RAAF Sabre/Indon Mustang Engagement During Konfrontasi.

[lauriebe]

Have been sent the link below by a friend in Oz.

The article deals mainly with ex-RAAF aircraft gifted to the Indonesian AF. However, around halfway through, the author mentions an engagement, during the Confrontation period, between an RAAF Sabre and an Indon Mustang flown by a Col Loerli Wardiman which ended with the shooting down of the Mustang by the Sabre. Details of the Sabre pilot are not given.

Stories appear in various threads on PPRUNE of downings of Indon aircraft during Konfrontasi but all seem to point towards C130s as the victims. None, that I can find, mention the engagement in this article.

I have also 'googled' the Mustang pilot's name but the only link to show was to the article in the link below.

Can anyone throw additional light on this engagement?

Plane gift reassuring gesture | Townsville Bulletin - Defence (http://www.townsvillebulletin.com.au/article/2011/11/25/285951_defence.html)

[BBadanov]

I have responded to this with more detail on an Australian site.

RAAF didn't give Indo P-51s (some were operated by NEI AF, and after WWII went to NEI, which became Indonesia).

If a RAAF knuck had shot down a bad guy, do you really think it would have been kept quiet for nearly 50 years? I don't think so.

There was no engagement. Yep, journos do write crap.

[Pontius Navigator]

It is unlikely that a P51 would have had a go at an F86. The Auri base nearest the F86 Sqns operated Fishbeds. Now that would have been interesting.

[Shackman]

When I first joined 205 Sqn in Singapore in late '69 there was crewroom chat of an incident when a Javelin 'saw off' a P-51 that had bounced one of our Shackletons during confrontation (and why the 'corkscrew' manoeuvre was still valid). However, I don't know how true the story was, and whether this may be connected!

[Rallyepilot]

Yo Shackman,

I have heard that story too. Shack cruising along minding its own business, P-51 with Indo markings appears on the wing, big questionmark bubble appears over the Shack until Captain tells the W/O to let HQ know, Javelin scrambles and appears on the scene, P-51 departs, Shack crew resume their eating and sleeping routine, Javelin goes home, lots of beer and war stories in the Tengah Officer's Mess. True? I would love to know. :hmm:

[lauriebe]

BeBadanov,

Thanks.

All the references that I have for the Confrontation period indicate no actual shoot downs of Indon aircraft. I gave this article a little more consideration as it was written by a 'military historian' who appeared to have some mil experience.

Any chance of a link to the Australian site that you mention?

[BBadanov]

lauriebe,

ADF Serials Message Board -> Raaf Sabre Shoots Down Indonesian Mustang (http://www.adf-messageboard.com.au/invboard/index.php?showtopic=1820)

[OafOrfUxAche]

Shack cruising along minding its own business


If it was minding its own business, how come it found itself within interception range of a P-51?!

[Andu]

If it was minding its own business, how come it found itself within interception range of a P-51?!Have you taken a look at the Straits of Malacca and how close Sumatra is to the Malayan Peninsula/Singapore?

During Confrontation, the Indons quite frequently ran their (civil) Convair 880s at high speed over Sumatra in towards Butterworth to test the RAAF Sabres'/RAF Javelins' reaction times, always turning back before the Sabres/Javelins were ever in a position to catch them (probably at the border?, which was pretty close). (Not that I think that either type ever could catch a Convair 880 that didn't want to be caught without a very good lead - the Convair was a very slick mover if its driver didn't mind watching the fuel quantity gauges dropping at the speed of a whore's drawers.) They didn't try it, as far as I know, after the Mirages arrived, but by then, things had cooled down appreciably politically and the RAAF Hercs were overflying Indonesia between Darwin and Changi rather than going the long way via Perth and Cocos Island to Butterworth, as they were forced to do during Confrontation.

I have to agree with others; no matter how draconian a security/national interest muzzle was applied by the PTB, I don't think the Butterworth knucks could have kept it to themselves if they'd splashed a P-51 - or anything else for that matter.

[dmussen]

Never heard of a Sabre/P51 stoosh but the RAF did conduct an evaluation trial using an EE Lightning F. Mk. 6 and a Spitfire P.R Mk 21. Given that the 21 Spit was relatively close in performance to late model Mustangs they were trying to find out who could do what to whom and how to do it. I would love to read any conclusions that may have been reached. Anybody from 74 in Singers read the results as I assume the trials were done for your benefit.

