour at the British Embassy, she appeared not to notice that the contents of a bowl of hot soup had landed in her lap. We were most unimpressed with everything to do with their civil aviation. It seemed a completely ramshackle organisation. I had never been so terrified as when flying back in an Ilyushin 14 airliner from Leningrad, where we had been shown around an aircraft factory, we ran into an electric storm – quite the most violent I had ever experienced.
At this aircraft factory, a few miles outside Leningrad, we had been invited to question Mr Tupolev, the aircraft designer. In reply he said he had no intention of revealing any details of his new Tupolev bomber, as, during the whole of his recent visit to Britain, we had not shown or told him anything of any importance. He would therefore do exactly the same. The Russians would not equivocate as he was well aware we had done. We knew after this exactly where we stood.
The highlight of the visit, as reported widely in British newspapers, was an open-air reception given by B & K (Bulganin & Krushchev) in the Kremlin grounds. Being rather hot and tired, Air Marshal Broadhurst and I wandered over and sat at some empty tables set up under the trees. Soon B & K and their senior commissars arrived and sat down at the tables accompanied by Duncan Sandys, USAF General Twining and the head of our delegation, Air Chief Marshal Ivelaw-Chapman (DCAS). We were invited to stay. The eating and drinking, which started at 5.00 p.m., did not finish until after midnight. There were many toasts, drunk in Russian vodka every time. As B & K got drunker and drunker their accompanying speeches revealed how great was their dislike of each other. When the US Air Attaché, (who had been a fellow classmate at the US Armed Forces College in 1948) was caught pouring away a drink, he was publicly reprimanded being told, “We Russians would never do such a thing”. He immediately drank his refilled glass but honour was not yet satisfied. He was presented with another full glass which he had to down in one before a cheering bunch of drunken Russians. The press reported at length about such carousing – the likes of which they had never before seen.
In a letter to Het from Hotel Sovetskaya in Moscow on 29th June I wrote:
Darlingest,
The programme arranged by the Russians goes on until 3rd July (after we had planned to return to the UK). As the secretary of state felt that it would be wrong for the whole of the British team to leave before that date the DCAS and I have to stay.
It’s been an incredible week; an excellent air display on Sunday was followed by a reception at which I met B and K, Zhukov, and several others of the top rank. For the first hour or so things were reasonably orderly, in fact it was similar to a garden party – with Bulganin rowing the secretary of state on a lake. But then the fun started with B and K as central figures. Apart from a few speeches by the heads of delegations, these two held the floor almost continuously for three hours. At least fifteen toasts were proposed which meant for those sitting close fifteen glasses (full ones) of brandy. Broady, Bing and I had ringside seats and could hardly believe our eyes. Even the ambassador said he had never known anything like it.
On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we visited an operational station where we saw some of the latest types, an air force academy where engineers are trained in great numbers and an engine and airframe factory. In the evenings we had dinner with the air attaché, the ambassador and on Wednesday went to the Bol-shoi Theatre to see the opera Aida. This theatre is quite magnificent, contrasting vividly with the dowdi-ness of the people and the streets.
Yesterday we flew to Stalingrad in a VIP aircraft after getting up at 5.00 a.m. They reconstructed the battle for us and took us on a tour of the city. It was a remarkable day. The people are much more cheerful here than in Moscow. After another large dinner and several toasts we flew back to arrive at the central airport here in the dark and rather relieved to be safely on the ground again. Their technique of flying in bad weather is more hair-raising than ours.
After the main party returned to the UK, Air Marshal Pike and I stayed on for a few days. The press rang up my wife to tell her that I had not returned with the main party. As she has not yet received my letter she feared that I had said or done something wrong and was on my way to Siberia. She was even more upset when my so-called pals suggested that she was going to be the accompanying wife of the first RAF exchange officer in Russia.
On 3rd July we returned in a Comet to Hatfield and, as a consequence of having had to surrender all my allowance of roubles to the Russians, I had to buy the children’s presents from ‘Russia’ at White-leys in London. My wife showed little appreciation of the heavy Russian perfume which had been presented to us in Moscow. She indicated that she too would have preferred something bought in London.
On my return I was delighted to be told that I had been selected for the 1957 course at the Imperial Defence College in Belgrave Square. I left my post as group captain plans at Bentley Priory a few days before Christmas 1956.
IMPERIAL DEFENCE COLLEGE (IDC)
1957
The IDC was the foremost military college in the country. In 1922 a cabinet committee presided over by Winston Churchill, then secretary of state for the colonies, had advocated that representatives of the armed forces should work together and get to know each other. But it was not until l927 that the IDC was opened at 9 Buckingham Gate where it remained until its closure at the outbreak of war in l939.
During the Second World War many past students in key appointments all over the world had shown the effectiveness of their training at this highest level. Consequently, at the end of hostilities the government thought that this proven success of ex-IDC students warranted its re-instatement. It was re-opened at Seaford House, Belgrave Square in l946.
