This one was stationed in Malaya/Borneo whilst I was there. The aircraft was a three-seat observation version with the rear passenger, seated, back to the pilot looking towards the rear of the aircraft. I said “look after” because it had a broken camshaft and was awaiting a replacement engine.

There were only two ways into the airstrip - walk or by air. No, I did not walk. I suppose you could have dropped in by parachute if you were really adventurous. Operating from this airstrip was a company of Gurkhas - super people, and an RAF Sycamore helicopter.

All of our supplies were dropped in by parachute. If the RAF was accurate, all the supplies would land on the relatively short airstrip but there were a couple of times when that went wrong and our food was left dangling in the fairly tall trees. The Gurkhas would then have to climb the trees to retrieve the food as otherwise we would all have gone hungry. The Gurkhas made super tea – tea leaves, tins of condensed milk - including the tin and label, heaps of sugar were all put into a big pan full of water and boiled up together.

The day finally came when I knew I would have to do some work because the replacement engine, together with another engineer arrived. The only problem for us was that we had no crane to lift the old engine out and put the new one in and with no hope of getting one. Thinking caps were put on and a solution appeared. On the top of the engine, an inverted inline four cylinder one, were two lifting points, so with the help of the Gurkhas, two strong poles (of the wooden variety!) were attached and with two Gurkhas on the end of each pole, and working through an interpreter, the engine was lifted and walked forward to clear the engine supports but not before we had made sure that everything had been disconnected. The new engine was installed in the reverse manner. When everything had been connected, a ground run and an air test was carried out just to make sure everything was working correctly. After the air test, the aircraft headed back home to Brunei with the other engineer on board, which was about a 45 minutes flight over beautiful jungle.

For my sins I had to travel back in the Sycamore. It was flying to Brunei for maintenance to be carried out. I was informed that we would be taking a prisoner with us and that he was my responsibility. The Gurkhas had captured this prisoner, who had first worked for the British but had then moved across to the Indonesian side. How long he had been a prisoner I do not know but when he saw it was a “white face” that was his escort he had a smile on his face. The smile soon disappeared after we took off because he was sitting next to the door and the door was about a 95% Perspex window. There was a lovely view of the jungle about five hundred feet below, but he also had a loaded rifle pointed at him because my seat faced rearwards at him. My orders were to shoot him if he attempted anything. I think he must have been more scared of falling out through the door than being shot. Fortunately I never had to make that decision. Anyhow, we arrived at Brunei safely and the smile returned to his face but not for long because the soldiers who came for him were – yes, you guessed correctly, more Gurkhas.

After completing three enjoyable years in the Far East I returned to England to be retrained.

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