[dalek]

In the late 60's, an ex Javelin instructor of mine told me that the Indonesians had lost a Badger bomber to the Javelins. When confronted by the Javelin close to the border it attempted a hard break, and flew straight into the ground. Can anyone confirm this? Or was it just crew room BS.

[lauriebe]

BeBadanov, thanks for the link. Use the ADF Serials site quite often but not visited their forum before.

[Deaf]

Maybe some confusion. Guess not during Konfrontasi and not Luly Wardiman and 53 years ago

[NutherA2]

Or was it just crew room BS.The only contact we ever made with the Indonesian Badger(s?) was shadowing it down the Strait of Sumatra, when they stayed on their side of the ADIZ border. On one of these interceptions, Colin Holman & Benny Baranowski were in close formation with the Badger taking photographs for some time and were within Indonesian airspace for a while; no overt hostilities from either side, though. On this occasion we were told that the Chief of the Indonesian Air Force, Omar Dani, was one of the IAF crew.

[Doors Off]

Just to throw some more fuel on the speculation fire.

I remember as a young lad overhearing my father who was RAAF aircrew talking to my Godfather. Hearing them discussing how my godfather was told he was going on a one way mission in a Canberra to Indon. "Yeah, I was told I was going to take off, fly there in accordance with the Nav's directions, drop our bombs and get as far back to the coast of Oz before we ran out of fuel, they would pick us up by boat, thank heavens it was called off"

Not sure what period of time they were specifically talking about. Unfortunately, they have both long slipped the surly bonds of the earth.

Doors Off

[Whenurhappy]

There were frequent incidents in the late 1980s with RAAF P-3s and Indonesian aircraft to the north of Australia. IIRC, the Aussies would fly right on the limit of Indonesian territorial airspace causing, not unnaturally, the the Indonesians to react reasonably aggressively. But they are all friends now...

[sycamore]

NutherA2, did Benny have his `hammer` with him ? He`d have been able to swing it and knock the Badger out..He was training one day on the `grass between the runway and an access road in Kuching when an Ops `Trabant` went past...shortly afterwards it came to a rapid halt and the driver jumped out thinking there was an attack...luckily for him it was Benny`s hammer which had gone thru` the roof and was now embedded into the rear diff.

[Wwyvern]

A retired RMAF pilot tells me that, during Konfrontasi, to the best of his knowledge, there was an Indonesian C130 shot down in the Straits of Malacca within Malaysian territorial waters. Fishermen recovered debris which proved it was a C130. It was not shot down by an RAAF Sabre, but by an RAF Javelin. He believs there are no records of this incident.

[Andu]

When in Butterworth, I recall stories of the Indons dropping parachutists into coastal Malaysia from a C130 on at least one occasion, and of the RAF Javelins being launched to intercept the Herc. My memory is a bit hazy on the details, but I think at least one such para drop did occur, for I recall that the parachutists (only a small number) were picked up by the Malaysians within hours of landing (in a swamp, somewhere near Malacca, I think) in a very sorry state.

Everyone at the top was very keen to downplay anything that might escalate matters, so there was no public announcement of this or any similar incursions. (I think everyone at the top on the Brit/Malaysian side were hoping Confrontation would just 'go away'.)

It was a similar situation a few years later with the Malaysians and the remnants of the "CTs" - (Communist Terrorists, leftovers from "the Emergency") - still roaming the hills (in VERY small numbers, I'd be guessing, and as much straight out bandits by then as a military/political force) to the north east of Butterworth. There was a story - (of course, unconfirmed, but it would have been around 1969, I think) - of the Malaysian army suffering a considerable number of casualties, (somewhere near 30 dead, or so the storyteller said), in one engagement with the CTs which caused such loss of face that the bodies of the dead were left in one of the Malaysian CH3s (of were they Seakings?) that sat out on a remote stand on the Butterworth apron for quite a few days in the tropical heat while the Powers That Be tried to decide who was responsible for them. The story went into pretty gruesome details about the state of that aircraft cabin when they at last decided to remove them.

All bar talk of course.

[TBM-Legend]

When I was at Butterworth in 1975 the CT's were quite active. Saw many Malaysian bodies brought back to there and the Nuri's [S-61's] hosed out at the base of the tower.

[Wwyvern]

Andu

In probably 1967, not later than 1968, a large party of Police Field Force officers was ambushed by the CTs in the area you indicate. 20-30 of them were killed.