There we chosen few assembled in early January l957. There were about seventy of us. Predominantly service officers we were leavened by high-flying civilians. There were twelve army officers at brigadier/colonel rank and an equivalent number from the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, most of whom had known each other whilst working together during the war. Others had met at Latimer, the Joint Services Staff College, as students or directing staff. There were similarly qualified service officers from the military forces of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India, Pakistan and the United States.
We rather over-confident ‘service types’ were joined by a mixed bag of civilians. There were civil servants from those departments that had dealings with the services: the Treasury, Ministry of Transport, and the three separate armed services departments. Members of our Foreign Office and those of Australia, New Zealand and Canada were joined by a member of the US State Department, Coburn Kidd, who had been serving in the embassy in Berkeley Square. Among those we termed ‘odd jobs’ was a Hong Kong civil servant who professed he was delighted to be away from its hustle and bustle. Very odd we thought! Another ‘odd job’ was the chief constable of Lancashire, Eric St. Johnston.
In later years many of these like-minded people either worked together or were always willing to give advice or extend a helping hand. For example Eric St. Johnston certainly did over ten years later when he was commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. From Ankara, where I was the UK representative at the Central Treaty Organisation (CENTO), I asked him to issue an invitation to the army general commanding the Turkish police force to visit the Metropolitan Police. Within days the general with three henchmen and wives were off. On the eleventh day of what was supposed to be a meticulously planned four-day visit, I received a somewhat humorous but extremely rude signal from Scotland Yard. It stated that never again would he entertain any of my so-called friends. Although I never found out what happened I was sorry at the loss of Eric’s regard; however my popularity with the Turks knew no bounds. It was almost impossible to convince them that I was unable ‘to fix’ any more trips to London.
Our friend Coburn Kidd co-opted us into a number of his attempts to make friends with senior members of the Labour Party. I did not feel that we were any good in helping him; but I suppose I acted as a catalyst. We thoroughly enjoyed the dinner parties at his home in Pont Street. These had added interest when George Brown, the shadow foreign minister was there. He never failed to entertain and shock with his unorthodox behaviour.
A few years later whilst in Aden we greatly appreciated the periodic delivery of a Foreign Office bag which came on an aircraft passing through Mogadishu. This contained the freshest of grapefruit picked a few hours earlier in the garden of a fellow student, by then the ambassador there. In addition there was always a hearty welcome in Hong Kong for those of us who contrived visits there.
Apart from these frivolities, most of our future dealings with members of the course were of a serious nature. There was always a friendly ear in a key senior post with whom we could have ‘a quiet word’. We valued their opinions and their willingness to give any possible help.
The year at the IDC was meant to be a respite from responsibility: a time when we would broaden our knowledge of world politics and recharge our batteries in preparation for those greater responsibilities which we confidently hoped would be thrust upon us. The lecturers were of the highest calibre. We especially enjoyed challenging and occasionally rubbishing the theories which they expounded. We felt that this was what we were tasked to do. For my part I greatly enjoyed hectoring my former C-in-C at Fighter Command! During the year we went on two trips. One was an industrial tour taken just before the Easter break. I was in the West Midlands group based in Birmingham. We visited Dunlops, the Birmingham Evening Post and the small workshops of the jewellery quarter. We also visited a newly sunk coal mine in Staffordshire which had been widely acclaimed as the most modern and most productive coal mine in Britain. There we spent a couple of hours underground and were greatly impressed and filled with hope for the future of British coal-mining. Less than twenty years later that mine was closed, practically marking the end of coal mining in Britain.
The much longer overseas tour of six weeks took place during the summer break. I was detailed to join the group of ten destined for Pakistan and India which was a most interesting and educational visit. All was new to me as it was the first time that I had visited the Indian sub-continent. I never again visited India but returned to Pakistan for a seven-day visit in March l970 when I was the British permanent military deputy to CENTO in Ankara.
Before the trip began Het and I and the family had an enjoyable week besides the sea at Dinas Head in Pembrokeshire. There I was presented with a tie embossed with daffodils and saucepans whilst being elected a member of Llanelli Rugby Club. That honour had been earned by the fervent rendering of rugby songs at the local pub The Ship Aground.
In late July we set off from RAF Northolt in a Hastings tasked to deliver us wherever this fact-finding-come-sight-seeing trip was programmed. In each country we visited the most important bases of the three services; the capital cities of New Delhi and Islamabad, where it was hoped we would gain some understanding of the prevailing diplomatic situation; and in tourist mode the Taj Mahal, Amritsar and the Khyber Pass. In Kashmir we found it hard to reconcile the contradictory reports about the diplomatic situation of which we had a plentiful supply on our journeying round the sub-continent.
