Borneo Escort - Javelins
 

Apologies if this has already been referenced elsewhere but a quick search showed nothing: 60 Squadron at Butterworth.

Nice little film Buster, thank you. I was a 48 Sqn Hastings Co-Pilot (based at RAF Changi, Singapore) and remember when the 60 Sqn Javelins took to escorting our supply dropping sorties in Borneo. We asked them at Kuching before setting off what would happen if an Indonesian Mustang (their fighter at the time) jumped us while we were dropping to a DZ. Will you shoot it down? "With the Firestreaks we're just as likely to shoot you down!". Oh dear, what should we do then? "how low can you fly?". Well just above the tree canopy if need be. "how slow can you fly?". About a 100kts if we run out some flap. "How tight can you turn?". Pretty tight if we've already run out the flap. "Then do all three together and hope that we can get him before he gets you!". Not the most reassuring briefing I've received but no doubt a fairly realistic one. Mercifully the drops went as tasked and we returned to Kuching with the Javelin in formation on our starboard wingtip for a run in and break on arrival. I've got some pics of it but the site I posted them on for downloading froze my account.

You'll notice the nose high attitude of the Javelin in formation on the Hastings in the video. No doubt the Hastings was going flat out as we were. Nonetheless I remember reporting to my captain that the Jav's pilot was frantically pumping his fist up and down for yet more speed from us.

Chugs, you can upload pics direct from your computer to your post by clicking on the icon just to the right of the smiley face in the post header bar. Hope I'm not telling how to suck eggs.

I love the PPE of the Ground Crew. - Those were the days!

Aaron.

All advice on the sucking of eggs gratefully received Megan, thank you. Things have obviously moved on since I last posted pics on PPRuNe and since I guided Danny42C in the arcane ways of doing it. Mentor turned pupil, a necessary experience to bring one back to earth occasionally. https://www.pprune.org/images/smilies2/eusa_clap.gif So here goes for nothing :-

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....c1bd34baa7.jpg

That's not an escort, that's close formation flying.

Fascinating film thanks for posting. Anyone able to identify the two aircraft parked by the runway at 1:42??? Look like Sabres..

RAAF CA27 Sabres (CAC built).

I seem to remember being told that the Javelin in question was not actually from 60 Sqn, but I think that 60 Sqn had been greatly augmented from other ones at the time. I think that the shot was taken flying down the Rajang valley on the return to Kuching. Sorry about the size but can't see an option to reduce it more. Here we are just entering the boundary of Kuching airfield for the run in and break :-


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I was one of the aforementioned - swimmers or shorts and flip flops were (non-issue) working dress, although we had to be properly dressed in KD for the one-day visit to Kuching of HRH Prince Philip!
The swimmers were useful and dried quickly after becoming soaked with bodily fluid (perspiration!) after working down an intake, or inside the servicing hatches.
Jungle greens and boots at night for that 'on active service' look, kept out some of the nasty bugs and beasties.
Our relaxed dress code was facilitated by the detachment location, across the runway from the main site, that required transport and a green from ATC to cross the runway.
I've identified myself in a fleeting appearance in the video, during a start-up sequence.
I still have regular contact (pre-lockdown) with a former 60 Squadron colleague from the '64-65 period (and subsequent posting to Lyneham, and I know Fitter2 of this forum from that period.
We had a great relationship with some of the aircrew detachment, particularly the tales from the likes of Fl/Lt Lockhart.

Thanks thought they were Sabres

"XH877 "C" of 64 Squadron was written off 22/6/1965: The aircraft had been directed to investigate an unidentified radar contact, which turned out to be a Borneo Airways C-47 Dakota. The port engine of the Javelin exploded as it passed the Dakota forcing the crew to eject.Per eyewitness report: "Reference the loss of XH877 on the 22nd of June 1965 over Tawau, Sabah, I was stationed at RAF Labuan and can remember reading a signals report on the crash. The pilot had shouted " eject...eject...eject" but the navigator for some unknown reason did not hear him: he was therefore, very surprised when his pilot suddenly and explosively departed! To his credit he soon followed. The report also had a typing error that became the talk of the communications wing, stating that the pilot had "ejaculated..!".
The aircraft crashed 20 miles north-east of Tawau, Sabah, Borneo and the Dakota circled the area until help arrived for the two crew - Flt. Lt. P. J. Hart (pilot), and Flt. Lt. P. E. "Dinger" Dell (navigator). They were picked up by a SAR Whirlwind helicopter, and flown back to Tengah"

via Aviation safety Net

Final pic in the set, this of our break over the Kuching hardstanding. Again, apologies for the size and mods please cull at your discretion if bandwidth is a concern. Ian Allen's Aircraft Spotters Books at the ready? :-

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....fd25e2426e.jpg

Oh, having said that, this is a more reasonable size. No idea why....

