Garth was a mountain of a man with a huge heart. He was also the very best FAC that I have ever had the pleasure to work with. He took it very personally if he failed to talk you onto the target (which hardly ever happened). When he decided to retire, the SAS persuaded him to stay as their own tame FAC.
I had spent the afternoon before he was killed, finalising IPs with him on East Falkland to facilitate CAS in the up-coming ground battle. He, amongst many other Specials had delayed until the last Sea King transfer to finalise plans for the landings and their sneaky part in them. A tragic loss made even worse by the fact that he had planned a huge p-u in his Oxfordshire pub after the conflict was over!
Tales of Garth are many but a couple spring to mind. After one FAC training mission in Belize (your target is a red combine harvester), he returned fuming because one of our pilots had beaten up his Land Rover. It wasn’t the “nought feet” flyby that annoyed him but the fact that the pilot had had the fuel dumps on! Cost said pilot many beers.
In the same location he used smoke (I see your green smoke!) as a target acquisition aid and was afterwards asked by the Belizean farmer why he had thrown a smoke grenade into his best hash field.
I don’t know what he was like as a transport pilot but as a man and a friend he ranked with the best.
Mog