During this six-week trip I was buoyed up by letters from home with news of the family and in turn I wrote regularly. On 4th September I wrote to Het from Deans Hotel in Peshawar:
Sweetheart, and now for the diary.
After lunch at Flashman’s Hotel in Rawalpindi where for the first time I had a fool of a ‘room boy’ we drove out to the old city of Taxila which was in a fine state of preservation. This was followed by a cocktail party at the Rawalpindi Club.
The following day, Saturday, we were up early for a briefing by the army COS. My impression here is that the army is the dominant service. It takes eighty per cent of the budget revenues and certainly rules the roost.
That same morning we left in Jeeps for Murree which is about 7,000 feet up in glorious wooded country and the transformation from the heat of the plain is most marked. We went to the local services club where we were royally entertained by Haq Nawaz commanding a division there. I felt somewhat embarrassed when he held my hand for some three or four minutes. He asked after you and the family. After the dinner we were entertained by displays of tribal dancing. There were three teams, one Punjabi and two from frontier tribal territories. It was quite fierce stuff.
Next morning we set off for Muzaffarabad in Azad (free) Kashmir. Again, tremendous scenery with the Himalayas in the distance. For a great part of the way the road followed a wide, swift-flowing river but for the rest it was a succession of hair pin bends with sheer drops of thousands of feet on one side. On arrival we were given cold drinks and tea by the army before meeting the Kashmir president. He spoke at long length about the Kashmir problem whilst bearers kept bringing more and more tea (tea is a sign of hospitality). After a question period we were each presented with a carved walnut cigarette box.
The following day, on the way to Peshawar, we stopped at an ordnance factory for an inspection and tea. The next stop was an old fort at the junction of the Kabul and Indus rivers where we again had tea, and some twenty miles further the whole thing was repeated at a Cavalry mess.
Went shopping and bathing the first evening in Peshawar before being entertained by the air force at dinner. It was the first time our party was actually conscious that an air force even existed. Instead of a military band there was a jazz band, and women guests were present. This is almost unheard of in the army.
Yesterday, Tuesday, we had one of the most enjoyable days. After a briefing by the head of the Civil Armed Forces – a brigadier who was born a tribesman, we went with him up the Khyber Pass to the Afghanistan border. The Pass is better than I expected, picture book forts, tribesmen all carrying rifles and forbidding mountains. On the way back we stopped in the Pass at the headquarters of the Khyber Rifles. It was an oasis in the middle of nothing, beautiful lawns and flower borders and again an excellent band, but the same monotonous food.
Oh, I forgot to tell you, I was given a knife by the Khyber Rifles.
And now must finish darlingest, missing you and the children, but won’t be long now.
By early September I had had enough of travelling and was happy to be returning home. I know Het, who had coped with the children, albeit then only three of them, through the long summer holiday, was delighted to have me back.
At Seaford House frequent cocktail parties, film shows, and seminar parties were well attended events. Ascending the beautiful sweeping marble staircase seemed to add glamour to the occasions. Theatre visits were arranged and, chiefly for the overseas families, we took trips to such places as Kew, Greenwich and the British Museum.
The IDC course was a marvellous break from the usual routine of service life. For the first two months I travelled by tube from Stan-more to St. James’s Park at the gentlemanly hour of 9.30 a.m. Usually I was able to leave for home in mid-afternoon. Housing was the only problem. As the course lasted more than six months, Queens Regulations required that we vacate our quarter within sixty days. Having searched unsuccessfully for affordable accommodation in London we left our quarter at The Highway for yet another hiring at Coulsdon in Surrey. From there I had a train journey of an hour. I became a commuter, complete with bowler hat and umbrella.
To make life easier at Coulsdon we had a Hungarian au-pair recommended by Het’s brother who was on the staff of the International Interpreters School in Zurich. She proved to be an unmitigated failure –it quickly became obvious that she had made her way to England to take advantage of our National Health Service. She came to breakfast on the first morning with a large x-ray of her back. She requested the name and address of the nearest doctor and hoped that I would be able to fix some boards on her bed before nightfall! We knew immediately that we had been conned. Neighbours reported that the boys were playing in their pyjamas in the garden at 10.30 p.m., and we could not understand why a call at 7.30 p.m. was not answered. When questioned about this she explained that she had eased the burden of baby-sitting by retiring to her room with her ears tightly stuffed with cotton wool. She left shortly after to live with a Swiss friend. This episode I think added to our dislike of the whole ‘Coulsdon Experience’.
New schools had to be found for Elisabeth and David. Elisabeth, by now thirteen, had already attended six schools. We decided that the time had come to find a school where she could remain wherever I was posted. After visiting and rejecting Howell’s School, Denbigh, we visited Cheltenham Ladies College. The headmistress suggested that she should be coached in Latin prior to the entrance examination at the end of March and recommended a former Cheltenham classics mistress, a brigadier’s widow living in Kensington. There Elisabeth had two hours daily coaching for six weeks. On passing the examination she became a ‘Cheltenham Lady’ for the next four years.
