Wing Cdr Jock Dalgleish ...
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Edinburgh
Posts: 4
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Wing Cdr Jock Dalgleish ...
... was CFI at Edinburgh Flying Club in the late sixties's and early seventies but is perhaps better known for having taught the King of Jordan to fly and escaping from a pair of Syrian Migs in 1958 in a deHavilland Dove with the King on board.
This is the 75th year of operation by Edinburgh Flying Club and I am putting together a history of the club. Just wondered if anybody served with him and had any memories they would like to share to add a bit of background.
Thanks
This is the 75th year of operation by Edinburgh Flying Club and I am putting together a history of the club. Just wondered if anybody served with him and had any memories they would like to share to add a bit of background.
Thanks
You're six months too late for a first hand reminiscence - Jock apparently told the Queen's Flight Heron captains and co-pilots all about the incident at Benson, and I remember hearing about it that way. My QF source is now no more, alas.
Wing Commander John Dalgleish, Obituary
The Scotsman, Dec 6, 1999
Byline: CAMPBELL THOMAS
Wing Commander John (Jock) Dalgleish, pilot, flying instructor and former commander of Royal Jordanian Air Force
Born: 24 January, 1919, in Peebles Died: 29 November, 1999, in Edinburgh, aged 80
EARLY on 11 November, 1958, King Hussein of Jordan took off from Amman for Switzerland to visit his mother in a DH 104 de Havilland Dove, co-piloted by Jock Dalgleish. Thirty minutes into the flight and well into Syrian airspace, they were ordered to land at Damascus as they had no permission to overfly. Fearing capture and an attempt to force the king to abdicate, they turned back for Amman, only to be confronted by two Syrian MiG-17 fighters. Reluctant to shoot down the king, the planes tried to force them to crash by flying head-on towards them.
Dalgleish, an experienced wartime RAF pilot, took over and put the twin-engined Dove into a steep dive, manoeuvring at ground level across the landscape until they were safely back in Jordan.
Hussein credited his friend with saving the monarchy and his life. Quoted in a recent biography of Hussein, Dalgleish recalled mustering a flask of tea after their escape. "Using some plastic cups we were able to refresh ourselves with some of the finest brew ever tasted and, along with a Lucky Strike cigarette, there could be no sweeter moment."
His theory of a Syrian plot to capture Hussein was confirmed after the two Soviet-trained MiG pilots defected and confessed their orders. Hussein later described the incident as an attack on a head of state "as yet unparalleled in history."
Years later, the favour was returned. Dalgleish was working for David Lean, who was filming Lawrence of Arabia in Jordan, and had made a forced desert landing due to fuel problems. A plane started circling overhead and a radio message came through: "Don't worry, Jock. I'll be there shortly." It was King Hussein.
Jock Dalgleish will be remembered for his compassion, integrity and leadership, combined with an adventurous spirit of fun.
He is survived by his wife of 58 years, Davina, daughter, Dianne, son, Bruce, and grandchildren, Anthony, Lucy and Naomi.
JORDAN: The King Chasers
Time Magazine, Monday, Nov. 24, 1958
Jordan's King Hussein was off at last on his long-planned three-week vacation in Europe. With the man who taught him to fly, R.A.F. Wing Commander Jock Dalgleish, beside him as copilot, the young King flew his twin-engined de Havilland Dove, with the royal Hashemite standard painted on its stabilizer, humming high above the Syrian desert at a modest 160 m.p.h. Suddenly the Damascus radio crackled a warning that the plane had no overflight clearance, demanded the identity of its crew and passengers. The King refused and turned the controls over to Dalgleish, defying an airport order to land at Damascus.
Before they knew it. two Syrian MIG 17 jets swooped down in an "aggressive" pass. Dalgleish plunged the royal plane earthward, hedgehopped for 20 minutes as it fled back to the Jordanian border while the Syrian MIGs, flown somewhat amateurishly, made five more "quarter attacks" at the plane, but without firing. Landed safely at his capital city of Amman, King Hussein turned to Dalgleish, grinned: "Let's have some breakfast."
Furor in Amman. This lighthearted mood soon passed: the Bedouin-led Jordanian army, which had been poised outside the city in case trouble started in the King's absence, now wanted to march on Syria's Damascus. Troops swarmed in the streets of Amman, firing shots in the air, shouting: "Long live Hussein!" and "Hussein, we are your men!" Grateful citizens carried Hussein on their shoulders. Premier Samir Rifai informed the U.N. representative in Amman, Pier P. Spinelli, that the government intended to protest Syria's behavior to the U.N. Security Council. Jordan demanded an immediate meeting of the Arab League Council to take action. U.A.R. officials replied that Hussein's plane had been crossing Syria without proper clearance and had been intercepted by its MIGs in a routine and perfectly legal manner. Cairo newspapers ridiculed what they called "Hussein's heroics" and claimed his report of events was "a story dreamed up by imperialists for a child to tell the world."
Who's to Blame? Jordan's airport control tower at Amman had relayed the King's flight plan—from Amman to Beirut via Syria—as required by the international aviation regulations. But had anyone also obtained the overflight clearance through diplomatic channels required before the King's plane could cross a foreign border? There was an embarrassing silence in Amman. Someone thought the flight had been cleared through U.N. Representative Pier Spinelli. In a prompt denial, Spinelli snapped: "What do you think we are, a travel bureau?" The chief of the Royal Jordanian Air Force, Lieut. Colonel Ibrahim Othman, who still suffers occasional blackouts from head injuries suffered when he was caught and badly mauled by the Baghdad mob during the July 14 rebellion in Iraq, remembered having given someone an order to obtain diplomatic clearance from Syria, but failed to follow it up.
At week's end Jordan was still lustily celebrating the King's deliverance, as well as his 23rd birthday. Whatever the unpopularity of his regime, the festivities proved that he was personally popular, and admired more than ever now for having shown the quality of luck. Had he been killed over Syria, however, Jordan might now be plunged into revolution, and the Middle East into war. This knowledge kept everyone from laughing too hard at the great snafu.
