BUTTERWORTH

I was already in love with Asia before I even started discovering the Far-East, but I could not explain why! But of course, I would fall in love with each and every destination we would fly to. Call it “citizen of the world”, call it “adventurer”, I was systematically attracted by “somewhere else”, regardless were this “somewhere else” may have been. Sometimes, between assignments, loadmasters would stick to the place where they had ended their previous mission, for a few days, waiting for a new assignment, a new adventure. It was the case on that day as I was taking a well-deserved rest in my “home away from home”: Dubai. In these days, only Pakistanis and Filipinos workers enjoyed being in Dubai. There were a few foreigners conducting business with the local sheikhs, but Dubai was far from being what it is today. This was before the “tourist boom” and wild camels were still rambling around along sand covered brand new roads.

My new assignment came with a “telex” (2) sent to our local agent: I was needed in a place I had never been, somewhere in Malaysia, on a military base which had been in the past a Royal Air Force operation centre and was now in the hands of the Royal Australian Air Force. The only thing I knew was the nature of the load: a micro wave telephone system. I Had carried such units in my early days when, with Seaboard World Airlines, we operated charter flights to Ryad for the account of Western Electric. I was to position in a place called Butterworth Air Force Base, a location I had never been before, a few nautical miles from the island of Penang. Our agent in Dubai, a well-seasoned “Brit”, had arranged for my travel there. First, a comfortable berth on the upper deck of a Flying Tiger Line B 747-100, fuel-stopping in Dubai and continuing as a scheduled flight to Kuala-Lumpur, and from there, a domestic trip on a Malaysian Airline System plane to Penang. As the B 747-100 took off from Dubai and I was enjoying a night-cap before falling asleep, I could not help but thinking about the Japanese occupation in the part of the world. I had pictures coming to my mind of Japanese officers running POW camps and I was wondering also if I would have enough time to visit the town. Landing in Kuala-Lumpur was uneventful and the transfer to the domestic terminal easy.

(The Flag of Malaysia)

SOMETIMES BEFORE JUNE 30 1988, EAST OF ROME… (3)

Sitting in the first-class airport lounge, I Listen to the conversation in “Bahasa Melayu”, the local language spoken in Malaysia. Of course, I cannot understand a word! My usual environment is rather made of English, Spanish, Italian, German …. but I always do this. It is a way to get immersed in the local life and get used to the sound of a language. I always loved it and I found it to be the “right thing” to do when learning to operate in a new environment.

Breakfast is served on board: the unavoidable beef satay, or was it pork satay? One and a half hour after take-off from Kuala-Lumpur, we land in Penang. The airport terminal is definitely adapted to the local climate. There is no concrete in view, just wood. Birds fly over the head of air travellers, large flowerpots with enormous flowers pave the way to the terminal exit and shortly before walking out of the building, I can see a big wooden board painted in white with black lettering. Besides the board, a large box on a support is also painted in white. “IF YOU CARRY DRUGS, DROP THEM IN THE BOX. DRUGS KILL, THE LAW PUNISHES”. In a few weeks, a British tourist will be hanged for having introduced drugs coming from Honk-Kong on Malaysian soil.

(Drug trafficking ? Give it an other thought when arriving in Malaysia...)

A taxi-cab takes me to the Golden Sands Hotel. Keeping the windows open, I can feel how moist the air is. Penang buildings are “Victorian Colonial” and remind me of the movie “Woman of Malacca”. The green colour of the trees is everywhere. On decrepit buildings, greenish marks of moisture are contrasting with the whitish milk of lime cover supposed to keep a decent appearance of the few historical constructions dating back to the colonial era. Gardens are uncared and, true or not, I will look for Audrey Greenwood (*) and her military husband, wearing evening attire and walking in the old city (Woman of Malacca, a French movie shot in 1937).

(September 12, 1945, it is the end for Japanese forces in Malaysia)

Most of the tourists in this season come from Australia. The Golden Sands Hotel is a four stars affair located close to an enormous beach. As it is often the case in tropical countries, the sky if not completely blue, but rather white with large streaks of deep ultramarine. In spite of clouds, staying unprotected on the beach will have painful effects. A nurse working for the Golden Sands takes care of the second degree burns when newly arrived tourists spend too much time exposing themselves to the burning rays of the Malaysian sun. Pulo Penang (Penang Island) is connected to the mainland through an efficient system of ferry-boats. The lower deck is for cars, the upper deck for passengers. I have collected the ferry-boat schedule and the morning after (in spite of severe sun burns making me look like a Russian doll, I find myself on the upper deck, breathing the moist ocean air, on my way to Butterworth Air Force base, a mere three kilometres for the City of George Town, the capital of Penang.

(Three views of Panang in 20th century)

RAAF BUTTERWORTH (three or more days after arriving in Penang)

My taxi driver is a young Malay looking for the extra buck. He offers a tour of former Japanese POW camps. I don’t have time, and if I had, I’d rather spend it visiting the old part of the island, getting more accustomed to Malay life. He gives me a small card with a telephone number.

“Keep it, if you need me to take you anywhere, just call…” We drive through carts loaded with vegetables, thousands of bicycles, and finally get to the check point at the base. A RAAF sergeant look at my passport and checks through a telephone that I am indeed expected on the base. My uniform stripes trigger a military salute. He calls me “lieutenant” and explains how to reach the office were air operation is located. Buildings are all painted in white, there is a definite feeling of order and wellbeing. Malay gardeners are mowing the lawn and the whole things reminds me of a golf course rather than an Air Force base. There is in the air a smell of fresh cut grass and as I walk to the building, I realized that I could well be in Australia or on an Air Force Base in the United States. Soon, I can see the “Southern Cross” of the Australian flag, and in front of me stands Colonel Wheatley, just like I thought he would look like: handlebar moustache, khaki colonial attire, holding a large “half bent billiard” pipe in his right hand.