In l957 special school trains were the order of the day. Paddington at about mid-day on the first day of term was a seething mass of uniformed pupils seeking out their ‘special’ which was already belching out smoke ready for the journey westwards to the nearest station to their school. David had a much shorter journey to a newly built elementary school. This entailed a five-minute walk. There he remained for just under six months until with great rejoicing on his part he returned to his former school on Stanmore Hill in October 1957.
On returning from the India and Pakistan trip, I decided to visit P staff in quest of my next posting. This was the first and last time that I ever did this. I was a believer in leaving such things to fate. I had assembled a number of reasons in favour of my being posted overseas. These I quite forgot when greeted by the AVM in charge who congratulated me on being about to get what he called, “the best job in the RAF”. It sounded pretty good to me although it was in London. I was to be director of plans in the Air Ministry reporting to the CAS Sir Der-mot Boyle. In addition, I was entitled to an Air Ministry quarter.
As a result, in October we moved into 16 Finucane Rise, on a ‘patch’ which had not yet been completed, at Bushey Heath between Stan-more and Watford. An ocean of mud is my memory of those early days there. David was able to go by bus to his former school in Stan-more while I once again took the tube to the IDC until starting at the Air Ministry in January. We were all glad to return to RAF quarters and to be leaving Coulsdon where we had made no friends. In fact we had the feeling that itinerant service families were not welcome to dwell amongst those folk in their leafy suburb. They had seemingly forgotten how thankful they had been less than twenty years earlier when they saw patrolling fighter aircraft from nearby Kenley and Biggin Hill. At Bushey, surrounded by like-minded friendly families, we felt we had returned home.
AIR MINISTRY AND MINISTRY OF DEFENCE
1958-1960
1958 started well with my promotion to air commodore and my new job in Whitehall as director of plans at the Air Ministry. At that time I also became an ADC to the Queen.
My first task in my new job was to mastermind ‘Exercise Prospect’. Tw o months of extremely hard work culminated in a three-day conference at Cranwell attended by the members of the Air Council and over 100 senior RAF officers and civil servants. The objective was to look ten years forward at what might be the global defence requirements of the United Kingdom and its overseas interests and thereby establish the RAF’s strategic priorities. The purpose was to ensure that the RAF’s structure, equipment and manning accorded with the intelligence picture and the government’s policy of maintaining a deterrent strategy against the Russian threat.
My team made an extensive presentation and concluded that strategically, both for deterrent and global war purposes, the main nuclear deterrent was probably best mounted in ballistic missiles dispersed among underground sites. I also suggested that on a limited scale, for political reasons, active defence of cities against Russian missile and winged attacks might be desirable. The team I led thought that limited wars, i.e. non-nuclear, were no longer likely. We thought that the most likely threat to the UK’s interests would come from comparatively small local disturbances particularly in the Middle East.
We argued that as missiles were inflexible the RAF would continue to require manned aircraft: a low-level bomber force, a fighter force for air defence and defence of the deterrent force, and an air-to-ground guided weapons system. We concluded that by 1970 the RAF would need a deterrent force of a minimum of 100 to 150 ballistic missiles, thirty-two V bombers, ten sites for anti-ballistic missile defence and thirty-two fighters for air defence of the UK.
In order to cope with local disturbances, we felt there would be an overseas requirement of thirty-two strike\recce aircraft in Aden and eight medium-range transport. The same would be needed in Cyprus to support the Baghdad Pact with the same again in the Far East.
Having made the presentation to the Air Council it was decided by the CAS Sir Dermot Boyle that we should make a similar presentation on 6th May at the Royal Empire Society’s Hall. In addition to the Duke of Edinburgh and service chiefs, the conference was attended by a selected civilian audience of over 300, consisting of ‘eminent civilians associated either directly or indirectly with the well-being of this country’–the great and the good –‘with the aim of outlining how the RAF was playing its part in the defence of the United Kingdom and its interests overseas’.
In his introduction to the conference, Sir Dermot Boyle told those at the conference that they had been included because there was great confusion in many minds about the present and future role of the RAF. “We feel that this is bad for the country and bad for the service.”
The conference caused a huge furore both in the press and in parliament as it was suggested that in ‘going public’ the RAF was ‘lobbying’ against the secretary of state for defence. Duncan Sandys’ final decision was to end the development of manned fighter planes and high-level bombers in favour of a nuclear deterrent carried by guided missiles. The press and the Labour opposition made much of this, questioning the constitutional propriety of ‘Prospect’.
This did not seem to worry the CAS who wrote to me on 7th May:
My Dear Fred
This is to congratulate you and your Exercise staff on the excellence of everything to do with Prospect 1 and Prospect 2.
I know the enormous amount of work that you have put into these projects but I assure you that in the event nothing could have been more worthwhile.