"Over the next 18 months, Hussein survived two assassination attempts and a further attempted military coup. His prime minister was killed by a bomb in his office. One assassination attempt against Hussein was foiled because the cook who was to have been carried it out unwisely tested his potion on cats in the palace grounds. Another plot involved putting powerful acid into the king's bottle of nose drops."
Wing Commander John Dalgleish, Obituary
The Scotsman, Dec 6, 1999
Byline: CAMPBELL THOMAS
Wing Commander John (Jock) Dalgleish, pilot, flying instructor and former commander of Royal Jordanian Air Force
Born: 24 January, 1919, in Peebles Died: 29 November, 1999, in Edinburgh, aged 80
EARLY on 11 November, 1958, King Hussein of Jordan took off from Amman for Switzerland to visit his mother in a DH 104 de Havilland Dove, co-piloted by Jock Dalgleish. Thirty minutes into the flight and well into Syrian airspace, they were ordered to land at Damascus as they had no permission to overfly. Fearing capture and an attempt to force the king to abdicate, they turned back for Amman, only to be confronted by two Syrian MiG-17 fighters. Reluctant to shoot down the king, the planes tried to force them to crash by flying head-on towards them.
Dalgleish, an experienced wartime RAF pilot, took over and put the twin-engined Dove into a steep dive, manoeuvring at ground level across the landscape until they were safely back in Jordan.
Hussein credited his friend with saving the monarchy and his life. Quoted in a recent biography of Hussein, Dalgleish recalled mustering a flask of tea after their escape. "Using some plastic cups we were able to refresh ourselves with some of the finest brew ever tasted and, along with a Lucky Strike cigarette, there could be no sweeter moment."
His theory of a Syrian plot to capture Hussein was confirmed after the two Soviet-trained MiG pilots defected and confessed their orders. Hussein later described the incident as an attack on a head of state "as yet unparalleled in history."
Years later, the favour was returned. Dalgleish was working for David Lean, who was filming Lawrence of Arabia in Jordan, and had made a forced desert landing due to fuel problems. A plane started circling overhead and a radio message came through: "Don't worry, Jock. I'll be there shortly." It was King Hussein.
Jock Dalgleish will be remembered for his compassion, integrity and leadership, combined with an adventurous spirit of fun.
He is survived by his wife of 58 years, Davina, daughter, Dianne, son, Bruce, and grandchildren, Anthony, Lucy and Naomi.
JORDAN: The King Chasers
Time Magazine, Monday, Nov. 24, 1958
Jordan's King Hussein was off at last on his long-planned three-week vacation in Europe. With the man who taught him to fly, R.A.F. Wing Commander Jock Dalgleish, beside him as copilot, the young King flew his twin-engined de Havilland Dove, with the royal Hashemite standard painted on its stabilizer, humming high above the Syrian desert at a modest 160 m.p.h. Suddenly the Damascus radio crackled a warning that the plane had no overflight clearance, demanded the identity of its crew and passengers. The King refused and turned the controls over to Dalgleish, defying an airport order to land at Damascus.
Before they knew it. two Syrian MIG 17 jets swooped down in an "aggressive" pass. Dalgleish plunged the royal plane earthward, hedgehopped for 20 minutes as it fled back to the Jordanian border while the Syrian MIGs, flown somewhat amateurishly, made five more "quarter attacks" at the plane, but without firing. Landed safely at his capital city of Amman, King Hussein turned to Dalgleish, grinned: "Let's have some breakfast."
Furor in Amman. This lighthearted mood soon passed: the Bedouin-led Jordanian army, which had been poised outside the city in case trouble started in the King's absence, now wanted to march on Syria's Damascus. Troops swarmed in the streets of Amman, firing shots in the air, shouting: "Long live Hussein!" and "Hussein, we are your men!" Grateful citizens carried Hussein on their shoulders. Premier Samir Rifai informed the U.N. representative in Amman, Pier P. Spinelli, that the government intended to protest Syria's behavior to the U.N. Security Council. Jordan demanded an immediate meeting of the Arab League Council to take action. U.A.R. officials replied that Hussein's plane had been crossing Syria without proper clearance and had been intercepted by its MIGs in a routine and perfectly legal manner. Cairo newspapers ridiculed what they called "Hussein's heroics" and claimed his report of events was "a story dreamed up by imperialists for a child to tell the world."
Who's to Blame? Jordan's airport control tower at Amman had relayed the King's flight plan—from Amman to Beirut via Syria—as required by the international aviation regulations. But had anyone also obtained the overflight clearance through diplomatic channels required before the King's plane could cross a foreign border? There was an embarrassing silence in Amman. Someone thought the flight had been cleared through U.N. Representative Pier Spinelli. In a prompt denial, Spinelli snapped: "What do you think we are, a travel bureau?" The chief of the Royal Jordanian Air Force, Lieut. Colonel Ibrahim Othman, who still suffers occasional blackouts from head injuries suffered when he was caught and badly mauled by the Baghdad mob during the July 14 rebellion in Iraq, remembered having given someone an order to obtain diplomatic clearance from Syria, but failed to follow it up.
At week's end Jordan was still lustily celebrating the King's deliverance, as well as his 23rd birthday. Whatever the unpopularity of his regime, the festivities proved that he was personally popular, and admired more than ever now for having shown the quality of luck. Had he been killed over Syria, however, Jordan might now be plunged into revolution, and the Middle East into war. This knowledge kept everyone from laughing too hard at the great snafu.
"Over the next 18 months, Hussein survived two assassination attempts and a further attempted military coup. His prime minister was killed by a bomb in his office. One assassination attempt against Hussein was foiled because the cook who was to have been carried it out unwisely tested his potion on cats in the palace grounds. Another plot involved putting powerful acid into the king's bottle of nose drops."
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.
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.
The Syrian MIG Attack
BY THE END of October, I felt the crisis had abated sufficiently to enable me to take a short holiday. Consequently I decided to fly my Dove aircraft to Europe. It was a flight which was almost to cost me my life.
