Post by Dave Homewood on Jan 7, 2024 22:40:52 GMT 12
This is not strictly NZ civil aviation, but it was a Kiwi who was flying for an airline overseas. From The Press, 30th of April 1975.
Pilot back from war zone
(N.Z. Press Association) TAURANGA, April 29.
A man who watched Cambodia's agony from the air and the ground has arrived in Tauranga with his Vietnamese wife, her three children, and their own two children.
Des Anderson was a pilot for nine months for the Cambodian national airline, Air Cambodia, and was in the country until the last hours before the fall of Phnom Penh.
He and his wife, Kim, their children Maria, aged 21, Brenda, six months, and Mrs Anderson’s children, Ha, 10. Hai, six, and Hanh, 13, arrived in Tauranga during the week-end.
Mr Anderson was flown from Phnom Penh to Bangkok with staff from the United States Embassy, and was then able to arrange, with the help of the New Zealand authorities in Saigon, for his wife and the children to be taken out of South Vietnam.
Mr Anderson is no stranger to Indo-China, its people, its wars, and its problems. He has worked there “off and on” since 1966. In Cambodia, Mr Anderson was one of a large number of pilots flying civilian flights. Among the pilots were Americans, Frenchmen, Taiwanese, Laotians, Puerto Ricans, and a Peruvian. There were also two who had worked in New Zealand, Peter Duggan-Smith and Neil Hanson, who had flown in Rotorua, he said.
As far as Mr Anderson knew all the foreign pilots, except one who was killed, managed to leave Cambodia before the final collapse. All Cambodian pilots had been serving in the air force, and this had led to the recruitment of the foreigners, he said.
The aircraft he flew were DC3s, DC4s, and C-46 Commandoes — all piston engined and built in the 1940s.
Armies weak
Both armies involved in the Cambodian conflict had been weak by international standards, and territorial gains and losses were measured in hundreds of metres, not in kilometres, he said.
Many Government units resisted very stubbornly, and some which entered the fight with 500 men were reduced to about 80. “But they fought on.”
Mr Anderson said the average Cambodian had not taken a great deal of interest in the war — unless he was directly affected. “They certainly did not panic in the way in which the people of South Vietnam seem to have done.” he said. “Our aircraft were used to fly food and passengers — we might take rice and people to one town, pigs and passengers from there, and fish and people to another.”
Requisitioned
In the last days before the capital fell even some of the veteran transport aircraft had been requisitioned by the armed forces and used as bombers, the bombs being jettisoned out the cargo door, Mr Anderson said.
“The aircraft were old, and the maintenance terrible. All servicing was done on the taxi-ways, in the open, and in daylight only.
“Although it was a case of replacing the old parts we lost only one aircraft in the air.” he said. When he joined the airline it had about 15 operational aircraft, but in the last days only four were available. Many had been grounded to supply spare parts for other planes, and others had been taken by the services.
Plane hit
“My worst day was at Phnom Penh Airport, when 85 rocket and 105 mm artillery shells hit it.
“Just after I landed my C-46 the tail was hit and blown off. I had made a run for a nearby bunker, but the loadmaster was killed.”
Despite the difficult, and often dangerous, flying and living conditions in Cambodia, Mr Anderson said, he would be interested in returning there to fly. However, he thinks it unlikely that the new regime will allow foreign pilots to return. “The Cambodians still owe me a lot of money—but I have got my life and my family,” he said.
Pilot back from war zone
(N.Z. Press Association) TAURANGA, April 29.
A man who watched Cambodia's agony from the air and the ground has arrived in Tauranga with his Vietnamese wife, her three children, and their own two children.
Des Anderson was a pilot for nine months for the Cambodian national airline, Air Cambodia, and was in the country until the last hours before the fall of Phnom Penh.
He and his wife, Kim, their children Maria, aged 21, Brenda, six months, and Mrs Anderson’s children, Ha, 10. Hai, six, and Hanh, 13, arrived in Tauranga during the week-end.
Mr Anderson was flown from Phnom Penh to Bangkok with staff from the United States Embassy, and was then able to arrange, with the help of the New Zealand authorities in Saigon, for his wife and the children to be taken out of South Vietnam.
Mr Anderson is no stranger to Indo-China, its people, its wars, and its problems. He has worked there “off and on” since 1966. In Cambodia, Mr Anderson was one of a large number of pilots flying civilian flights. Among the pilots were Americans, Frenchmen, Taiwanese, Laotians, Puerto Ricans, and a Peruvian. There were also two who had worked in New Zealand, Peter Duggan-Smith and Neil Hanson, who had flown in Rotorua, he said.
As far as Mr Anderson knew all the foreign pilots, except one who was killed, managed to leave Cambodia before the final collapse. All Cambodian pilots had been serving in the air force, and this had led to the recruitment of the foreigners, he said.
The aircraft he flew were DC3s, DC4s, and C-46 Commandoes — all piston engined and built in the 1940s.
Armies weak
Both armies involved in the Cambodian conflict had been weak by international standards, and territorial gains and losses were measured in hundreds of metres, not in kilometres, he said.
Many Government units resisted very stubbornly, and some which entered the fight with 500 men were reduced to about 80. “But they fought on.”
Mr Anderson said the average Cambodian had not taken a great deal of interest in the war — unless he was directly affected. “They certainly did not panic in the way in which the people of South Vietnam seem to have done.” he said. “Our aircraft were used to fly food and passengers — we might take rice and people to one town, pigs and passengers from there, and fish and people to another.”
Requisitioned
In the last days before the capital fell even some of the veteran transport aircraft had been requisitioned by the armed forces and used as bombers, the bombs being jettisoned out the cargo door, Mr Anderson said.
“The aircraft were old, and the maintenance terrible. All servicing was done on the taxi-ways, in the open, and in daylight only.
“Although it was a case of replacing the old parts we lost only one aircraft in the air.” he said. When he joined the airline it had about 15 operational aircraft, but in the last days only four were available. Many had been grounded to supply spare parts for other planes, and others had been taken by the services.
Plane hit
“My worst day was at Phnom Penh Airport, when 85 rocket and 105 mm artillery shells hit it.
“Just after I landed my C-46 the tail was hit and blown off. I had made a run for a nearby bunker, but the loadmaster was killed.”
Despite the difficult, and often dangerous, flying and living conditions in Cambodia, Mr Anderson said, he would be interested in returning there to fly. However, he thinks it unlikely that the new regime will allow foreign pilots to return. “The Cambodians still owe me a lot of money—but I have got my life and my family,” he said.