I congratulate you personally on the excellence of your individual performance and indeed the standard of acting by all the performers was first class.
You can now relax and get down to the simple task for which you have been appointed to the Air Ministry!
Again, very many thanks.
Dermot Boyle
The coup in Iraq and the assassination of King Faisal in the summer of 1958 resulted in the cancellation of our planned camping holiday in Europe as I was fully occupied with planning for different possible scenarios. As a result Het took the children to a caravan at Calshot on Southampton Water and I joined them in the mud at weekends.
Meanwhile in Whitehall, Secretary of State for Defence Duncan Sandys, as well as ending National Service was determined to cut down the power of the individual services and to centralise power within the Ministry of Defence. As part of this process Lord Mount-batten, who had become CDS in 1959, formed a new post – chairman of the joint planning staffs – and I was selected for the job, which started in July 1959. Previously the three service directors of plans had held the post of chairman by rotation for one month. As part of my new job as permanent chairman of the joint planning staff I attended all the meetings of the chiefs of staff and was responsible to Mountbatten for all operational joint planning.
I enjoyed working for Mountbatten. He was also most entertaining. At the end of our working day it was usually the practice for us to have a whisky and soda, over which we would chat. He told me many interesting stories, often enhanced by his great skill at mimicry. He explained to me that the reason he had returned to the Royal Navy as a captain, after having reached the supreme heights as viceroy of India, was that he realised he was becoming a megalomaniac and was beginning to think that everything he did was right. His standing and power in India had been such that no one had ever dared to contradict him. He realised that back in the navy he would be amongst people who would not hesitate to criticise his actions when they thought it necessary.
There was a widespread belief at that time that Mountbatten rejoined the navy as he was determined to be First Sea Lord to avenge his father’s memory. His father, Prince Henry of Battenburg, had been dismissed from that post at the outbreak of war in 1914. Popular clamour had demanded this because of his German name and ancestry. When I joined Mountbatten in 1959 as his director of plans, he had already achieved that ambition and more by also becoming CDS.
However, he had not forgotten how to make use of his position. This I heard being employed most amusingly in February 1960, a few days before Prince Andrew’s birth. The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh were to dine with the Mountbattens at their home at 2 Wilton Crescent. He had the idea that after dinner the Queen would enjoy being entertained by a team of performing dogs. (When I told my wife she said in an exasperated manner: “Poor Queen –men?!”She informed me that a woman in such an advanced state of pregnancy, and in the late evening, needs no entertaining – least of all by dogs.) These dogs and their American trainer were appearing at the London Palladium. However, after each performance the Ministry of Agriculture & Fisheries insisted that they returned under escort direct to their quarantine kennels.
Not to be thwarted, Mountbatten rang up insisting that he spoke to the permanent under secretary (PUS), whose name he well knew. He was told by the PUS that it was quite impossible for the dogs to be dropped off at Wilton Street. Upon hearing this, he asked for the PUS’s name as he wanted to be able to tell the Queen the name of the man who had refused her request (not his!) to see those wonderful dogs. Of course, she saw them.
Towards the end of August 1960, I was told that early in l961 I would be posted to Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers in Europe (SHAPE) which was situated at Fontainebleau, just outside Paris, for a job there as an AVM. Het and I were delighted with this news.
We were joined two weeks later at our bi-weekly chiefs of staff meeting by a senior general from SHAPE. On leaving he turned to me and said that he was looking forward to my arrival at his headquarters. Greatly to everyone’s surprise and my consternation, Tom Pike, by then CAS quietly informed him that the RAF now had different plans for Rosier. To me this was a complete bombshell. I followed him back to his office and asked that I be told there and then what exactly was this change of plans. I learned that I was to be posted to Aden as AOC Air Forces Middle East (AFME). I was delighted. To my mind a command job in the heat and sand of the ‘Barren Rocks’ of Aden, was far preferable to a staff officer’s job in Paris. Quite understandably my wife, who had been looking forward to living in Paris, was not of the same mind. Aden hitherto had been known as a ‘punishment posting’. Her instant reaction on hearing the news was that she was not going to accompany me. However, by morning she had decided that come what may she was not going to miss out on what was likely to be a great adventure.
I was told that although I would still be leaving the Ministry of Defence at the end of the year, I would not be taking over in Aden until the latter part of July. Meanwhile, I was to re-charge my batteries whilst preparing for my tour. I duly left the MOD after Christmas, handing over to Brigadier Powell-Jones, and was delighted to receive the CB – Companion of the Order of the Bath – in the New Year’s Honours list. The CDS wrote to congratulate me:
My Dear Fred
No-one has more richly earned the CB than you for so successfully establishing the hotly opposed and yet vitally necessary job of chairman of the joint planners.
I am sure this recognition will give equal pleasure to your many friends in all three services.
