Dalgleish was clearly a great influence on King Hussein in his early, formative years, and a valued friend, comrade and adviser, as the former Honorary Air Commodore of ****ty Six made clear in his book, 'Uneasy lies the Head'.
The Murder of My Grandfather
".....Then my grandfather turned to enter the Mosque, and as he walked about three paces inside the main doors, a man came out from behind the great door to his right. He did not look normal. He had a gun in his hand, and before anybody could do anything, he fired. He was only two yards away but my grandfather never saw him. He was hit in the head and fell immediately. His turban rolled away.
I must have lost my head at that moment because everything happened right in front of me. For an interminable second the murderer stood stock-still; all power to move had left him. At my feet lay a white bundle. I did not even realize what had happened. Then, suddenly, the man turned to run and I tried to rush him as he made for the inside of the Mosque.
I was near the gate. As I lunged toward him I saw from the corner of my eyeand how strange that the eye and the brain have time to notice such details in moments of agitation and despair that most of my grandfather's so-called friends were fleeing in every direction. I can see them now, those men of dignity and high estate, doubled up, cloaked figures scattering like bent old terrified women. That picture, far more distinct than the face of the assassin, has remained with me ever since as a constant reminder of the frailty of political devotion.
All this happened in a flash as the murderer squirmed and darted this way and that. Shooting started from every corner of the Mosque and then suddenly the man turned at bay. I had a glimpse of his face; I saw his bared teeth, his dazed eyes. He still had the squat black gun in his right hand and, as though hypnotized, I watched him point it at me all in a split second then saw the smoke, heard the shot and reeled as I felt the shock on my chest. I wondered, is this what death is like? I waited but nothing happened; nothing, that is, except a miracle. I must have been standing at a slight angle to the man, for as we discovered later his bullet hit a medal on my chest and ricocheted off. I was unharmed, and without doubt my grandfather's insistence that I wear my uniform saved my life.
As the assassin in turn fell to his death, still shooting, I turned back to my grandfather's body. I was so dazed as I knelt by his side that I could only think in a fury, at the very moment when I had lost him, that most of those he had brought up, most of those he had taught and helped, had fled.
I undid the buttons of his robe while his doctor examined him, hoping that he was still alive, but it was all over. We covered up the body in the robes that had once been white.
We made a stretcher out of a carpet and carried him to the hospital. I wanted to stay, but a doctor gently urged me to leave and in the next room gave me an injection for shock, I was told. I still could not really believe what had happened until we made our way to Jerusalem airfield.
Suddenly I felt very, very lonely.
I stood apart from the others on the airstrip, for what could those around me say at this moment of disaster other than the conventional sympathies?
Alone on the runway., how I wished that my father was not being treated for his mental illness in Switzerland at a time like this. But this was my first lesson, the first of many times I have stood apart in the midst of my fellow men*
When I think back of my life since that day, I know that the price I have had to pay for position is not the unending work that I love, not the poor health that has dogged me, but a price much higher. It is that I have gone through so much of my life surrounded by people, crushed in by them, talking to them, laughing with them, envious of their casual, happy relationships, while in my heart I was as lonely as a castaway.
As I stood there, bewildered by what had happened, a man in Air Force uniform hesitated, then strode toward me. He had a rugged, weather-beaten face with strong teeth and sandy hair. Very shyly he said to me in his thick Scottish accent, "Come with me, sir. I'll look after you."
He steered me to a twin-engined Air Force plane, a Dove, and bade me squeeze into the co-pilofs seat next to him. Then he revved up the motors and we flew back to Amman.
The man was Wing Commander Jock Dalgleish, of the British Royal Air Force. I little thought, on that day when a page of history was turned, that two years later Dalgleish would teach me to fly, and that seven years later Jock and I, in a similar aircraft, would be fighting for our lives when attacked by Nasser's Syrian MIGs.
The next day I carried a gun for the first time in my life.