I took off from Amman at about 8:20 on the morning of November 10, 1958, in the old twin-engined De Haviland Dove which had been my grandfather's plane and now belonged to the Air Force. In the cockpit beside me was Colonel Jock Dalgleish, at that time Air Adviser to the Royal Jordanian Air Force. My passengers were my uncle, Sherif Nasser, two Jordanian Air Force pilots who were to fly the plane home again, and Maurice Raynor, whom I had known since my days at Harrow. The Syrian Nasserite authorities knew long before I left that I would be a passenger and I planned to stay three weeks in Lausanne with my mother, Queen Zein, my daughter Alia, and the rest of my family. I also planned to celebrate my birthday on November 14. Rooms had been booked at the Beau Rivage, the same hotel in which I had received the fateful telegram which proclaimed me King.
I had gone out of my way to inform my people that I was taking this little holiday. Not only was this publicly announced but I even gave a farewell speech the evening be- fore my official departure from Amman airport which the diplomatic corps attended in full force.
It seemed perfectly simple to fly across Syria and Lebanon to Cyprus, our first stop, and then on to Athens and Rome. This was the shortest and the most usual way, and we had every right to chart this course to Europe.
It was a cool morning when we took off. There was an overcast sky and we climbed to about 9,000 feet, flying toward the Syrian frontier. Very soon we were in broken cloud and then we contacted Damascus by radio. We reported our position at the frontier and got clearance from them to continue.
If one is to follow what happened subsequently, it is vital to understand that it was Damascus Airport that had given us the right to proceed. I myself was listening through my headset on the V.L.F. radio when this clearance came through, and as a result we continued flying to a specified turning point well inside the Syrian territory where we were due to report our position and altitude to Damascus. This we did. We were asked our estimated time of arrival over Damascus and gave this information. Then we got the first inkling of trouble. A few minutes later Damascus called my aircraft again and told us, "You are not cleared to overfly. You must land at Damascus.”
We replied, "We are not cleared to land at Damascus. We are proceeding to Cyprus."
Damascus told us: "Stand by."
Dalgleish and I thought there must be some mistake.
We flew on and were not more than fifteen miles out of Damascus, which we could see occasionally through broken cloud, when they called us again and said, "You are not cleared to fly over. You will land at Damascus." Almost immediately, they started to give us the landing instructions and asked us to report when the airfield was in sight.
I looked at Dalgleish. Without another word we turned
the aircraft in the direction of Amman. We replied, "If those are your final instructions we must contact Amman and advise them."
Thoroughly alarmed, I called Amman up and told them what was happening. The anxious but clear reply came back, "You are to return to base immediately. Remain on this frequency. Do not acknowledge any further messages." And then significantly the voice added, "And good luck to you."
I opened again on the Damascus channel. They asked, "What is your position?" We replied, "We are orbiting, await- ing your final instructions." This time the Syrians were even more definite. Again they gave us the order to land.
I replied briefly: "Sorry, this we can't do!" and switched back to Amman.
We were already heading toward the nearest point of Jordanian territory. We did not bother to return by the same route we had taken from Amman. We took the shortest cut to the frontier! At this moment the cloud broke completely.
We were flying at about ten thousand feet and I had a sud- den idea. I turned to Jock and said: "Why don't we go down and fly at ground level?"
I put the plane into a dive at about two hundred forty air miles an hour, the most the poor old Dove could take, for I felt that once we were lying at ground level the possibility of picking us up by radar would be reduced, while the possibility of spotting us would be made more difficult, especially as jets do not maneuver well at low altitude, nor do they have a long fuel endurance.
We reached the ground it seemed to take hours and
hedgehopped at zero feet as we approached the Jordanian frontier.
Suddenly one of the Air Force pilots in the back of the plane came up to the cockpit and shouted:
"I've just seen two MIGs flying at height in the opposite direction."
This meant they were flying toward us from the Jordanian frontier, even perhaps from inside Jordan's air space. Dalgleish looked at me. We understood the significance of their position. These were not aircraft sent up since we had refused to land at Damascus.
I think both Dalgleish and I felt a real shiver of fear, but I told the pilot to go back and keep me informed if he saw them again. I glanced at Jock and both of us tightened our safety belts.
Two minutes later the two MIG 17s of the United Arab Republic Air Force passed us on our starboard wing. Almost at our level, they turned across our path, gained height, and dived at us in what is known as a quarter attack.
I felt my time had come. I really believed that this was the end.
I tore the old Dove around in a turn. I thought to myself, If I go, at least I'll take one of them with me. It looked as though we were almost finished, so I made up my mind to ram the first MIG, since it was obvious they meant business.
What a way to get rid of us! No one would ever know what had happened in that uninhabited lava-covered area!
As they tore into the attack, Jock took over the controls and managed to avoid their first pass by tightening his turn.
Their tactics were simple. They dived at us in turn, from the port side, slightly forward from our position, screaming down toward us at speed, banking toward our nose. Time and again they attacked. We could do nothing but watch out for them and wait for them to come in. Only one defense was possible.
We had to turn inside their circle at the precise moment they began to get us lined up in their sights. I knew that a MIG could not turn as tightly as our slower Dove, which could turn in a much smaller circle and at as slow a speed as ninety
miles an hour. So when we turned in to meet the MIGs, they were forced to overshoot every time.
But our biggest fear was not seeing them as the attack developed. Both of us were straining our necks looking out for each new attack. We were flying the poor old Dove as fast as she could go, with full power, exceeding all engine limitations, but she held together. As we twisted and turned I hated to think what it was like back in the cabin. It must
have been a shambles. Somehow my uncle struggled to the cockpit and shouted, "What on earth's happening?"
I yelled out, "We're being attacked!"
His reply was characteristic of him.
"Give me the radio," he cried, "and let me tell them what I think of them!”
"This isn't the moment," I answered. Nevertheless, his attitude cheered us up enormously.
Before long the attacks intensified. Jock shouted, "I think you had better call Mayday in case we're forced down."
