Tales of a Royal Air Force Pilot

Wouter van Warmelo has inherited that very British trait of self-effacement. He does not talk much about his achievements. When he gives presentations about his work as a volunteer photographer at the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s hospital in Cape Town, it's mentioned in passing that he is a retired Royal Air Force pilot. I was curious to know more. In out interview, he reveals that his RAF career spanned three decades, he retired with the rank of Wing Commander (the equivalent of a Lieutenant Colonel in the army) and his contribution was such that he received his MBE from Queen Elizabeth.  

His story begins in Holland where he was born. At the age of three, his father foreseeing the Nazi occupation, brought his young wife and two sons to South Africa two weeks before World War II started.

While his father returned to Europe to fight, his mother was left alone in a new country to raise two boisterous sons. Wouter tells a revealing anecdote about his mother who was a talented pianist. The day the war ended she was giving a recital of Franz Liszt live on SABC radio. 

Needless to say celebratory mood was such that she was rather inebriated on air. There was a particular trill at the top end of the piano and Wouter remembers her saying “I fell off my stool but I carried on playing the notes while hoisting myself back up. When I looked across at the studio controller he was having hysterics.”

It seems music runs deep in the blood as both Wouter’s parents were musicians, a passion that has continued down the family line.

So why did Wouter decide to become a pilot? As a school boy he went to an air show where he was befriended by some young pilots who invited him to come and visit them at Swartkops airbase. Wouter was so keen he cycled all the way back to the base. True to their word, the crew took him flying. He remained in touch with them even when they were deployed to Korea. When the crew returned, they continued to take young Wouter up in the air in their wondrous flying machines.

And that it seems was that.

At the age of 18 Wouter joined the Royal Air Force in 1954 in the midst of the Cold War. Simply put “It was between the Soviet Union and the rest.”

Wouter did not immediately become a pilot but first trained as an air signaller learning skills which gave him an edge when he started flying as a pilot. His role was to man the radio, radar, air gunnery, sonar tracking and cook for the crew. When it came to cooking he admits he was a complete failure. 

Eventually he was selected for pilot training. He vividly remembers his first instructional flight. He was driving a jet around the airfield. “I was 21 and my instructor said ‘Oh come on it’s like driving a car.’ I admitted that I couldn’t drive! The instructor said ‘Oh, we then have a problem.’” Eventually I was flying big heavy four-engined aircraft before I could even drive a car.”

Shackleton

Wouter describes that instructor as brilliant. One of the exercises he did during training was rolling the aircraft in an upwards spiral. “I did it perfectly first time. Then he tried and failed. So he made me do it again. He watched me carefully and said ‘Oh so that’s how you do it’. Whether it was a psychological tactic or not, I never knew. But it certainly boosted my ego.” In another training exercise Wouter flew solo to 35 000 feet, which took a long time in those small trainer aircraft. He was alarmed to find he'd misjudged how much fuel he needed and was not going to make it back to base. He was forced to do an emergency landing at another base. His instructor came to collect him and made him do some extra instructional flying. “This is where he used psychology.” says Wouter. “I didn’t think I needed my confidence rebuilt. But I was wrong. The next two flights were horrible. He knew I had taken a bit of a knock.”

Canadian Lancaster

Wouter gravitated into the maritime operations. Though he was never involved in any “hot wars” such as the Falklands, he was very much involved in the so-called Cold War keeping an eye on Soviet maritime movements as well as search, rescue and training.  

He was deployed to Canada for three years first flying Word War II Lancaster bombers for photographic reconnaissance. 

These great planes were eventually “retired” and Wouter “was privileged to fly in the last formation flight of Lancasters." At least, until recently when the British and Canadian museum aircraft managed a short season together in the UK.

Cosmopolitan Convair 540

Still based in Canada, Wouter then piloted the Cosmopolitan Convair 540 flying VIPs as well as general passenger and freight flights. "By the way that tour took me to 82 different airports in North America, from Alaska to San Diego to Key West to Newfoundland and points in-between, including New York JF Kennedy and New York La Guardia". He says it was one of his best flying tours because of the interesting people he met ranging from world leaders, politicians and high ranking defence officials. 

"It was such a privilege," a comment Wouter often makes about his life.

Alert - the most northern settlement in the world

Once a colleague on another squadron took him along on a flight from Ottawa to the most northern settlement in the world. This is a base called Alert on Ellesmere Island, only 800 kilometres from the North Pole. “We dropped off freight, picked up a new load and flew 400 miles south to the most western point of Greenland where we over-nighted but of course it never got dark in the month of May."

After a staff tour in a headquarters, he returned to maritime operations for a while.