I have decided to start these memoirs with the murder of my grandfather since he, above all men, had the most profound influence on my life. So, too, had the manner of his death.
Learning to fly
Something had to be done about it, yet it was understandable that against this background, young men did not easily take to flying. If they wanted to belong to the armed forces, they joined the Legion and exchanged horse or camel for a Land-Rover or Bren gun carrier. I hoped that if their King became a pilot, others would seriously follow suit. How right I was!
I can clearly remember the day in 1953 when I decided to overcome the opposition I knew this decision would arouse. The Jordan Air Force was commanded by Colonel Jock Dalgleish, the same man who had flown me to Amman the day my grandfather was murdered in Jerusalem. ("Colonel" was his Arab Legion rank; he was a wing commander loaned to Jordan by the Royal Air Force.)
I realized the opposition would be serious, but I was determined to get my own way. It would be a good thing for me as a person and for my country. I had talked about flying with Dalgleish and many a time I had flown in the co-pilot's seat with him. One day I called him in and told him:
"I'm going mad in this office. You must teach me to fly."
Even Dalgleish, a dour Scot, was taken aback.
"But sir-r-r! You'll encounter all the opposition in the world!"
"I don't mind," I told him. "I'm going to fly. We will face these objections one by one. But I'm going to become a pilot."
For a time there was intense opposition, but gradually I wore it down. For a week or two I received almost daily deputations from political and other groups, from my family, from friends. I insisted there was no particular danger in flying; nothing in life is dangerous if one approaches it carefully; and I repeated what I deeply believe: that if you must die, you will die, whatever precautions you take.
In the end, I overcame all opposition and started to learn, though I was not told at first that I would not be allowed to fly solo. Flying with a co-pilot was one thing, but nobody would take the responsibility of letting me fly solo. (Shades of my youth when nobody in Jordan would take the re- sponsibility of giving me a driving license and I had to drive without one!)
The day of my first flight arrived. The Colonel planned a trip over Amman in a tiny Auster. I do not know whether the Colonel's idea was to make me give up my ambitions but he certainly gave me everything in the book on that flight. The Auster is a tiny aircraft, not very powerful, and he took me up for the most intensive hour of aerobatics I have ever experienced. I suppose it was in an effort to deter me. We looped, we rolled, we stalled, and as we came down to land I suddenly felt very, very sick. It was the one and only time I have ever been airsick. Many times since, trying out other aircraft, Dalgleish has, I rather fancy, done his best to make me ill again but I was always able to grin and say, "It's no use, Colonel. You'll never make me sick again." He never has.
Somehow or other I managed to climb out of the Auster, but to tell the truth, I did not know whether I was standing on my head or on my feet. The whole world swam in front of my eyes.
Dalgleish jumped out without turning a hair and every- body looked on as he asked me, in a voice deceptively casual:
"When do you wish to fly again, Your Majesty?"
I replied, swallowing hard: "Tomorrow afternoon."
It was partly a sense of pride, perhaps a stubbornness in my make-up, that made me say that. But though I loathed that hour in the air I was determined to continue.
I returned to the palace and awaited the next day. Almost immediately I forgot what it was like being airsick. Still, I determined there should be no recurrence of such unseemly conduct, and my duties that afternoon consisted largely of acquiring the best antisickness pills I could find. For quite a while after that first flight I used to fill up with pills in order to fortify myself and thus appreciate Dalgleish's intricate maneuvers.
All through June and July I was down at the airfield five days a week. The Colonel has said that I was a born pilot, but I disagree. Some people find it easy to master flying. Not I. I tried very hard to relax but I had a great deal of trouble with instrumentation. It was difficult to do so many things at the same time, and at first I was worried by my physical reaction. Flying did not help the sinus trouble from which I have suffered since boyhood.