I myself gave the S.O.S. call on the Amman frequency, but unfortunately or perhaps fortunately for their peace of mind it was not picked up by Amman, doubtless because of our very low altitude.
Then came the moment, the split second, when we almost
crashed. Jock was at the controls, watching one side for a possible attack, while I looked out of the other side. We turned our heads at exactly the same instant as we seemed to be flying straight into a hill. Frantically, we yanked at the controls. The old plane lurched, staggered, hesitated under the strain, and as the nose went up we skimmed the top of that
hill by inches.
That was perhaps the worst single moment of the flight. No doubt it would have elated those who had been sent after us.
The battle was not over. By turning into them at the moment of attack we had foiled them because of our slower speed, so now they tried different tactics. They gained height, and then simultaneously attacked from both sides.
This was even more frightening. I cannot describe it except to say that it was like playing tag in the air at fantastic speeds. They were chasing us and we were compelled to dodge. It was dangerous for them too. We managed to avoid one MIG which then shot right up as the other dived steeply from the other direction. They almost collided head-on.
Attack after attack continued until we crossed the road from Mafraq to H.5 the main road to Iraq and well inside the Jordanian frontier. Suddenly it was all over. The MIGs flew away and we lost sight of them as they headed back toward Syria. At first I could not believe it. Dalgleish and I waited for the next attack, wondering where it would come from. All sorts of possibilities flashed through my mind. It seemed hours since the first attack, though I suppose it was only minutes.
We flew on at a very low altitude for a long distance. They might have gone, I thought, but we were still worried. If we gained height, Syrian radar might pick us up again and other fighters might be close at hand.
At last we felt the danger had passed. We climbed. And at that moment my uncle came to the cockpit holding out a cigarette for me - the best I ever smoked.
He gave me the thumbs-up sign. "Well done!" he said.
"Don't we passengers deserve wings?"
I shouted back: "It looks clear now. Can we have breakfast?"
Alas, there was no breakfast to be had. The food was an unholy scramble. However, we did have a hot drink. Throughout all the twisting and diving, with everything thrown about during the battle, Raynor British to the core had held firmly on to a thermos and now produced two cups of tea.
Tea and a cigarette - what more could one ask! And as
music to go with it I could now hear the welcome and angry voices of the Jordanian Air Force jet pilots.
As I sipped the hot tea, I looked at Dalgleish. He was in his element. A huge grin filled his weatherbeaten face.
"That was close, sir!" he shouted. And as we flew sedately on toward my capital, all danger past, I reflected just how close to death we had been. And I wondered, too, what madness had prompted the Syrians' wanton attack.
There was never a question of "mistaken identity." My
Dove was well known and could not have been mistaken for any other aircraft. It had the royal Jordanian Air Force markings and carried the royal coat of arms and the royal flag. It had flown to Damascus several times, once with me on an official visit.
Even now we do not know why they made the attack. I
do not believe for a moment that they were merely trying to turn us back. There is an international code by which planes in the air order another to return. There is a whole sequence of procedure, and only after going through this does a fighter have the right to consider you "fair game" if you do not choose to respond to his instructions. Every flier learns this almost before he can fly. The MIG pilots knew this as well as I did but they came right into an unmistakable attack! And never once did either plane appear in the least friendly! The Syrians have always been touchy about their air space. In the months preceding the attack on my aircraft, there were others. Some months before, they had caught a Lebanese civil aircraft over Damascus Airport and opened up with anti-aircraft guns at point-blank range. The pilot, a New Zealander, dived just as we did and got away to Beirut. There were other incidents, too, in which the motives seem obscure- However touchy, this was no excuse for deliberately attacking an unarmed aircraft on a perfectly lawful passenger flight Only one conclusion was possible. They had hoped to kill us. My death, three months after King Feisal’s, could have virtually ended the Hashemite Kingdom. And if it had been an "accident” how easy it would have been to lay the blame on my stubborn insistence on learning to fly!
But so many questions remain unanswered. Who were the pilots? Whose voice was it in the control tower that countermanded the first order for us to proceed? What drama might have taken place in the control tower at Damascus before one man took the place of another?
We have never had a satisfactory answer to these questions from the then U.A.R. authorities or to others in Jordan's official protest over the incident. Despite repeated requests, they have never told us on whose orders the Damascus Airport authorities and the Air Force planes were operating.
After serious consideration, we decided not to proceed with a case to the United Nations. I preferred to consider this a personal matter rather than a national issue.
I was more than recompensed by the loyalty of my people, from the moment we landed. Anxious officials had congregated at the airport. Huge crowds rushed to surround my plane as we taxied to a stop on the apron. When I reached the Palace, the enthusiasm was unbounded. I was tremendously excited. Through the door of my study where I stood, scores of officers and troops from the Army, men from the desert in white and brown robes, and or so it seemed people from the streets came to pay me homage. I was almost mobbed. I could not prevent them from embracing me, shaking my hands and crying, "Thank God! Thank God you are alive!"
Machine guns were being fired outside, and rifle shots and shotguns also were echoing round the hills. In one place an excited soldier found nothing else to use but a tear-gas bomb and hurled over the heads of the crowd. It seemed as though the whole town had gone wild. Men of my Army tore past the Palace gates up the hill, some of them in Land Rovers, firing their rifles into the air as they headed toward the Palace. The crowds grew as army units stationed outside the city started rolling into Amman to congratulate me. It was a wonderful, wonderful day, and it made me change my mind about a holiday in Europe. At first I had thought of refueling and finding an alternative route to Europe, but
when thousands of men, women and children begged me to stay, I could not leave. My place was with these loyal people, some unashamedly weeping as they embraced me.
My scrape with the Syrian MIGs was a hair's-breadth escape from death, and I must admit that at one time I felt - to use Air Force jargon - that I had "bought" it.
Times have changed since those bitter days of 1958 when tragedy ripped the Arab lands asunder. Even so, the Syrian MIG incident was an attack upon a head of state as yet unparalleled in history, and it will take me longer to forget it than it has taken me to forgive those responsible.