Mountbatten of Burma
Over the next six months I completed a three-week jet refresher course on Meteors at RAF Manby in Lincolnshire where I did not enjoy being known by the other pupils as ‘Fred the Retread’. I then spent a week flying Hunters at Chivenor. As my personal aircraft in Aden was to be a Canberra, I completed the Canberra conversion course at RAF Bass-ingbourn in Cambridgeshire. I also did a survival course at Portsmouth. In between all this I found time to redecorate the entire quarter at Finucane Rise, and had plenty of time to be a dutiful husband to a pregnant Het. Our third son, John, was born on 25th June 1961 and in mid-July I left my wife and family for what was to be one of the most enjoyable postings of my entire career.
On 18th July, after flying out to Aden, I took over from Air Vice-Marshal David Lee. After nearly five years in London I was very excited by the prospect of becoming AOC Air Forces Middle East which was probably the best AVM’s job in the Royal Air Force.
ADEN
JULY 1961-OCTOBER 1963
Middle East (Aden) Command with its headquarters at Steamer Point had, in 1959, become the first ‘unified command’, shortly followed by the Far East and Near East in Singapore and Cyprus respectively. Combining the three services under one joint commander had long been the aim of Duncan Sandys and the CDS Admiral of the Fleet Lord Louis Mountbatten.
At that time the C-in-C of Middle East Command was Air Marshal Sir Charles ‘Sam’ Elworthy, a New Zealander, later to become CAS and then CDS. (He was succeeded in 1963 by General Sir Charles Harington.) He was loyally served by ‘two star’ officers of the three services, Major General Jim Robertson, Rear Admiral Fitzroy Talbot and myself. The majority of the admiral’s staff were with us in Aden but he remained at his subordinate headquarters in Bahrain for the few months until his residence in Aden was ready for occupation. Having been built on a former gun emplacement, this became known as the ‘Round House’. The cost of constructing and furnishing this house became the subject of much criticism in the press at home in the UK.
Aden with its searing, unrelenting heat was of enormous strategic importance. It was home to the largest oil bunkering port in the world, handling over 5,000 ships per year. All the ships sailing from Asia to Europe via the Red Sea and the Suez Canal refuelled there. It was no longer regarded as a somewhat forgotten ‘punishment station’. Accommodating the men and the families of the fast growing Aden garrison had necessitated much building and construction work. Flats were built for the rapidly growing population of all three services. Roads were upgraded, one of these – wide and flanked on either side by tall blocks of flats occupied by the families of servicemen – was known as the Maala Straight. In 1962 a visiting ambassador from the Lebanon declared it was the finest road in the Middle East.
I spent the first three months in Aden ‘unaccompanied’ as Het had stayed behind in England for the summer holidays with our new baby and the boys. In September she sent our second son Nicholas off to join his elder brother David at King’s College School, Cambridge. Having ‘handed over’ 16 Finucane Rise, Het, Elisabeth, who had left Cheltenham Ladies College that summer, and baby John then travelled out to Aden on the troopship SS Nevasa, arriving in Aden in early October.
They joined me in our temporary residence No.11 Tarshyne where we were staying while Air House was being refurbished. This house was a colonial-style bungalow built in the thirties on a promontory above the sea, close to Government House. We spent Christmas there where we were joined by David and Nicholas for the holidays. Living close by in Tarshyne was the air officer administration Air Commodore ‘Bob’ Hodges and his wife Elisabeth and their two sons David and Nigel who became great friends, and the SASO Air Commodore Peter Cribb. (Air Chief Marshal Sir Lewis Hodges was in 1973 to take over from me in Holland as DCINCENT.)
In March 1962 we moved into Air House, high above Telegraph Bay. Flagstaff House, the residence of the GOC Jim Robertson – a former Gurkha – was next door. Further down the hill was Command House, the residence of the commander-in-chief, ‘Sam’ Elworthy.
My first ADC was Flight Lieutenant David Downey, a navigator, who hailed from Kenya where his family ran the well known Kerr and Downey Safari company. He was succeeded a year later by Flight Lieutenant Hugh Cracroft, a Hunter pilot from one of the RAF Khormaksar squadrons.
My driver was Corporal Nettle who drove me round Aden in great state in a Humber Pullman with the number plate RAF 1. The house staff was headed by Corporal Smith and included Ali our skilled and volatile Yemeni cook, Ahmed and Abdullah, the ‘bearers’, and the sweeper Mohammed. The statuesque Somali ayah (or nanny) Fatima was succeeded by the equally statuesque Medinah.
As AOC Air Forces Middle East my responsibilities extended from the Persian Gulf down through East Africa to Rhodesia and to the British protectorates of Bechuanaland and Swaziland and the crown colony of Basutoland in southern Africa. In addition, I had certain responsibilities for British Somaliland and Mogadishu. As a result I had two sub-headquarters in Bahrain and Nairobi commanded by air commodores.
