At its recent meeting, the Guyra sub-Branch of the RSL elected Mr Archibald (Tony) Streeter as its new president; the former president, Mr Brian Speary having resigned.
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Ex RAAF Squadron Leader, Mr Streeter (pictured above) had a long service career beginning in the Vietnam War and continuing post-war in SE Asia, the UK, Europe, USA, China and the Pacific.
He was formerly Hon Secretary of the sub-Branch for 10 years, and his acceptance of this new post was warmly welcomed by members.
Mr Streeter said that with one or two exceptions, the ex-servicemen of the sub-branch are on the wrong side of 60. However they were not always elderly and the sub-branch this week begins a series of outlines of members and what they did while serving in uniform.
Tony has been elected to lead off – here is his story:
Darwin 1974, en route Peking/Beijing.
Sole cargo: one Murray Grey bull;
a gift from Gough Whitlam to China
I joined the RAAF in 1958 as a cadet straight from school and trained as a pilot. After graduation, I was posted to fly C47 Dakotas in Australia and New Guinea and after two years was seconded to the RAF.
Based in England, we also operated in Europe from the iced runways of northern Norway in winter to North Africa and the Mediterranean sun. This, of course, included Cyprus while the Greek and Turkish communities were resolving their difficulties.
Then, whilst flying the Berlin Corridor, the Soviets were not happy with our presence; and they would harass us. The radio traffic went like this: “RAFAIR xyz you have fast moving traffic, your level, on a conflicting course crossing left to right at 4 miles, 3... , 2..., 1.., contacts merging..., contacts separating... ,
1 mile… clearing”.
All OK in clear weather, but in cloud? We pilots could only sit and look at each other and hope the other guy was not suicidal.
On another occasion when returning from Singapore our crew got involved in cyclone relief for a few days shuttling between Madras and Sri Lanka; a genuine Madras curry is not recommended.
In 1966 I returned to Australia for my first C130 posting; I had a total of four postings on both A and E model Hercules. With the exception of one ground duties posting, this occupied all my flying till retirement in 1979.
This was a busy time for C130 crews with Vietnam being a regular destination. Due to the hostilities in North Borneo (Kalimantan) the route to reach Malaysia was via Cocos, the long way around. This issue was eventually resolved and we travelled the direct route through Darwin.
While the Vietnam war continued, other regular destinations were Thailand (Bangkok, Ubon), Kalimantan (Kuching, Labuan) and the Philippines with RAAF Butterworth, Malaysia being a central staging point. The Vietnam collapse saw us return to Saigon (as it still was) in some numbers for refugee evacuation and food resupply.
We finally departed for Bangkok and Australia in late April 1975. Several aircraft operated from Bangkok for a short period on relief work to Malaysia , Hong Kong , the Philippines, and Laos.
In between all this, and after, there was time for the bull run to Peking (Beijing). On submitting our flight plan from Hong Kong to enter Chinese airspace, we received no acknowledgement - remember that in 1974 China had closed borders.
So we had the dilemma: go or stay? The Australian political representative said ‘GO!’ so we went. The entry procedure was to fly to a specific point over the ocean and then turn inland. It was a bit tense for a while, but all went well.
We landed at Canton, now Guangzhou, picked up our Chinese navigator and radio operator, then departed for Peking. We were in cloud most of the way and didn’t see a thing. Met at the airport as honoured guests, given a banquet in our honour, top notch food and many toasts in mao tai .
And came home, each with a copy of Mao’s little red book (the navigator and I drove the Wing Commander somewhat demented with our quotes from it). On my next Beijing trip (to bring the Jade Princess Exhibition back) we had some time off, toured the Ming Tombs and the Great Wall. This was late winter, the air was very dry and cold, the static electricity build up on the hotel carpet was alarming and our Chinese guide was most reluctant to touch the elevator button in consequence, as it bit him. I was wearing the boots I had picked up in Islamabad some time prior to this, they were slippery as all get out on the icy steps of the Great Wall and were damn dangerous.
The trip to Pakistan mentioned above was UN support. The RAAF was then operating a Caribou aircraft in Kashmir as part of the UN observer team; India and Pakistan were actively fighting at the time.
We were to return direct to Cocos, maintaining some 200 miles off the Indian coast. The weather man refused to believe Cocos existed and thought we were insane. We arrived at Cocos about midnight to a classic pilot’s problem. Solid overcast, a tired crew, no moon, no stars, no external lights at all, the cockpit was all that existed. When the runway lights were switched on they could have been floating in space or painted on the window, you could have just flown through them, one had no depth perception at all, the ground didn’t exist. On final approach the landing lights were switched on and the ground was there where it should be.
The next UN trip was to Egypt, freight, one Iroquois helicopter and support crew, staging though Butterworth and Bahrain both ways. After an all-nighter from Bahrain we arrived back at Butterworth at about 7am. While quietly quaffing a welcome tinnie as we booked into the Officer’s mess, a base medical officer mistakenly thought we were going, not coming, and were about to fly. His alarm we found amusing.
As well as the above there was Cyclone Tracy, Laos (missed by a missile), Japan, Guam, New Zealand, Yemen (Aden), Christmas Island, Norfolk Island medivac, loss of control and subsequent spin during training (a height loss of 15,000ft (5km), Libya (Tripoli, Tobruk), Khartoum, Indonesia, Crete, Malta, Gibraltar, Hawaii, the USA, a Special Ops Course, a USAF Flying Safety/Aircraft Accident Investigation Course and probably a few others I have forgotten.
21 years reduced to a page and one half of memories. Writing this has refreshed them for me.
There are many more stories; mostly good, that cannot go to print!!
Tony Streeter