(Women in the Air Base...It is already operated by the RAAF, so the pic is post 1957...)

“How was your trip? Did you have a nice stay in Malaysia? It’s a nice country you know….”

Colonel Wheatley has been in the Air Force since the age of 17! On the wall of his office are pictures of his family, some shot in Australia, some shot here, on the base. He arrived in Malaysia long, long ago and fell in love with the place, and that was it.

(Officer's mess)

Down to business, we look together at the details of the offload operation. Tomorrow, a Flying Tiger B 747 will land in Butterworth. I need to check the equipment available for the offload operation and soon enough, colonel Wheatley and I are crossing the base in an electric cart, just like if we were golfers going around on a green. We reach a hangar were military style ground equipment is located and I am introduced to the ground handling team. IT does not take me long to discover that the so called “main deck” loading platform cannot reach the seventeen feet needed to be on level with the cargo door sill of the B 747…. In Penang airport, the equipment includes a standard type main deck loader. Borrowing it from Malaysian Airlines System would be a difficult affair, and arranging for the transport would probably take too long. There is no other choice: we must build some kind of an “extension” (4), including a roller system, which will be somehow “attached” to the loader itself. It’s going to be tricky but It can be done. Since the day I asked carpenters to build a cattle ramp in a god forsaken place in Venezuela, I know that everything is possible, even miracles. Colonel Wheatley is puzzled. He picks up a telephone and summons a bunch of guys from the Engineer Corps “Come on chaps, join us in the “D” building, we’ve got a technical problem there, come on chaps, on the double, we don’t want tomorrow’s operation to end up as a “Rock show”. In a few months, Colonel Wheatley will leave Malaysia and take his family back to “motherland”. He does not want to end up his military career “with a failure”. The Engineers show up with paper, rulers and callipers. A few minutes later, I can already see something I like: an “add-on” device which will be loaded on the top of the loader to add the extra missing feet and allow the top of that contraption to be flush with the airplane main deck.

( some kind of a "blueprint" for an extension ? )

“Can you build this stuff on the base? Do you have an iron workshop on premises?” I ask.

A young man from New South Wales gets in the conversation… “On the base, that’s not possible, but I am sure that one of the “trash haulers” (5) will know someone off-base who can build that stuff”

Not far from the base is an ironsmith workshop. The owner is Chinese and he has the weird capacity of seeing things “in perspective”. Our basic drawing is suddenly “modified” and pretty soon I see appearing on paper the exact kind of tool needed to solve our problem. My day is spent in the Chinese workshop, watching sparks go by as the extension is now being manufactured. The roller system could be better but hopefully the whole thing will be good enough to be used for a one-time operation. By six PM, a coat of rust-proofing paint is applied on the structure. One thousand and three hundred US dollars change hands.

( Front cover of an old tourist brochure for Malaya)

Colonel Wheatley has invited me for dinner. His wife is a beautiful metis. Life is great, the beer is cold enough, the sun is setting down. I feel like I am in some kind of a movie. Of course, building an “extension” for a loading platform is a risky business, but tonight, who cares. We will see what happens when the plane will be here… As his wife if picking up the plates, Colonel Wheatley bends over to me and gives me a “business card” with a grin on his face. “That’s a bar where I go with my chaps for relaxing every now and then”.

It’s nine thirty, the night is still young, in my breast pocket I have kept the phone number of my taxi-driver. I am sure that he knows of that place…. A couple of beers? more? who knows…

“Colonel, would you mind if I use your phone? I need to get a taxi ride….”

While dialling the phone of my morning's driver, I have a quick thought for the Malay proverb “When I will have seen, I will know, but not before” …

Let’s see what the driver has to offer…

(1) Butterworth Air Force base was under the control of the Royal Air Force from 1941 to 1957. In 1957, the base was turned over to the Royal Australian Air Force. It was returned to Malaysian military management in June of 1988.

(2) In these days, teletype messages were used. Computers did not exist as we know today. A dedicated teletype network operated by SITA connected all the airlines. Operators would type a text and send it to “coded” destinations.

(3) Anywhere “East of Rome” were the various lands of real adventure and…flight plans systematically lost by ATC

(4) Cargo loading platform “extension”. Some cargo loading platforms are designed to offload containers or pallets from the bellies of commercial or military planes. Some others are designed to reach the main deck of modern cargo airplanes. Military equipment is designed around military specifications and type of aircraft used by various Air Forces. An extension is a “structure” that allows a “belly loader” to be used on occasion to reach the eight of the main deck. I have seen (and used) this kind of contraption in secluded airports in Africa or South America. Although it can be tricky, it was a “life saver”. Ground equipment being very expensive, some airport authorities or airline do not invest in special equipment if the traffic does not warrant for it. On that very specific mission, I suddenly remembered that when comparing experiences with a load master from a “very secretive airline by the name of SFAIR”, operating “special missions” in various parts of war torn Africa, such an “extension” had been mentioned in the conversation. Building specifically designed equipment to offload the B 747 in Butterworth was the third time I really had to resource to being creative (!)

(5) Trash Haulers. Australian Air Force slang. Members of the Royal Australian Air Force Transport command.

(*) "Audrey Greenwood", the main character in the movie "Woman of Malaccas a 1937 movie by Marc Allegret)

(From the movie " Woman of Malacca)

(A pic of the "author" in the midst 80's, glasses on the shirt pocket. The pic is taken in a B 747-100, an Ex Pan-Am airplane)