What a wonderful time that was, learning to fly! In many ways I had been very lucky I managed to spend a few months at Harrow, then six months at Sandhurst, and now when learning to fly I was escaping, for a short time each day, from my official duties to the free and easy life of a young cadet again - this time in the Jordan Air Force. But more important than this was the fact that I was already helping to build the morale of that tiny group of fliers who provided the nucleus of a fine Air Force. It was a long, hard fight, and a difficult task getting our first fighters, but we succeeded and the day arrived when the Jordan Royal Air Force had its own jets and the men to fly them.
I flew about ten hours in that little Auster before we transferred to the larger and more comfortable twin-engined Dove. And I remember at one stage becoming very miserable. I started with excellent landings and then suddenly everything went wrong. I had a bad patch; my landings were not very good. I fretted and worried until one day Dalgleish said to me, "Don't worry, Your Majesty, you can never make good landings unless you make bad ones."
Some months later, in January, 1954, I think, my Air Force procured its first Viking, and naturally I flew in it. Dalgleish was converting to this new type of aircraft and as he learned the ropes, he made several bad landings. Then he made a particularly bad one. I had been waiting a long time for this moment. Looking at his downcast expression, I patted his shoulder and reminded him, "Don't worry, Colonel, you can never make good landings unless you make bad ones!"
After a month I was ready to fly solo, but I still did not know that this was forbidden. On the third trip in the Dove, however, Dalgleish got out of the co-pilot's seat as I was handling the aircraft, and as he moved back, told me:
"Right, Your Majesty, will you please land the aircraft."
Whereupon he went back to the cabin and firmly closed the door behind him.
I was slightly alarmed. Then I took a grip on myself and reflected, "Well, if that's the way he feels about it, I'm going to have a try at it."
And land her I did, and though I say it myself, landed her very well.
But though I was alone in the cockpit when we came down, it was still a far cry from flying solo. As we unzipped our flying suits, I asked Dalgleish:
"That was as good as solo, wasn't it? So when can I go up alone?"
He looked embarrassed. "I'm afraid, sir, we'll have to wait a bit."
"But why on earth" I began.
"I'll have to explain, sir"
"But there's nothing to explain," I remonstrated. "In point of fact I was flying solo, wasn't I? If I'd crashed with you in the cabin, you could never have helped me."
Dalgleish sighed, buttoned up his Air Force uniform, and then out came the whole story, which I had sensed though nobody had told me. He had been instructed that I must never fly solo.
I was too upset even to be angry. I returned to the palace crestfallen. And then I began to think it over. It was utterly ridiculous. It was like telling me I could not drive a car at a hundred miles an hour without a chauffeur in the back seat.
Yet I could not insist because, if anything did go wrong, the blame would naturally fall on the Air Force.
I decided the time had come to deal with this problem in my own way. The aircraft I flew was always under guard and everybody, from the mechanics to the control-tower officers, knew that in no circumstances could I fly solo. I bided my time and then suddenly my chance came.
I arrived at the airfield one afternoon to find everybody very busy. An aircraft had overshot the end of the runway.
It was not a serious accident, but everybody was far too occupied to notice me and there was nobody near my Dove.
Like lightning I got in and revved her up. I shouted to the engineer who ran toward me, “I’m collecting the co-pilot on the way."
This was good enough for him, but of course there was no co-pilot. In a few moments I was airborne. Soon everybody was in the control tower watching me, I enjoyed myself immensely. Now I was really a pilot. I circled the capital, looking down from my lonely cockpit on the city I loved so well I felt no fear - I was probably far less frightened than the men
in the control tower. I stayed aloft a considerable time and then came in and made a perfect landing.
That did the trick. There were no more restrictions, and I have flown solo many times since.
By now I have flown well over a thousand hours and in many types of aircraft. Soon after I flew solo, I converted to jets and started flying with the Jordan Air Force, adding an entirely new excitement to my life. I became one of a team taking part in firing competitions, aerobatics and formation flying. This is perhaps the most exhilarating flying I have
done. The intricate maneuvers forced one to think and act at double speed. We flew together in battle formation, in low-level attacks, and when each flight was over, what fun it was, back in the pilots’ mess, pulling off the flying suits, hanging them up, discussing the day's work, then waiting impatiently for the next day's exercise.