Edited to add that the reason for all the various RAF aircraft being there was to prevent/deal with Indonesian incursions during Confrontation. The major threat was in Borneo, the main means of dealing with it being British (including the Ghurkhas) and Commonwealth troops. They were in isolated and potentially vulnerable encampments dotted along the border and supported by forward RAF/RN helicopter detachments. Our job was dropping to those troops food and POL stocks in the main. If they were under attack that switched to solely 105mm ammo, and the urgent need for it getting to them was then clear.

I'll kick off with: Twin Pin, Canberra Valetta x 2, Belvedere. Adding in the coaming; Hastings!!

Give the man a washing machine! At the start the twin pins turned up unpainted and shiny. A quick coat of paint had to be applied as they operated from short airstrips hacked out of the jungle and would be clearly seen by marauding Indonesian aircraft above. The paint used initially appeared to be some form of emulsion, as the frequent rain washed most of it off in time. The one parked seems to have had a more appropriate application by then. The Belvedere guys always started up unstrapped and side windows wide open ready to evacuate if needed, as Avpin was used. If that caused a fire it was directly behind them, resulting in the entire cockpit falling off the aircraft if the fire was not rapidly extinguished. Not too unlike the starting up of the WWII Napier Sabre engined Hawker Typhoons...though that engine was capable of doing all that on its own without any additional help.

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I love the PPE of the Ground Crew. - Those were the days!

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Some of them were wearing shoes and socks - as Null Orifice has said, flipflops were de rigeur during the day, although a bit of caution needed when topping up Avpin.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....9f4cb1d436.jpg

Initially the detachment occupied two tents by the PSP readiness pan, and returning aircraft had to be lined up and backed onto the pan with the David Brown; later in '64 the South pan opposite the main airport one was extended and a couple of Basha huts put up for us. Fresh pineapples picked from the adjacent farmers field were welcome until a security fence was put up round the airfield. After XH874 suffered an Avpin explosion on startup and was written off at Kuching, its ventral tank and a drop tank were cannibalised to make an excellent outrigger canoe we sailed around Bau Lake on day trips up country. Trips down Kuching river to the beach were also popular - it wasn't all work. Happy days

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Fitter2
Hello Peter, Nice pic of you and some of the lads cruising down the river. I'm still in contact with Dave B (to your left) and remember Chips and 'Percy' .
Don't recognise the chap behind though.
Best wishes and stay safe!
Dave C

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....f25bb70e35.jpg
Main operating base of the mighty Borneo Jet Force - alias 60 Squadron detachment pictured in early-mid 1964. The PSP access road was a particular hazard, when wet, to us flip-flop wearing ground crew.
The new concrete ORP was in use but the older PSP platform mentioned by Fitter2 can be seen in its later guise as a ground equipment parking area.

that’s about 1,000 nm! Not exactly picking up and dropping off. I’m assuming dropped at an airport and flown FW back.

Chugalug2 those images are wonderful: thank you :ok:

The PPRuNe upload sorts out the image size onscreen so don't worry about that; but if the file size is too large then the image won't get uploaded anyway. If that happens the only solution is to save the image on your confuser in a reduced size, generally I've found that about 1.5mb is as much as will get through.

I was fire officer at Seletar in 1967 and the resident squadron of Belvederes (no 66) were a constant worry. The year before one had burned out on the pan after a start up fire on the occasion of the annual AOCs inspection. I also remember reading an accident report on another one where the fire had been successfully put out by the groundcrew. The section on casualties read "Fatalities - nil, Injuries - one - pilot broke his ankle jumping out of aircraft!"