[RedhillPhil]

Never heard of a Sabre/P51 stoosh but the RAF did conduct an evaluation trial using an EE Lightning F. Mk. 6 and a Spitfire P.R Mk 21. Given that the 21 Spit was relatively close in performance to late model Mustangs they were trying to find out who could do what to whom and how to do it. I would love to read any conclusions that may have been reached. Anybody from 74 in Singers read the results as I assume the trials were done for your benefit.

Wasn't this done when a foreign central American banana republic was threatening to invade a British banana republic? Seem to remember that the conclusion for the Lightnings were never get into a turning fight with a Mustang but give 'em a squirt of the ADENs from afar.

[Chugalug2]

Having flown our Hastings unescorted on our perambulations to the many DZ's along the Borneo frontier we were told that today we were to be escorted by a 60 Sqn Jav. We met their crew in briefing and were told that they were there in case we got jumped by an Indo. Mustang.
"So if we are, you'll shoot it down, right?". "Wrong, we'll be well above you and if we try to get him with a Firestreak, we're just as likely to get you.". "So what can you do?". "Very little other than give you moral support, I'm afraid. It's really down to you guys to save yourselves.". "Thanks for that, so what should we do?". "How slow can you fly?" "With x flap, about y knots". "How low can you fly?". "Very, if need be.". "How tight can you turn?". "Again very, given the need". "Well, do all three and we'll see what we can do in the meantime".
Happily this worrying scenario never occurred and instead after the drops we returned in close formation with them to Kuching for a run in and break. A Javelin on the wingtip with an obscenely high angle of attack while flying down the River Rajang is one of those memories that tend to stick.
Now, why have I come upstairs again.....?

[jamesdevice]

Lightning & Spit together here Spitfire & EE Lightning - LiveVideo.com (http://www.livevideo.com/video/FD14AF21196048E683A47974E9546B68/spitfire-ee-lightning.aspx)
allegedly for these trials
Doesn't show much happening though

[Wiley]

In 1973, while with SAR Flight at Butterworth, we did a training flight up in the hills to the east of Butterworth in the SAR Flight Huey B. (It must have been a Friday and the knucks must have declared it a 'no flying' day'.) The country was very much like PNG, quite beautiful - very thick jungle, really steep mountains, and just like PNG, within moments of the aircraft putting down in a clearing, however remote, people would appear, as if from nowhere.

I think it was only the next night, we had dinner with the CO of the Malaysian Nuri (S-61) squadron and mentioned the trip. He paled (no mean feat for a Malaysian!) and said: "You did what?!!! That area's full of CTs. We don't go up there unless we're fully armed."

It made me wonder who those people were we'd seen at every LZ. One of the senior knucks who was there made light of it, saying that the CTs had no argument with the Australians, just the Malaysians, so it was unlikely they'd have done anything to a RAAF Huey. However, (I think it was around 1972, maybe early 73), one of the SAR Flight crews (JD? Might have been Rastus. But I think it was JD) did find a well-constructed and obviously well-used (and presumedly CT) observation post in a palm tree overlooking the base, which caused some excitement at the time.

Rumor had it that Chen Peng (spelling?), the man who'd led the communist insurgency for the whole period of the emergency, was living (in a VERY nice mansion) on Penang at the time.

[JP1]

Never heard of a Sabre/P51 stoosh but the RAF did conduct an evaluation trial using an EE Lightning F. Mk. 6 and a Spitfire P.R Mk 21. Given that the 21 Spit was relatively close in performance to late model Mustangs they were trying to find out who could do what to whom and how to do it. I would love to read any conclusions that may have been reached. Anybody from 74 in Singers read the results as I assume the trials were done for your benefit.

This trial is described in the book "Spitfire - A complete Fighting History" by Alfred Price.

The conclusion was that the Spitfire offered a poor target for the Lightning's infra-red missiles and that such an attack would probably have to be followed up by a gun attack which would have been difficult in a high speed pass. Slowing down to the speed of the Spitfire would have enabled the Spitfire to out manoeuvre the Lightning in a dogfight.

The tactics developed was to take advantage of the Lightning's high power to weight ratio and attack from below and behind in a climbing attack. If the Lightning failed to get a lock with missiles or failed in a gun attack the steep climb was continued, which the spitfire could not follow, and when out of range dive and repeat the process.

Seems to make sense!