In all my flying hours I have been in many tight spots but only two slight mishaps. The first occurred just before I was ready to solo in a jet. We had a couple of Vampire T-ll jets and Dalgleish and I had just landed and were halfway down the runway when the port wheel collapsed. The aircraft slewed around and we slithered to a stop on our drop tank.
I had often anticipated a moment like this and wondered how quickly it would take me to react. I need not have worried. We were out of that aircraft in seconds.
The damage was not serious, but the R.A.F. Commander in Amman rushed up to the scene. He was a group captain, and he arrived just as we were trying to fix the wheel.
His comments were, I thought, a trifle patronizing. How had we crashed? Perhaps, he suggested, we had made our landing too near the end of the runway and had to retract our undercarriage to stop in time. The wheel had collapsed and that was all there was to it.
However, the group captain had a little trouble of his own before long. He had flown an R.A.F. Pembroke from Amman to Mafraq and on the return journey left Mafraq at 2 P.M. For hours nothing was heard of him. Finally, at 8 P.M.,
a search was started. Soon afterward the gallant group captain was discovered, feeling rather sorry for himself. On the way to Amman he diverted and decided to land on some mud flats near Azraq to see if there were any ducks around.
The only thing wrong with this landing was something that could happen to any pilot he forgot to put his undercarriage down!
But once on the airfield I was no longer a monarch. I became a cadet again and the free and easy camaraderie that belongs especially to fliers exists for me to this day. Inevitably I became on friendly terms with many men at the airfield, and soon with the Air Force when I started to fly with them. It is perhaps not difficult to understand how a reigning monarch, hemmed in by protocol, can experience in those hours at the airfield a glorious escape from the discipline of kingship.
I would drive myself to the airfield and very often slip into the house on its edge where Jock Dalgleish lived with his wife and two children. Sometimes we would have to wait for a flight, and so I would arrive unannounced to inquire about favorable conditions.
Occasionally these unofficial visits led to amusing incidents. I drove to Dalgleish's house one afternoon and his five-year-old son Bruce was playing outside. The Colonel's wife told me later she had assiduously instructed her son how to greet me, by walking forward, bowing and then saying, "How do
you do, Your Majesty?"
We were just drinking a cup of tea when the door burst open and in ran little Bruce. He stopped dead when he saw me. I could see him struggling to remember what he had been told. Then his face cleared, he smiled happily and walked toward the armchair before the fireplace, gave me the briefest possible bow, shot out his hand and shouted, "Hullo, King!"
I loved it just as, years later, on my first visit to the United States, I loved those ever-recurring cries of "Hiya, King!"
But then I genuinely love informality. I need it as an antidote to restriction which flying has provided.
Once when an R.A.F. plane was reported missing near Amman, I went out with Dalgleish on a dawn search for it. We decided to meet at Dalgleish's house at 4:30 A.M., but I was early, and when I opened the door Dalgleish was shaving.
I shouted out, "Am I too early?”
The Colonel's wife told me she was making tea and sandwiches.
"Good, I’d love some” I cried. Then I added: "You make the sandwiches. I’ll make the tea."
With that I headed for the kitchen. Despite a lot of argument she could not stop me. There is a moral somewhere in the fact that I wanted to brew a pot of tea at four o'clock in the morning. Perhaps it is that I believe so strongly that a king is really just the head of a family, and a servant of his nation. Right from the beginning of my reign I have fought to remove all barriers and live as a member of a family, or the team that is Jordan.
And when I offered to make that cup of tea, just before dawn, I had been accepted as a member of a team of fliers. The barriers were down. I had been allowed, for the moment, to forget I was a king.