The Further Adventures of Alan Lowther (Armourer)

Hong Kong (July Hong Kong (July 1960 to January 1963) part 4

1962. In 1962 one of our number got himself mixed up with a bar-girl who was old enough to be his mother and had put in a request to marry her. This was refused and it started a run of incidents that took some time to work out that they were deliberately introduced rather than being normal faults or servicing errors. They culminated in a pretty miserable days air firing when I had decided, half way through the day, that this person couldn't be trusted after he had failed to reset the relays on the T.7 after the rearm and the aircraft got airborne with a full load and couldn't fire anything. After this he was put on the end of the runway for the plugging/unplugging and I thought, incorrectly, that he couldn't screw up anything out there. The first aircraft took off and a few minutes later it returns, can't get the wheels up. The aircraft lands and we de-arm and send it to the hangar where they do retraction tests, no problem. The aircraft comes back on line and we re-arm and off it goes again, same problem only this time I am watching the end of runway operator with the binoculars. I jumped in the Land Rover and went out to the unplugging point, when the aircraft lands I go to the port wheel well myself and find that the 5-pin plug had never been plugged in. Problem solved. The offending person was removed from the line and transported to the SengO's office where the situation was explained. The rest of the air firing went off without incident. The overall result was no more air firing or maintenance incidents and the person concerned was quickly posted to Gan to complete his tour.

I got a couple of trips in the T.7 (WV383) and on one of them we (pilot Fl/Lt Crichton) broke the sound barrier in a dive out over the sea. The Hunters gave us few problems although they didn't seem to be as well suited to the low-level round-the-mountains role as the Venoms, which seemed to be more agile. We had a wheels-up landing (Fl/Lt Crichton) due to only the nose and stbd main wheels coming down. The pilot elected not to use the emergency system, as he would be stuck with only two wheels if the reluctant one didn't extend, something he didn't want on a runway that stuck out into the sea. He made a perfect landing on the 100 gallon drop tanks, we lifted it with the crane, used the emergency lowering system and only two wheels extended. We got the other one down and the runway was cleared in quick time. There was minimal damage to the aircraft, drop tanks and a couple of aerials on the underside and it was flying again in a few days after stress checks and minor repairs.

At this time the local authorities were having big problems with drug and people smugglers who used very fast boats. The authorities had no boats that were a match for the smuggler's craft so the RAF were asked if they could help with their RSLs which were capable of well over 20 knots. The RAF said 'yes' and patrols were undertaken with RHK Police personnel on board. The boat was crewed by RAF personnel including one armourer who was in charge of the Bren gun on the foredeck. The Bren magazines were filled with ball and tracer ammunition to fire across the bows of any boat that was reluctant to stop when instructed. A large number of boats were stopped over a six-month period and a lot of drugs were found and illegal immigrants were arrested along with the boat crews. The local authorities eventually got their own high-speed craft and the RAF involvement ended.

On the flying side almost everything was normal apart from the fact that we had a spell of losing brake chutes. For no obvious reason the brake chute doors would open and the chute would disappear, as the release unit would operate at the same time. This resulted in the affected aircraft flying without brake chutes fitted until the electrical fault was rectified.

1962 was drawing to a close and it was time to submit choice of posting for back in the UK. I remember that one of my choices was St. Mawgan but not the other two. Eventually my posting came through and I was to go to St. Mawgan so I was quite pleased. My flight home date was to be 14th January 1963 on another Britannia of British United Airways to Stansted. In the meantime the daily routine continued and all was well until the Friday before Christmas, which was the last working day before the Christmas shutdown. I was running the line that day and strapped Fl/Lt Crichton into XE535 for the last flight of the day (year). The gunnery officer landed in one of the other aircraft and came over to say that there was thick fog over the sea and to stay local. Fl/Lt Crichton asked me if the aircraft was fitted with a brake chute to which I replied 'no' and the aircraft taxied out. After take-off he stayed local and did some aerobatics over the airfield before going up-country.

On the ground we were all sat in the sunshine waiting for the aircraft to return and everything not required had been stowed away for the Christmas break. After a while we heard the aircraft approaching from behind the ridge at Lion Rock and watched to see it pop over the ridge for a fast run over the airfield. Only it didn't pop over the ridge; there was a huge explosion and a pall of black smoke from the other side of the ridge. I scanned the sky for a parachute hoping the pilot had ejected but there was none. The RHKAAF helicopter was launched immediately and flew over the ridge to the crash site and returned to say that there was no sign of life. Guards were flown up by helicopter and stayed there overnight until we climbed up there early next morning to start the investigation. We took up everything we thought we would require; I remember I had a 4 ½ gall jerry can of water strapped to my back.

The crash site was about 200 feet below the top of the ridge and was a hole in the mountainside surrounded by various bits of metal. The Cpl airframe fitter had previous Hunter experience and his aim was to find the flapjacks and tail plane actuator. The rest of us just cleaned up the mess and it was bagged up and sent down to base by helicopter. We eventually found the flapjacks, which were in the extended position and the tail plane actuator, which was fully nose up. The airframe guy then explained to me his theory that, having been doing aerobatics prior to the accident, if the flaps were inadvertently left down, the faster the aircraft went it would eventually run out of nose up trim with the inevitable consequences. This turned out to be the case and was the reason put down by the board of enquiry as the cause of the accident. The pilot was due to fly back to the UK with his family at the same time as me. I believe his father was an Air Commodore. The funeral was held at the military cemetery on HK Island with full guard of honour and firing party.
We had another pilot, Fl/Lt 'Chunky' I'Anson who was a character. His bone dome was decorated to resemble a pineapple and I had some 8mm movie film of him doing a low, slow fly-by on the range in a Venom, with the canopy open and both arms outstretched in the air stream! I met him again at Chivenor in 1965 where he was a Qualified Weapons Instructor on Hunters.

I had a holiday in Singapore where I stayed with Pete Shaw (79th Airframes) and got to ride (Pete's) bikes. They used to have regular sprint meetings at Seletar and Pete used to compete on his Triumph 5TA. I also met Chris Conn who was riding the works Honda 250 four and was doing very well on it. Unfortunately I didn't get to ride that. Anyway, 14th January 1963 arrived and it is time to depart for the UK. Another long haul in a Britannia. Being only a few weeks after Christmas we weren't aware of the way the weather had turned in the UK and it was quite a surprise to land on an ice and snow covered runway at Stansted between banks of snow on the side. I'm still convinced that if we hadn't had reverse pitch we wouldn't have stopped! After 2 ½ years in HK the cold was bitter. The drive home was fairly uneventful and I had six weeks before I had to report to my new unit at St. Mawgan.