As chance would have it, exactly one year later the same hour, the same date I flew over the same spot, on my way to London, and took the opportunity to mark privately the anniversary of that attack. From the cockpit I looked down as I followed the course I had taken the year before with Dalgleish. Then I had been defenseless and flying at zero altitude. Now the Jordanian Air Force was soaring at height and in strength along our frontier. It all looked so calm and peaceful. On the H.5 road, like a straight black ruler leading to Iraq, there were only a couple of trucks. On the desert, with its lava-covered hillocks where we had so nearly crashed, a camel train moved slowly toward the frontier. At the proper moment I called up Damascus to report my position, thinking back to that first enigmatic reply just a year before. It was different this time! Politely, an impersonal voice gave me leave to proceed. There was not a MIG in the air.
How strange life is and how strange are memories, especially in the loneliness of the skies. I could hardly believe that over those same low black hillocks of lava I had just a year before hedgehopped, fighting desperately for my life, waiting for each new assault as the MIGs attacked. I strained my neck looking out of the cockpit remembering them.
One of my entourage entered the cockpit. Did I need anything? I shook my head. No, I needed nothing; nothing except a moment of privacy to pray silently to God for the gift of life.
Then I busied myself with my instruments and set course for Cyprus and the West.
BY THE END of October, I felt the crisis had abated sufficiently to enable me to take a short holiday. Consequently I decided to fly my Dove aircraft to Europe. It was a flight which was almost to cost me my life.
I took off from Amman at about 8:20 on the morning of November 10, 1958, in the old twin-engined De Haviland Dove which had been my grandfather's plane and now belonged to the Air Force. In the cockpit beside me was Colonel Jock Dalgleish, at that time Air Adviser to the Royal Jordanian Air Force. My passengers were my uncle, Sherif Nasser, two Jordanian Air Force pilots who were to fly the plane home again, and Maurice Raynor, whom I had known since my days at Harrow. The Syrian Nasserite authorities knew long before I left that I would be a passenger and I planned to stay three weeks in Lausanne with my mother, Queen Zein, my daughter Alia, and the rest of my family. I also planned to celebrate my birthday on November 14. Rooms had been booked at the Beau Rivage, the same hotel in which I had received the fateful telegram which proclaimed me King.
I had gone out of my way to inform my people that I was taking this little holiday. Not only was this publicly announced but I even gave a farewell speech the evening be- fore my official departure from Amman airport which the diplomatic corps attended in full force.
It seemed perfectly simple to fly across Syria and Lebanon to Cyprus, our first stop, and then on to Athens and Rome. This was the shortest and the most usual way, and we had every right to chart this course to Europe.
It was a cool morning when we took off. There was an overcast sky and we climbed to about 9,000 feet, flying toward the Syrian frontier. Very soon we were in broken cloud and then we contacted Damascus by radio. We reported our position at the frontier and got clearance from them to continue.
If one is to follow what happened subsequently, it is vital to understand that it was Damascus Airport that had given us the right to proceed. I myself was listening through my headset on the V.L.F. radio when this clearance came through, and as a result we continued flying to a specified turning point well inside the Syrian territory where we were due to report our position and altitude to Damascus. This we did. We were asked our estimated time of arrival over Damascus and gave this information. Then we got the first inkling of trouble. A few minutes later Damascus called my aircraft again and told us, "You are not cleared to overfly. You must land at Damascus.”
We replied, "We are not cleared to land at Damascus. We are proceeding to Cyprus."
Damascus told us: "Stand by."
Dalgleish and I thought there must be some mistake.
We flew on and were not more than fifteen miles out of Damascus, which we could see occasionally through broken cloud, when they called us again and said, "You are not cleared to fly over. You will land at Damascus." Almost immediately, they started to give us the landing instructions and asked us to report when the airfield was in sight.
I looked at Dalgleish. Without another word we turned
the aircraft in the direction of Amman. We replied, "If those are your final instructions we must contact Amman and advise them."
Thoroughly alarmed, I called Amman up and told them what was happening. The anxious but clear reply came back, "You are to return to base immediately. Remain on this frequency. Do not acknowledge any further messages." And then significantly the voice added, "And good luck to you."
I opened again on the Damascus channel. They asked, "What is your position?" We replied, "We are orbiting, await- ing your final instructions." This time the Syrians were even more definite. Again they gave us the order to land.
I replied briefly: "Sorry, this we can't do!" and switched back to Amman.
We were already heading toward the nearest point of Jordanian territory. We did not bother to return by the same route we had taken from Amman. We took the shortest cut to the frontier! At this moment the cloud broke completely.
We were flying at about ten thousand feet and I had a sud- den idea. I turned to Jock and said: "Why don't we go down and fly at ground level?"
I put the plane into a dive at about two hundred forty air miles an hour, the most the poor old Dove could take, for I felt that once we were lying at ground level the possibility of picking us up by radar would be reduced, while the possibility of spotting us would be made more difficult, especially as jets do not maneuver well at low altitude, nor do they have a long fuel endurance.
We reached the ground it seemed to take hours and
hedgehopped at zero feet as we approached the Jordanian frontier.
Suddenly one of the Air Force pilots in the back of the plane came up to the cockpit and shouted:
"I've just seen two MIGs flying at height in the opposite direction."
This meant they were flying toward us from the Jordanian frontier, even perhaps from inside Jordan's air space. Dalgleish looked at me. We understood the significance of their position. These were not aircraft sent up since we had refused to land at Damascus.
I think both Dalgleish and I felt a real shiver of fear, but I told the pilot to go back and keep me informed if he saw them again. I glanced at Jock and both of us tightened our safety belts.
Two minutes later the two MIG 17s of the United Arab Republic Air Force passed us on our starboard wing. Almost at our level, they turned across our path, gained height, and dived at us in what is known as a quarter attack.
I felt my time had come. I really believed that this was the end.
