Gunship Over Angola

The flak jacket also severely restricted movement, and I generally discarded the ruddy thing at the first available opportunity. This usually happened after departing the battle scene for the helicopter administrative area (HAA), which was typically established some distance from the battle site to permit choppers to refuel and rearm and to allow the crews to grab a rare-grilled rump steak and chips (read: dog biscuit and battery acid) without drifting too far from the fight.

The approach to the target that morning took longer than usual, probably a full 30 minutes. This gave me the time to prepare mentally for the coming punch-up, which in my case simply meant three things: making myself as small a target as possible (not easy when you have three tons of metal plates in your shirt; trying (unsuccessfully) to forget that the wraparound Perspex windshield was only two millimetres thick; and considering (briefly) that most folks back home in the States were likely tucking into bacon and eggs or corn flakes at that very moment.

When the gunships were still around ten kilometres out, I could clearly see the Mirages and Impalas striking the target with bombs and rockets, and the anticipated response from the defenders lighting up the early morning sky like a misplaced fireworks display.

Although I had previously observed SAAF jets attacking a target and the response by the enemy’s anti-aircraft weaponry, that morning’s defensive reaction seemed a lot more intense than I’d seen before, and my trepidation increased. Eventually this caused my consciousness to become detached from my body and to locate itself ten or so metres away, so that I could observe myself going through the motions of flying the aircraft into the heat of the battle without concern for my well-being.

With two kilometres for us to go, the jets left the scene, the gunships climbed to their operating height of 200 to 300 metres and we spread out into a circle around the target area, ostensibly to take out any remaining resistance on the ground.

My initial impression was that the jets had done a good job. There were fires burning all over the target area, and sporadic explosions as exposed ordnance ignited. There appeared to be no enemy troops, however, which flew in the face of the anti-aircraft response we’d just witnessed, as well as that morning’s last-minute update from our reconnaissance scouts, who at 05h00 had reported the presence of 800 PLAN soldiers.

We flew in circles for ten minutes or so without anything notable happening, and then the gunship formation leader, Neil Ellis, instructed us to form four separate two-ship ‘orbits’ to the north, east, south and west of the target camp and to focus our attention on clearing the designated landing zones of any potential threats. This was to prepare for the arrival of troop-carrying Puma helicopters, which were just minutes out from disgorging their human cargo.

Richie Verschoor and I took the southern orbit.

The western orbit was taken by Arthur Walker and his wingman, Peter Hanes, who had arrived for his first tour on Alos just a few days before. Arthur Walker had a penchant for occasionally drifting off to look for trouble. Unbeknown to any of us, he flew off to look at something that had caught his interest some distance away and left Peter to do the boring work of circling over a designated Puma LZ, a patch of grassland around 500 metres west of the main target area.

At that moment, there was quite a bit of radio chatter going on as we tried to work out why and how the enemy soldiers had managed to evacuate the target area so quickly. Neil Ellis polled the older, more experienced gunship commanders, asking each for his considered opinion of the state of play.

During a momentary break in the radio chatter Peter Hanes calmly said, ‘Guys, I am drawing some fire from a 14.5 gun emplacement. Please would someone come and help me, as Arthur has gone off to play somewhere on his own?’

I remember thinking at that moment that Pete was obviously confusing the sparks from a burning truck with the lethal 14.5 mm trio of spitting death (a 14.5 emplacement was a battery of three 14.5 mm anti-aircraft guns, normally deployed in a triangle with the guns set around ten metres apart and each gun manned by a team of three). And, in any event, no one could be so calm and conversational while his backside was being shot at.

So, no one reacted to his request for help, although the radio chatter did briefly die down a bit. Thirty seconds or so passed and then Pete said, slightly more agitated but not so you’d become concerned at all, ‘Guys, I have taken out all three 14.5 guns. Please, someone come across here and I can show you where they are.’

Still no response came from the other disbelieving gunship pilots.

Another 20 seconds passed.