He was sent to a joint navy and airforce training organisation in Scotland serving NATO. Not one to mince his words, he got into trouble with his superiors on a few occasions when he sided with the Navy’s point of view rather than the RAF. 

From there he moved to Tactical Evaluation which involved evaluating NATO airbases all over Europe on their war readiness. “It was all mixed up. We would exercise against or with each other; the RAF, Germans, Norwegians and Danes. Anyone who asked Wouter how they were doing during such an exercise received a stock reply: “How do you spell abysmal?”

“I must tell you this story about Cyprus,” says Wouter. “There was a Romanian passenger plane to Larnaca in Cyprus. A passenger complained about feeling sick. Flying into the sun with a dirty windscreen, the pilot suddenly spotted a runway and landed. But it was the wrong one, it was a helicopter landing strip. There were 157 people on board and the strip was too short. So he slew the plane around at the end. Luckily no one was injured but I was sent to sort it out.” 

The passengers were sent onto Larnaca by bus but the plane was stuck. The army was put on standby, fresh pilots from Romania were brought in. The plane was stripped of all excess weight and fuel. After ten days of negotiations and careful calculations the plane finally took off without incident.

“Three months later the Director of Civil Aviation phones me,” says Wouter. “He asks was there any medical examination of the passengers. I say ‘Yes. Why?’ Because the passenger who was the cause of all this has put in a claim against the airline for landing her at an airfield with inadequate medical facilities. I said: tell her trick lawyer that if he does that, we are going to charge her for causing an unnecessary landing at an airfield. Because you know what her problem was? Her bra was too tight! That’s what the doctor told me anyway. We never heard from her again."

Did Wouter ever have anything to do with the British Royal family? “I was backup baggage plane for the Queen Mother in Canada.” I must have looked confused because he explains that the standby aircraft had four engines for safety but there always had to be a backup plane on standby. That backup plane had to have its own backup plane which Wouter was designated to fly. However his services were never required.

His last job in the RAF was in charge of the day-to day running of the UK Military Search and Rescue Organisation based in Scotland. The worst rescue mission he had to oversee happened when an oil rig came adrift in the North Sea due to extreme weather conditions. “We sent in helicopters, a Nimrod maritime patrol and search and rescue aircraft. It was a really terrible night. We rescued 180 people off the rig and transferred them to other oil rigs. But we didn’t know that there was something seriously wrong with one of the rescuing helicopters. Eventually they tied it down on an oil rig. The next morning they discovered pieces of equipment had been dislodged from the engine. But we managed to get everyone off that night. And the oil rig was also saved in the end.”

One day Wouter received a report that the Queen was in trouble and a rescue helicopter had to be dispatched immediately to the Castle of Mey in northern Scotland. There had been reports the day before that she had over-extended herself climbing up a lighthouse.

“Something didn’t jibe” says Wouter. “So I spoke to the sergeant who'd received the call. He said the Royal physician, when asked who it was, had merely said it was a senior member of the Royal Family. Everyone immediately assumed it was the Queen but in fact it was the Queen Mother who by age was the senior member. Anyway we sent off a helicopter to pick her up and take her to hospital in Aberdeen. It was suspected she had a fish bone stuck in her throat.”  
Later in his report the helicopter navigator stated that they’d had a bit of difficulty with the Queen Mother because she wouldn’t put on her life jacket. The reason, it turned out, was that she had a problem putting it on over her hat and she didn’t want to take off her hat. Ever respectful of the Royal Family, Wouter points out he cannot vouch for the veracity of the report. "She was fine and the helicopter crew safely returned her to the Castle of Mey the next day. We were warmly thanked by Buckingham Palace."

Buckingham Palace

Wouter did in fact meet Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace as one of the recipients of an MBE. He recalls that the protocol was handled very smoothly every step of the way. He was given strict instructions about being in the presence of the Queen. “The first time you called her Your Majesty and thereafter as ma’am. She would shake your hand and when she exerted light pressure pushing her hand towards you, this was the signal that it was over.” The MBE stands for Member of the British Empire and ranking higher, the OBE is Officer of the British Empire. According to Wouter there is an alternative, rather subversive interpretation. "The MBE stands for my bloody efforts and OBE is for others’ bloody efforts.”

Wouter chose to take early retirement at the age of 50. “In the air force 55 years is the normal age to retire because of the stressful life one leads and one is not considered very useful after that.” He moved to South Africa in 1987 to begin a new phase in his life which is just as colourful and interesting as his life in the RAF.

In our podcast “The Story Teller” you can find out about the wonderful work Wouter (now 84 years) is doing at the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital in Cape Town. Click on this link The Volunteer Ward Photographer at Red Cross Children's Hospital