I tore the old Dove around in a turn. I thought to myself, If I go, at least I'll take one of them with me. It looked as though we were almost finished, so I made up my mind to ram the first MIG, since it was obvious they meant business.
What a way to get rid of us! No one would ever know what had happened in that uninhabited lava-covered area!
As they tore into the attack, Jock took over the controls and managed to avoid their first pass by tightening his turn.
Their tactics were simple. They dived at us in turn, from the port side, slightly forward from our position, screaming down toward us at speed, banking toward our nose. Time and again they attacked. We could do nothing but watch out for them and wait for them to come in. Only one defense was possible.
We had to turn inside their circle at the precise moment they began to get us lined up in their sights. I knew that a MIG could not turn as tightly as our slower Dove, which could turn in a much smaller circle and at as slow a speed as ninety
miles an hour. So when we turned in to meet the MIGs, they were forced to overshoot every time.
But our biggest fear was not seeing them as the attack developed. Both of us were straining our necks looking out for each new attack. We were flying the poor old Dove as fast as she could go, with full power, exceeding all engine limitations, but she held together. As we twisted and turned I hated to think what it was like back in the cabin. It must
have been a shambles. Somehow my uncle struggled to the cockpit and shouted, "What on earth's happening?"
I yelled out, "We're being attacked!"
His reply was characteristic of him.
"Give me the radio," he cried, "and let me tell them what I think of them!”
"This isn't the moment," I answered. Nevertheless, his attitude cheered us up enormously.
Before long the attacks intensified. Jock shouted, "I think you had better call Mayday in case we're forced down."
I myself gave the S.O.S. call on the Amman frequency, but unfortunately or perhaps fortunately for their peace of mind it was not picked up by Amman, doubtless because of our very low altitude.
Then came the moment, the split second, when we almost
crashed. Jock was at the controls, watching one side for a possible attack, while I looked out of the other side. We turned our heads at exactly the same instant as we seemed to be flying straight into a hill. Frantically, we yanked at the controls. The old plane lurched, staggered, hesitated under the strain, and as the nose went up we skimmed the top of that
hill by inches.
That was perhaps the worst single moment of the flight. No doubt it would have elated those who had been sent after us.
The battle was not over. By turning into them at the moment of attack we had foiled them because of our slower speed, so now they tried different tactics. They gained height, and then simultaneously attacked from both sides.
This was even more frightening. I cannot describe it except to say that it was like playing tag in the air at fantastic speeds. They were chasing us and we were compelled to dodge. It was dangerous for them too. We managed to avoid one MIG which then shot right up as the other dived steeply from the other direction. They almost collided head-on.
Attack after attack continued until we crossed the road from Mafraq to H.5 the main road to Iraq and well inside the Jordanian frontier. Suddenly it was all over. The MIGs flew away and we lost sight of them as they headed back toward Syria. At first I could not believe it. Dalgleish and I waited for the next attack, wondering where it would come from. All sorts of possibilities flashed through my mind. It seemed hours since the first attack, though I suppose it was only minutes.
We flew on at a very low altitude for a long distance. They might have gone, I thought, but we were still worried. If we gained height, Syrian radar might pick us up again and other fighters might be close at hand.
At last we felt the danger had passed. We climbed. And at that moment my uncle came to the cockpit holding out a cigarette for me - the best I ever smoked.
He gave me the thumbs-up sign. "Well done!" he said.
"Don't we passengers deserve wings?"
I shouted back: "It looks clear now. Can we have breakfast?"
Alas, there was no breakfast to be had. The food was an unholy scramble. However, we did have a hot drink. Throughout all the twisting and diving, with everything thrown about during the battle, Raynor British to the core had held firmly on to a thermos and now produced two cups of tea.
Tea and a cigarette - what more could one ask! And as
music to go with it I could now hear the welcome and angry voices of the Jordanian Air Force jet pilots.
As I sipped the hot tea, I looked at Dalgleish. He was in his element. A huge grin filled his weatherbeaten face.
"That was close, sir!" he shouted. And as we flew sedately on toward my capital, all danger past, I reflected just how close to death we had been. And I wondered, too, what madness had prompted the Syrians' wanton attack.
There was never a question of "mistaken identity." My
Dove was well known and could not have been mistaken for any other aircraft. It had the royal Jordanian Air Force markings and carried the royal coat of arms and the royal flag. It had flown to Damascus several times, once with me on an official visit.
Even now we do not know why they made the attack. I
do not believe for a moment that they were merely trying to turn us back. There is an international code by which planes in the air order another to return. There is a whole sequence of procedure, and only after going through this does a fighter have the right to consider you "fair game" if you do not choose to respond to his instructions. Every flier learns this almost before he can fly. The MIG pilots knew this as well as I did but they came right into an unmistakable attack! And never once did either plane appear in the least friendly! The Syrians have always been touchy about their air space. In the months preceding the attack on my aircraft, there were others. Some months before, they had caught a Lebanese civil aircraft over Damascus Airport and opened up with anti-aircraft guns at point-blank range. The pilot, a New Zealander, dived just as we did and got away to Beirut. There were other incidents, too, in which the motives seem obscure- However touchy, this was no excuse for deliberately attacking an unarmed aircraft on a perfectly lawful passenger flight Only one conclusion was possible. They had hoped to kill us. My death, three months after King Feisal’s, could have virtually ended the Hashemite Kingdom. And if it had been an "accident” how easy it would have been to lay the blame on my stubborn insistence on learning to fly!
But so many questions remain unanswered. Who were the pilots? Whose voice was it in the control tower that countermanded the first order for us to proceed? What drama might have taken place in the control tower at Damascus before one man took the place of another?
We have never had a satisfactory answer to these questions from the then U.A.R. authorities or to others in Jordan's official protest over the incident. Despite repeated requests, they have never told us on whose orders the Damascus Airport authorities and the Air Force planes were operating.
After serious consideration, we decided not to proceed with a case to the United Nations. I preferred to consider this a personal matter rather than a national issue.