I recall that we gave Somalia assistance in coping with the floods in l962 by dropping food packages. Imagine my surprise when visiting there I discovered that the head of state, like myself, had been educated at a Welsh county school. His Welsh mother had married a Somali seaman. We also had regular contact with Ethiopia where the air attachéwas attached to our HQ.
For transport I had my personal gleaming white Canberra which I christened ‘Queen of the Arabian skies’, and a Valetta, the RAF version of the Viking. I used the Canberra with my ADC as navigator on my monthly visits to the RAF stations in Nairobi and Bahrain. I also made frequent visits to the chain of RAF airfields along the Arabian coast and the Persian Gulf: Riyan, Salalah, Masirah and Sharjah.
My daily routine was to get to my office at the headquarters at Steamer Point by 7.00 a.m. Work for the day finished at 1.00 p.m., by which time I had often been home for a change of uniform. The climate in the summer months from May to September was oppressively hot due as much to the high humidity of eighty per cent or more as to the temperature which rarely rose above 100°F. After lunch we rested and then in the relative cool of the late afternoon there was much to do in either the sea or sun. There were two beach clubs for officers, one at Ras Tarshyne in the bay below Air House and a privately run one for senior servicemen and civilians at Gold Mohur, a little further along the rocky coast. Both had shark-nets. No one swam in the open sea. There were cinemas at the two service clubs, and an open-air cinema in the town close to the much patronised Charlie’s Fish & Chips.
RAF Khormaksar was one of the RAF’s largest stations. In l961 it was home to 8 and 208 Squadrons equipped with Hawker Hunter FGA mark 9s. My old squadron, 43, also equipped with Hunters arrived from Cyprus in March 1963. In addition, there was 37 Squadron flying Shackletons, 78 Squadron flying Twin Pioneers, 84 Squadron flying Beverleys and 233 Squadron equipped with Valettas and Dako-tas. To increase the helicopter flight which consisted of only three Sycamores, 26 Squadron, equipped with Belvedere helicopters, arrived in l963.
In addition there was the RAF Marine Craft Unit, which included extremely powerful air sea rescue launches. These came in useful for weekend boat trips to swim and picnic at a group of rocks known as the Blue Grotto off Little Aden.
Most of the army were stationed in barracks in Little Aden which, until shortly before we arrived, had been a tented camp. Their role was ostensibly to provide protection for the BP refinery situated there. During our time the cavalry regiment was 11th Hussars, known as the ‘cherrypickers’as a result of their red trousers. They were followed by the Queens Royal Irish Hussars and then in early 1963 by 17th/21st Lancers. 45 Commando were also stationed here, as was 1 RHA. In addition the King’s Own Scottish Borderers (KOSB) and the Queen’s Royal Surreys were based at Waterloo barracks close to Khormaksar.
Although Aden itself stayed reasonably quiet all the time we were there, there were continuous operations in the Aden Protectorate and the Oman. In 1962 a civil war in the Yemen started with the Egyptian-backed republican coup. This prompted the beginning of civil unrest from nationalist and tribal elements, aided and abetted by President Nasser. For decades the RAF had been the instrument of British policy in the region and during my time the RAF was used to support the army whose convoys up-country to Dhala in the north of the protectorate were regularly subject to ambushes.
In September 1962, the crown colony of Aden merged with the Aden Protectorate states to become the Federation of South Arabia with its government headquarters at Al Ittihad on the road from Khor-maksar to Little Aden. Things were moving too in Africa and during our time in Aden Het and I attended the independence ceremonies in Uganda and Tanganyika. The governor of Aden was Sir Charles Johnston with whom I frequently played tennis at Government House.
My job regularly took me to Kenya where I had a subsidiary HQ at RAF Eastleigh commanded by Air Commodore Macdonald. I would return from these trips with the bomb compartment of the Canberra filled with fresh fruit including pawpaw, avocado pears and artichokes – virtually unknown in the UK at that time – and fresh flowers. Once, when we returned to Air House with some brussels sprouts, Ali could not understand why the memsahib had allowed herself to be palmed off with such small cabbages!
In order to get away from the searing heat of Aden we occasionally flew up for the weekend to Air Cottage which was a small house several thousand feet up in the hills close to the up-country airstrip of Mukeiras near the Yemen border. The house had been given to the RAF in the thirties by the local ruler in memory of an RAF pilot who had been killed while providing air support for the ruler. The lush green fields and the need to wear a jersey in the evenings made us feel we were back at home.
From Aden as a family we also flew to visit the island of Perim, a former coaling station 100 miles west of Aden and the island of So-cotra where there was a former RAF airfield. There we swam in crystal blue sea.
Frequent visitors in the form of defence reporters became a great nuisance. Chapman Pincher, the doyen of them all, stayed for a week with us at Air House. We looked after him meticulously and on his return to London the Daily Express reported that all was well with the services in Aden. We became great friends.
