RAAF Sabre/Indon Mustang Engagement During Konfrontasi.

[lauriebe]

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

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

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

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

Can anyone throw additional light on this engagement?

Plane gift reassuring gesture | Townsville Bulletin - Defence

[BBadanov]

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

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

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

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

[Pontius Navigator]

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

[Shackman]

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

[Rallyepilot]

Shack & Mustang

Yo Shackman,

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

[lauriebe]

BeBadanov,

Thanks.

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

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

[BBadanov]

lauriebe,

ADF Serials Message Board -> Raaf Sabre Shoots Down Indonesian Mustang

[OafOrfUxAche]

Shack cruising along minding its own business

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

[Andu]

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

Have you taken a look at the Straits of Malacca and how close Sumatra is to the Malayan Peninsula/Singapore?

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

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

[dmussen]

Lightning/ Spitfire trials 1960s.

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

[dalek]

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

[lauriebe]

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

[Deaf]

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

[NutherA2]

Or was it just crew room BS.

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

[Doors Off]

Just to throw some more fuel on the speculation fire.

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

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

Doors Off

[Whenurhappy]

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

[sycamore]

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

[Wwyvern]

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

[Andu]

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

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

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

All bar talk of course.

[TBM-Legend]

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