[dmussen]

Redhill Phil,
Not sure of such details but the slash and run techneque sounds like a good one. It is documented in one of my spitfire books as being the last time a Spit was called on in operational service. Trouble is I can't remember which book. I've got too many of them.
Cheers.

[lauriebe]

Posted by Wwyvern:

In probably 1967, not later than 1968, a large party of Police Field Force officers was ambushed by the CTs in the area you indicate. 20-30 of them were killed.

Wwyvern,

It was 17 June 1968 and marked the start of the Re-insurgency. I was in the last few months of my tour here at the time.

[Old-Duffer]

Are these the Field Force Police officers to whom reference is made above?

PC 1479Muhammad !Abdullah Bin Muhammad—PFF (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Operations_Force)Killed in an ambush during an operation in Bukit Berapit, Perak (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perak), as a result of the Communist Insurgency War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Insurgency_War).PC 2509Loh Ah Chu—PC 8365Bachik !Jalil Bin Bachik—PC 11401Mat Sidi !Ismail Bin Mat Sidi—PC 14892Mohd Adam !Nizan Bin Mohd Adam—PC 19839Mohd !Abdul Gahani Bin Mohd—PC 20239Bakar !Abdul Hamid Bin Bakar—PC 23086Chan Eng Teck—PC 24008Hussein !Mustapha Bin Hussein—PC 24827Othman !Mohamad Bin Othman—PC 25200Ismail !Hashim Bin Ismail—PC 25700Ismail !Abdullah Bin Ismail—PC 30449Ang Lock Say—PC 30758Abidin !Mohd Salleh Bin Abidin—PC 30833Amir !Ismail Bin Amir—PC 40281Daud !Abdul Ghani Bin Daud—

Old Duffer

[lauriebe]

OD,

It could well be. There are 16 names on your listing and there were 17 fatalities, with almost as many wounded, in the ambush of the 17th June 1968.

The mention of Bukit Berapit, Perak, puts the casualties in the approximate area which, in my reference, is given as near the town of Kroh, North Perak. The convoy they were travelling in was en route to Betong, Southern Thailand.

[Lordflasheart]

Confrontasi and Air Operations.

Contemporary scuttlebutt from my time in the area suggested that the aforementioned trials, presumably conducted in the UK, were principally to establish whether our heat-seeking missiles (Firestreak – and perhaps Sidewinder and Red Top) would acquire and home onto piston engine heat sources from their WW2 stuff such as Mustangs and Mitchells, rather than whether for instance, a Javelin could outmanoeuvre a P-51. It was apparently perceived that there might be a surprise attack, spear-headed by the jolly unsporting use of their old stuff at very low level. Given that our AAMs were designed for jet age targets and the gun was out of fashion at head office, there was concern that our stuff might not be able to do its intended stuff.

My understanding was that the trial results (around 1963-64) suggested things were better than initially expected. Whether that is the same trial as the so-far undated but more specific Lightning/Spitfire trial mentioned earlier in this thread, I have no idea, but I wonder whether there might have been more than one set of trials in that decade. I don't think Lightnings were based in Malaysia or Singapore as early as 63-64. That doesn't mean they weren't used for the trials in UK, but in theatre at that time it was Javelin, Hunter and Sea Vixen plus RAAF Avon Sabres. Bear in mind the confrontasi seems to have run from about 1962 to 1966 or so

There certainly seemed to be some concern about the Indon air threat. To that end our GCI radars were, or were to be (at times of tension) supplemented by multiple Mk-1-eyeball plane-spotters hanging out of a certain type of big slow transport that was said to resemble a flying (cond****inium) - I mean - block of flats. Presumably a) Someone knew where to best place the air warning orbits and b) The guys were given instruction on the "corkscrew" manoeuvre. Or c) Was someone pulling my p****er on this one ?

According to Wikipedia which has lots on the subject - referring to 1964 --
"On 2 September, three C-130 set off from Jakarta for Peninsula Malaysia, flying low to avoid detection by radar. The following night, two of the C-130 managed to reach their objective with their onboard PGT paratroopers, who jumped off and landed around Labis in Johore (about 100 miles north of Singapore). The remaining C-130 crashed into the Malacca Straits while trying to evade interception by an RAF Javelin FAW 9 launched from RAF Tengah. Due to a lightning storm, the drop of 96 paratroopers was widely dispersed. This resulted in them landing close to 1/10 Gurkhas, who were joined by 1st Battalion, Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment (1 RNZIR) stationed near Malacca with 28 (Commonwealth) Brigade. Operations were commanded by 4 Malaysian Brigade, but it took a month to round up or kill the 96 invaders and a New Zealand officer was killed.