I was more than recompensed by the loyalty of my people, from the moment we landed. Anxious officials had congregated at the airport. Huge crowds rushed to surround my plane as we taxied to a stop on the apron. When I reached the Palace, the enthusiasm was unbounded. I was tremendously excited. Through the door of my study where I stood, scores of officers and troops from the Army, men from the desert in white and brown robes, and or so it seemed people from the streets came to pay me homage. I was almost mobbed. I could not prevent them from embracing me, shaking my hands and crying, "Thank God! Thank God you are alive!"
Machine guns were being fired outside, and rifle shots and shotguns also were echoing round the hills. In one place an excited soldier found nothing else to use but a tear-gas bomb and hurled over the heads of the crowd. It seemed as though the whole town had gone wild. Men of my Army tore past the Palace gates up the hill, some of them in Land Rovers, firing their rifles into the air as they headed toward the Palace. The crowds grew as army units stationed outside the city started rolling into Amman to congratulate me. It was a wonderful, wonderful day, and it made me change my mind about a holiday in Europe. At first I had thought of refueling and finding an alternative route to Europe, but
when thousands of men, women and children begged me to stay, I could not leave. My place was with these loyal people, some unashamedly weeping as they embraced me.
My scrape with the Syrian MIGs was a hair's-breadth escape from death, and I must admit that at one time I felt - to use Air Force jargon - that I had "bought" it.
Times have changed since those bitter days of 1958 when tragedy ripped the Arab lands asunder. Even so, the Syrian MIG incident was an attack upon a head of state as yet unparalleled in history, and it will take me longer to forget it than it has taken me to forgive those responsible.
As chance would have it, exactly one year later the same hour, the same date I flew over the same spot, on my way to London, and took the opportunity to mark privately the anniversary of that attack. From the cockpit I looked down as I followed the course I had taken the year before with Dalgleish. Then I had been defenseless and flying at zero altitude. Now the Jordanian Air Force was soaring at height and in strength along our frontier. It all looked so calm and peaceful. On the H.5 road, like a straight black ruler leading to Iraq, there were only a couple of trucks. On the desert, with its lava-covered hillocks where we had so nearly crashed, a camel train moved slowly toward the frontier. At the proper moment I called up Damascus to report my position, thinking back to that first enigmatic reply just a year before. It was different this time! Politely, an impersonal voice gave me leave to proceed. There was not a MIG in the air.
How strange life is and how strange are memories, especially in the loneliness of the skies. I could hardly believe that over those same low black hillocks of lava I had just a year before hedgehopped, fighting desperately for my life, waiting for each new assault as the MIGs attacked. I strained my neck looking out of the cockpit remembering them.
One of my entourage entered the cockpit. Did I need anything? I shook my head. No, I needed nothing; nothing except a moment of privacy to pray silently to God for the gift of life.
Then I busied myself with my instruments and set course for Cyprus and the West.
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: UK
Posts: 92
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Might be able to trump your name drop Jacko. Amazing man and a true statesman. Called me Sir, in Zarqa when I was based there for a wee while 
Great stories regarding the Rally Opel he gave the then HH Prince Abdullah, another chip off the old block if ever there was one.
We were on first name terms, he called me "Jock", and I called him "Your Majesty"
Great stories regarding the Rally Opel he gave the then HH Prince Abdullah, another chip off the old block if ever there was one.
We were on first name terms, he called me "Jock", and I called him "Your Majesty"
What is frustrating is that he must have already had a distinguished record to have been given that Jordan Air Adviser job. It makes you wonder what he'd done before that!
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Edinburgh
Posts: 4
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
He was a police officer (a reserved occupation) with Midlothian Police at the start of WW2. In 1941 some police officers (including Jock) were released as potential RAF aircrew. He completed basic training in South Africa under the Empire scheme and was kept there for another three years as an instructor. He came back to the UK in 1945 and had started operational training when the war ended.
He stayed on with a permanent commission and in 1946 he joined 612 City of Aberdeen Auxiliary Squadron as training officer. In 1949 when it was disbanded he moved to what was described as an instrument training squadron at Birmingham and after two years was posted to Jordan as Officer Commanding the Arab Legion Air Force (later the Royal Jordanian Air Force).
This is taken from an interview with him at the time of his appointment as CFI at Edinburgh. Without implying any disrespect it does not sound a particularly distinguished career but maybe it was for the time or maybe he was just in the right place at the right time.
ALW
He stayed on with a permanent commission and in 1946 he joined 612 City of Aberdeen Auxiliary Squadron as training officer. In 1949 when it was disbanded he moved to what was described as an instrument training squadron at Birmingham and after two years was posted to Jordan as Officer Commanding the Arab Legion Air Force (later the Royal Jordanian Air Force).
This is taken from an interview with him at the time of his appointment as CFI at Edinburgh. Without implying any disrespect it does not sound a particularly distinguished career but maybe it was for the time or maybe he was just in the right place at the right time.
ALW
Join Date: May 2002
Location: Green and pleasant land
Posts: 658
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Jacko,
Thanks for posting those excerpts .. they are an excellent reminder of the sort of person King Hussein really was. And you've reminded me of an incident many, many years ago ..
Slight thread drift ... but one year my ATC Squadron was given the job of providing 'door-minders' for the VIP tent at the Biggin Hill airshow. Not a terribly complex task - ask for ID, come to attention and salute where neccessary and generally deter the rifraff from trying to get in.
Enter stage left the King and his entourage, and approach the door manned by our resident 'everything by the book' chap. Who snaps to attention and demands to see some ID. Which is duly produced.
But our chap then walks up to the King, pulls out his 3822 and asks for an autograph!! At this point, many VIPs would have had an immense hissy fit but the King, faced with an enthusiastic 14 yr old lad, did the entirely decent thing and signed the chaps book, chatted with him for a couple of minutes and then moved on.
The only sad thing about this story is that the lad who initially showed such initiative later went on to become a Snowdrop
CS
Thanks for posting those excerpts .. they are an excellent reminder of the sort of person King Hussein really was. And you've reminded me of an incident many, many years ago ..