Thank you for your kind words SP and for explaining the PPRuNe system for posting our pics. It appears to be what all engineers aim for but sadly rarely manage, ie to be entirely pilot proof! :ok:

I'm afraid my pics, having started out as Agfa 35mm slides, suffered the ravages of time by the emulsion eating bugs before rather too late being scanned into a digital format. Exposure settings on my Yashica J5 SLR were mainly by guess and by God, the built in exposure meter being both erratic and somewhat creative, as can be clearly seen (Bad workman? What's that got to do with it?). Fitter2's glorious pic from the same era of cruising down the river shows what could be achieved in the hands of a competent photographer.

I would encourage anyone harbouring any Borneo Confrontation era pics to post them here (with or without Javelins, if the OP won't mind too much) as taking a picture back then was a calculation of cost (for film and processing) and ensuring you still had sufficient unexposed film in the camera to capture future unexpected opportunities before being able to replace the full cassette with a new one. You never know, yours might become the future iconic pic of that campaign, much as the one of the two soldiers and two girls paddling in the Trafalgar Square fountains became the one for London VE Day celebrations!

Thank you - you are too kind. Just a scan of a 55 yesr old Agfacolor slide, which has lived mostly in darkness since. Bright sunlight and auto exposure makes for a high shutter speed and small aperture, which helps. I have a few more slides from that era surviving, including this (non-Javelin) one, 66 Sqdn. Belvederes at Kuching, some time in 1965, proving how many they could get serviceable simultaneously.. I'll go through and see what else is worth scanning in.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....ded42e3b9a.jpg

Not many of my slides from a detachment to the 66 Sqn Belvederes have survived. I was fairly newly arrived on AEF 390MU and still with white knees & issue KD sent to Kuching to help 66 Sqn catch up on modifications and a bit of Cat 2 Assist. There was rarely a day off but on one occasion the Sqn arranged a boat trip, ostensibly to a beach on the coast for b-b-q etc but the driver ran us aground on a sandbank in the middle of the river... Another trip was a lengthy one in the back of a 3-Tonner to a lake in an old quarry some distance up country - said to be the only swimmable fresh water lake due to bugs & bacteria being killed off by the arsenic content of the water. A week or so after the lake trip a rumour went around that the Indonesians had attacked a small base of Australian troops situated near the lake and that they had suffered casualties. No idea whether or not there was any truth in the rumour but it was a hot one at the time.

The photos are from my half-frame Olympus Pen-F, on Agfa slide-film. Apologies for the quality!

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....49fb41cefc.jpg

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....587823393a.jpg

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....70efff2e5e.jpg

Fitter2, your 4 ship Belvedere flypast jogged memories! Turning up as usual at the Sqn HQ and somewhat bleary eyed we were informed that we would all be airborne within the hour for a formation flypast of HQFEAF. Evidently the boss had been incautious enough at a FEAF Guest Night to boast that he could get all five aircraft presently on the line at Changi airborne if he so wished. The CinC thought that would be a very good idea and looked forward to seeing them the next morning. Frantic efforts by the night shift First Line Ground Crew had them all serviceable and available in time and the Boss made sure that a photographic evidence was obtained for the record. Nonetheless, I suspect a lesson was learned! :-

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....74cc589669.jpg


Sorry OP , mega drift. Singapore not Borneo. Hastings not Javelins. Back to the thread, quick someone!

Javelins were prone to this. I believe 18 were destroyed or damaged beyond economic repair during its career.
If you look at the film at 0.17 you will see an airman pick up an access panel cover off the ground and fit it underneath the plane. I guess that this panel was left off during engine start to allow his colleague to come with his fire extinguisher if necessary.
I hope someone on this thread can confirm...

Spot on; being a fairy rather than a sooty, the precise details of what lived inside that panel were mysterious, but that was where an Avpin explosion would occur if it happened, and where to squirt the CO2. Once both Sapphires were spinning up, one of us ( + 1 at night to hold a torch) dived underneath to secure 22 Dzus fasteners. Earlier marks had cartridge start, producing great clouds of black smoke.

My one and only flight in a Hastings was from Changi to Butterworth when I was doing my bit in confrontasi!On arrival at Butterworth a movements officer boarded and said "what are you lot doing here!!"
There were a couple of Javelins parked near transit flight pan I assume they were 60 squadron and had missiles fitted.As for Avpin I spent two years on Hunters (Aden)and do not recall any major Avpin incidents?