Cross border air ops of course included the famous top-secret RMAF leaflet raid on multiple military bases on Sumatra and Java etc., in late 1964. (2.5 million leaflets) While it was fronted by RMAF F27s, the operation included Hastings and I imagine anyone else who wanted to go along for the fun.

Oh - and during that time I discovered that RAF 1000-pounders wouldn't fit on Navy bomb pylons. It was a long time ago, and tropical too. It wouldn't happen now.

LFH.

[Whenurhappy]

There is an account of the Indonesian insertion into Malaya in 'Tock Tock Birds' by Tim Hatton. He was dep Director Special Branch in Malaya at the time and on page 276 he describes the incident. There was no mention of NZ casualties - nor of the RAF splashing one of the C-130s. The Indoenesians were rounded up by Malaysian troops, according to his account.

At the time, he was 'running' a senior Indonesian General as a agent and this general reported that the pilot of the missing C-130 was son of the Indoensian CinC. I'll drop the author a line (he's still around) to see if he can shed more light on this incident.

[Whenurhappy]

I've had the dubious pleasure of trying to interview Chin Peng, Sec Gen of the Communist Party of Malaysia, and main architect of the 'Emergency' from 1948 - 60. As of 4 years ago, he was living simply in the 'international peace village' in the Baling Salient, just inside the Thai border. I waited for three days to speak with him but he refused to see me. He had a case going through the High Court and was concerned that any interview may jepordise his chances. He published his memoirs in 2004 (an interesting read) and was attempting to have his Malaysian nationality restored so that he could return to Penang and die amongst his ancestors. The Malysian Courts are having none of this - in part because he has never 'recanted' his deeply held Communist convictions, that lead to the deaths of many thousands of people. He tries to portray himself as a gentle, elder statesman, conveniently skipping over the brutality that he orchestrated during the Emergency, and in the 'wilderness' years afterwards when he ruthlessly cut down any ideological opposition.

Whilst waiting to speak with Chin Peng, I explored the area a bit and I did manage to crawl through one of his tunnel complexes that staddles the border with Malaysia. Not many RAF personnel can claim to have done that!

There are several references to leaflet dropping campaigns. There was an interesting article in the Air Power Review a couple of years ago about the impact air power had on defeating the insurgents - primarily through a well-coordinated psyops campaign.

[Wwyvern]

Lauriebe.

Yes, that ambush was reported in the Straits Times of Thursday 20 Jun 68. The earlier incident was not reported publically.

[Bushranger 71]

During the period of Confrontation, the RAAF deployed a Sabre detachment to Darwin in addition to reinforcing elements at Butterworth, with a detachment also at Singapore. During Darwin deployments (which usually were 2 month stints), we were tasked to do night practice intercepts to ID any potential intruders.

The Sabre was of course designed as a day interceptor with just a pissy little attitude indicator yet a very big centre pointer fixed card compass, so it was not great for night work. At left of the instrument panel was positioned a match box size little meter which displayed range parameters for Sidewinder firing when a lock-on had been achieved.

A pair of Sabres would launch and climb to around 40,000 feet, be separated by GCI with the interceptor initially about 2,000 feet lower than the target aircraft and hopefully about 2nm astern with both aircraft lights out – the vintage radar was not very reliable and sometimes had a margin of error of up to 2nm. A slow climb would be initiated to co-altitude while gently ruddering trying to get a Sidewinder tone. The idea was to then slowly close to 30mm cannon range on the gunsight radar; but there was no distance readout. With target wingspan set, firing range would be indicated when the wingspan filled the reticle, assuming of course you could see the target. Just what we were supposed to do next on an inky black night was never explained because if you dropped the wheels to turn on the landing light to ID a target, you would fall out of the sky. Some instances occurred where the interceptor would call 'Lights' when estimated within gun range and green and red halos in wispy cirrus appeared on either side of the attacker Sabre. '****!!!'; bunt and go downhill supersonic into inky blackness. Perhaps needless to say, we abandoned the technique as just too bloody dangerous.

We assumed but nobody ever told us that there had been Indonesian Air Force Tu-16 intrusions over Darwin. A now deceased colleague who later became Air Attache at Jakarta was informed by an old IAF pilot that he had seen the lights of Alice Springs from a Badger.