In August 1962, after David and Nicholas had arrived from school for the summer holidays, we all flew down to Kenya in my Valetta. Having spent the first night in Nairobi we drove north to Naro Moru near Nanyuki and the foothills of Mount Kenya where we spent a week or so staying in a farmhouse fishing for trout and visiting the local game reserves.
We then flew in a Pembroke to the Queen Elizabeth game park in Uganda where we took a boat trip up the Nile to the Victoria Falls and saw crocodile, hippopotamus and water buffalo. Next stop was the Ngorongoro Crater game reserve in Tanganyika –not yet Tanzania – where Charlie Chaplin was staying in the same hotel. Here we were guided by Masai tribesmen who showed us gazelle, zebra, wildebeest and lion. We then flew back to Nairobi where we saw cheetah and monkeys in the local game park and played a round of golf at the Royal Nairobi golf club before returning to Aden.
In May 1963 Minister of War John Profumo, and his wife arrived in Aden on their way home from Hong Kong and Singapore where he had been visiting the British forces stationed there. I do not remember why we put the Profumos up, rather than the army, but I do remember how great was the excitement of the Air House staff at the prospect of their visit. The only British member of staff, Corporal Smith, had undoubtedly overdone his description of the beauty of Profumo’s wife, Valerie Hobson, the well-known British actress. They could not hide their excitement at the prospect of meeting this young, world-renowned beauty. On meeting her, their faces fell. My wife immediately detected their disappointment. Valerie Hobson was charming and, I was later to discover, well versed in military matters. But she was no longer the twenty-year-old beauty anticipated by the Arabs.
The Profumos stayed at Air House for ten days whilst he visited the army in Aden and the Aden Protectorate. After John Profumo had delivered a well-received message to the troops over BBC Aden we saw them off from RAF Khormaksar on an RAF Britannia just after noon on a Wednesday in late May. I make a point of detailing this timing as two issues were involved. On that Wednesday the British press and the service authorities had been alerted that a scurrilous article entitled ‘The Love Life of the Forces in Aden’ was to appear in the Thursday issue of The Dhow, the local forces weekly newspaper published in Aden. A certain section of the British press immediately leapt into action. They were certainly in luck as the only weekly direct flight to Aden left on a Wednesday evening. Arriving early on Thursday morning they learned that the Profumo scandal had ‘broken’ in the British papers that morning. Against this, the Aden sex scandal stood no chance. It was very small fry compared with the sex life of Profumo and his friends – British and Russian. They waited impatiently and with increasing frustration in the intense heat of a May day until 10.30 that night when they were able to return on the same aircraft to Heathrow, and busy themselves with the long, drawn-out Profumo scandal.
The service chiefs were very grateful to Profumo. On leaving Aden he had promised to give them what help he could. He kept his promise! The Aden story –sensational as it was –would no doubt have provided material for various parliamentary questions, gravely reflecting on the morale (and morals) of the British troops and their wives and questioning the competence of their service commanders.
Some weeks later, when the Profumo name was worldwide news, the Sheriff of Beihan, the ruler of an up-country Arab state, questioned me as to whether Profumo was the same man whom he had met at dinner in my house. When I assured him that it was the same man he asked whether it was true that he would never again be a minister. When I assured him that it was true indeed, he vehemently asserted, “That’s wrong, wrong, wrong. It could happen to me, it could happen to you.”I had no doubt that it could have happened to this handsome, bearded Arab, generally reputed to have fifty-seven wives.
In March 1963, after spending eighteen months with us in Aden, where she was much in demand by the young RAF and army officers and by then a nineteen-year-old, Lis returned to the UK to start her nursing course at St Thomas’s Hospital in London.
In l963 Het and I visited the three territories in southern Africa for which I had responsibility. We flew on to South Africa where we stayed with Admiral Sir Fitzoy Talbot who had been with me in Aden. On our journey north we landed at Ladysmith where we visited Sailor Malan, a well-known fighter ace of the Second World War, who was in hospital there, suffering from the last phase of Parkinson’s disease. Sadly we could not understand what he said but his pleasure at seeing us was obvious.
The last stop was in Southern Rhodesia where we were welcomed by the AOC of the Rhodesian air force AVM Ralph Bentley who had served with me in 43 Squadron before the war.
During the summer holidays of 1963 we spent two weeks in Ethiopia where we camped next to the lakes south of Addis Ababa. It was here that David, then aged twelve, shot his first guinea fowl. We ended the holiday staying at the British Embassy in Addis Ababa where we heard the news of ‘The Great Train Robbery’.
Two months later in October 1963 we left Aden where I was succeeded as AOC by the wartime fighter ace Air Vice-Marshal Johnnie Johnson just as the insurgency began to hot up. We travelled back to England on the SS Canberra via the Suez Canal, Marseilles and Gibraltar arriving back in London in late October.