Those things that dwelt inside that panel included the auxiliary gearbox; this item was the foundation stone around which the Javelin was built! On its front face was a forest of lock-wired hydraulic pump pipe connectors, known to all of us engines men who still bear the scars, as the bramble patch. Some of the engine starting system components, including the initiating cartridge breech assembly and the Avpin injector were mounted on the rear floor of the compartment. Failure of any of these items or their associated plumbing were the principle causes of the dreaded start-up fires.

The large access panel had a small hinged panel, secured with only 2 fasteners, inset in it. This hinged panel was originally left open during start-up (not at Kuching!) to allow a quick shufti to check no Avpin fire existed after starting No.2 engine.

Following a series of starter bay ( No.1 service bay) fires at Tengah and elsewhere, there was an instruction issued that the large access panel was not to be fitted until after a visual check for Avpin leaks/fire (i.e. starter crewman was supposed to stick his head inside the opening ) had been made. Not many starter crew personnel 'volunteered' to place their head in the dragon's mouth but the large opening made it more likely that a fire could be spotted from outside.
I expect there is a former Javelin man somewhere claiming to hold the world speed record for securing the fasteners!

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As for Avpin I spent two years on Hunters (Aden)and do not recall any major Avpin incidents?

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I can't speak for Aden as I never went there, but I do recall a couple of starter explosion on the FGA9, one at West Raynham and one at Sharjah. Both blew off the intake skins with impressive bangs.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....75a3945fc.jpeg
The Last Javelin

Tengah, Spring 1968. The lsat intact airframe being towed to the Fire Section training area. Apologies for quality ... using an 8mm Minolta pocket camera!

What a sad set of photos, MPN11. So many RAF aircraft ended their days thus. I remember as a CCF cadet seeing a pyramid of Bristol Brigands piled high at RAF Colerne awaiting their fate at the hands of the scrap merchant. The other possibility of course was for Fire Training as per XH 908. At least there was a final duty that could be performed there in honing skills that might someday save lives. That was the chosen role for Hastings C2 WJ 340, which my crew delivered to RAF Strubby on 6th Feb 1968. We taxied into the parking area with only the outboards running for ground manoeuvring as was standard practice, but a C/Tech there frantically indicated for us not to shut them down as we came to a stop and set the parking brake. The ladder was lowered from the main door, he clambered aboard and came forward to the Flight Deck. "Could you taxy back the way you came in, Sir, but where the taxy way turns to the right take to the grass on the left and aim for a large gap in the hedge. In the field beyond you'll see the burned out remains of a Canberra, just shut the aircraft down next to it and I'll follow in MT to bring you all back here to await the aircraft coming to collect you".The Shut Down checks were performed for the last time, 'nothing further to report' entered in the F700, and thus ended the last flight for her, and for me on type...

To make amends for yet more blatant drift here is a photo of a Borneo DZ though its name eludes me, anyone?

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....68bcec5d14.jpg

Cheers, Chugalug2. Perhaps the worst aspect was scrapping them on F Dispersal, in full view in front of the Officers Mess, where we could sip (chug?) our Tiger while watching a swarm of locals having at them with pickaxes and sledgehammers. It seemed so undignified and horribly public.

Chugalug. How about Pensiangan? The DZ was over the river to the west of the village. It meant that the Gurkas there had to ferry everything across the river. Unfortunately one of them was drowned in 1966

Entirely agree, MPN11. Whether we flew these aircraft, maintained them, controlled them, or simply had them as a constant background to our own job, one grew to have an affection, a respect, or even a love hate relationship with them. Whatever one's feelings, they bore some emotional content. To see them strewn around like so much carrion to be picked at was saddening for all but the most retentive bean counters.

FED, might be but it doesn't ring a bell with me. Here's another, likewise on a river bend (good defensive position?), but smaller and almost hiding a little friend? No high viz dayglo panel though, so not sure if we were dropping or just passing by....

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....dd82baa2ce.jpg

You had better ask the Navy. That is a Wessex standing there, probably out of Bario..

Crashed Javelins in Borneo
 

Do you think there are Javelin wrecks still in Jungles of Borneo still ?