Slight thread drift ... but one year my ATC Squadron was given the job of providing 'door-minders' for the VIP tent at the Biggin Hill airshow. Not a terribly complex task - ask for ID, come to attention and salute where neccessary and generally deter the rifraff from trying to get in.
Enter stage left the King and his entourage, and approach the door manned by our resident 'everything by the book' chap. Who snaps to attention and demands to see some ID. Which is duly produced.
But our chap then walks up to the King, pulls out his 3822 and asks for an autograph!! At this point, many VIPs would have had an immense hissy fit but the King, faced with an enthusiastic 14 yr old lad, did the entirely decent thing and signed the chaps book, chatted with him for a couple of minutes and then moved on.
The only sad thing about this story is that the lad who initially showed such initiative later went on to become a Snowdrop
CS
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Alexandria VA
Posts: 17
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
I remember meeting Jock in Amman in 1977 or 78. He used to hang around the pool at the Intercontinental Hotel, like a lot of other expats.
Really nice guy and much liked by everybody. I loved his stories about flying in Jordan and the Middle East.
Really nice guy and much liked by everybody. I loved his stories about flying in Jordan and the Middle East.
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Boroughbridge North Yorks
Age: 88
Posts: 66
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
The dove attack
JACO
I served with the RAF at Amman in 1954-55 working in the ASF.
Back in civvy street I followed my engineering trade and in 1965 I was working for Mc Alpine Aviation.
In September 1965 I was selected to return to my old stomping ground, Amman, as engineer i/c . along with pilots to bring aircraft to Luton, EX Jordanian Doves and Herons. There were 6 in total,two Herons and 4 doves. We brought back on the first trip the two Herons and three Doves, leaving one behind, that I and a pilot came back with, 4 weeks later .
On the first trip home,(Papa-Papa Delta+ Four). we had clearance to overfly Syria en route to Nicosia.
After staggering up to cruise height , and leaving Jordanian airspace, Syrian ATC demanded that we had to land at Damascus, in spite of our obtained clearance which we informed them but no luck . We received a veiled MIG threat ,so we had no choice but to round up our herd of aircraft and land.
No explanation was given, but after parting with cigarettes and cash for landing fees we were allowed to continue.
I am always thankful that due to the high standards of the Jordanian technical dept, I did not have one snag on both trips .
By chance. I have in my possession, an old Cert of Airworthiness for one of the Doves Contract No 04289, WITH TJ-ABH Reg crossed out and TJ-ACD replaced
This Document is for 1950-1951 and signed Major B Brown CTO Arab Legion Air Force.
I would be interested to see if the one,in which King Hussien was attacked, was one of the aircraft we brought back.
I am sorry I may have strayed of thread ,but those flights are vivid in my memories, also Wing Cdr Dalgleish, during my time in the RAF at Amman
Mervyn Tew.
I served with the RAF at Amman in 1954-55 working in the ASF.
Back in civvy street I followed my engineering trade and in 1965 I was working for Mc Alpine Aviation.
In September 1965 I was selected to return to my old stomping ground, Amman, as engineer i/c . along with pilots to bring aircraft to Luton, EX Jordanian Doves and Herons. There were 6 in total,two Herons and 4 doves. We brought back on the first trip the two Herons and three Doves, leaving one behind, that I and a pilot came back with, 4 weeks later .
On the first trip home,(Papa-Papa Delta+ Four). we had clearance to overfly Syria en route to Nicosia.
After staggering up to cruise height , and leaving Jordanian airspace, Syrian ATC demanded that we had to land at Damascus, in spite of our obtained clearance which we informed them but no luck . We received a veiled MIG threat ,so we had no choice but to round up our herd of aircraft and land.
No explanation was given, but after parting with cigarettes and cash for landing fees we were allowed to continue.
I am always thankful that due to the high standards of the Jordanian technical dept, I did not have one snag on both trips .
By chance. I have in my possession, an old Cert of Airworthiness for one of the Doves Contract No 04289, WITH TJ-ABH Reg crossed out and TJ-ACD replaced
This Document is for 1950-1951 and signed Major B Brown CTO Arab Legion Air Force.
I would be interested to see if the one,in which King Hussien was attacked, was one of the aircraft we brought back.
I am sorry I may have strayed of thread ,but those flights are vivid in my memories, also Wing Cdr Dalgleish, during my time in the RAF at Amman
Mervyn Tew.
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: San Francisco
Posts: 1
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Yankee in Scotland
I was an American graduate student at the University of Edinburgh in 1967/8 and decided to pursue my interest in flying at the EFC during the time W/C Dalgleish was the CFI. He was quite a character and he taught me a "Hell-of-a-lot" about flying that I would have never learned back in the States. His idea of teaching Instrument Flying was to "pop into" a fog-bank over the Firth of Forth and drive around inside since the Club did not have a simulator at the time. I don't think it ever occurred to him just to put a "Hood" on me! Not quite legal, but very instructive!! Once he asked me if I would like to learn some aerobatics. I thought he was talking about a Chinese Circus, but said "yes" anyway and proceeded to get some of the best flight training I've ever had (in stock Cessna's no less!!). Talk about the Syrian Migs...that was nothing! We almost did ouirselves in one day when he was trying to show me how to do a "Hammerhead Turn" in the Club's Cessna 150 over Fife (G-AVEL, I think it was). We were on the way straight back down after kicking the rudder over, both of us sitting there with our arms crossed thinking the other was flying the plane! The airspeed indicator shot through the "never-exceed speed" and Jock at that point realized that it was up to him to get us out of the mess. He did, but he didn't say a word on the rest of the flight back to the airport. I now know how to properly execute the maneuver! Jock was a great guy and I enjoyed my time flying at the EFC more than any other. I got my British PPL then went on to get a US Commercial Pilot's license with Instrument and Multi-engine ratings, although I've never flown for a living. I also continued my aerobatic training back in the States and owe a lot to Jock for having made me a better pilot. Over the years I always wondered what happened to Jock; and, now that I know, he will be missed. 
