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Issue 9 - North American F-86 Sabre: Jock Maitland - RAF Sabre pilot

Growing up in Scotland, and attending school near RAF Turnhouse (now Edinburgh International Airport) gave Jock Maitland a life-long love for aeroplanes.  From the sidelines he would watch the young men take-off and land in their elegant Hawker Hart and Fury biplanes and realised then that he had to fly. By doing this he knew his family, with its long Army pedigree, might not share his enthusiasm.  When the WWII was declared Jock was not quite old enough to enlist, so he waited, somewhat impatiently, until he was just old enough and joined the Fleet Air Arm (FAA). He wanted to become a pilot and was fortunate to be selected for training. His first experience of service life was to be shipped off to Canada, where he learned to fly Harvards.

On completion of his basic flying training, found that the FAA no longer had a requirement for pilots, so he transferred to the RAF. Even though he had logged time aloft, he was posted to South Africa for pilot training – on Harvards!  Jock saw the war out in South Africa and on the cessation of hostilities, left the RAF to return to Scotland and become a lumberjack.  However, he remained on the reserve list of the RAF, to which he was re-called not long afterwards.

Jock Maitland was given a flight refresher course – on Harvards once again – before being posted to 32 (Spitfire) Squadron on active duty on what was then Palestine.  At the end of the British Mandate, having lost several aircraft, the squadron was withdrawn to Cyprus. Jock returned to Britain to convert from Spitfires on to what he calls, “the very short-range de Havilland Vampire Mk.1. Having done that, we then ferried the longer-range variant, the Mk. IV, to the Middle-East.”

His next tour, in 1950, was with 247 Squadron at RAF Odiham, in Hampshire, first on Vampires and then on the Gloster Meteor. When the Korean War broke out, volunteers were called for from experienced fighter pilots, to fly with the United States Air Force (USAF).

Four courses of about 25 pilots were selected for the USAF training at Nellis Air Force Base, just outside Las Vegas in Nevada, and Flight Lieutenant J. R. Maitland was one of these. The six-week course began in November 1952, and converted the RAF pilots on to the North American F-86 Sabre, which was quite different from the Vampires and Meteors that they had been used to. The huge gear change between British and American types was because the RAF did not have a suitable fighter at that time that could match the Russian-built MiG-15, the fighter that was in service in North Korea. It was an intensive six-week conversion course.  “Dogfighting, tail-chasing, formation flying, dive bombing, rocketing, air-to-air flag firing, night flying and simulated sweeps of four aircraft, the latter with experienced bouncers”, recalled one of Maitland’s colleagues, Group Captain R.J.F. Dickinson. “The USAF pilots on these training sorties were highly experienced and most of them had completed over 100 missions on F-86’s in Korea.”

On completion of the course, most of the RAF pilots were posted to Sabre squadrons in Germany, but a few went to Korea, some with the 25th Fighter Interceptor Squadron (FIS) at Suwon. Jock Maitland flew his first training mission from Suwon on 26 January and his first combat mission three days later. Regular sweeps along the Yalu River generally brought little or no action, they rarely sighted the enemy, but these sweeps were kept up to maintain a fighter presence over the valley. The patrols were not without excitement, Jock himself was nearly shot down on 3 March flying as number 3 on a patrol over the Yalu.  On 14 May, Jock’s logbook has an entry that says, “Dickie got a probable”. Dickie was the then Flt Lt R.J.F. Dickinson, flying as Maitland’s number 2. They were part of a formation of 24 F-86s which were at 35,000ft (10,668m) on patrol. When they were about 50 miles (80.5km) from the Yalu, they jettisoned their drop tanks and checked guns, a standard procedure.  Dickinson had trouble with his gun-sight and Maitland had trouble with his fuel system.  He decided to abort the mission and return to base; they turned through 90º and, as they did, four MiGs were seen diving down on them.

As the Sabres broke formation the Russian aircraft sped past them and one nearly got between Maitland and Dickinson, who throttled back and extended his airbrakes. This caused Dickinson to find himself looking straight into the jet-pipe of the MiG; although he had no working gun-sight, he just aimed the nose of the Sabre at the MiG and pressed the button. He saw several hits and followed the MiG down, but broke off before he saw it crash.

FIRST KILL

“An operational tour in Korea was 100 missions,” recalled Jock Maitland, “and I flew 77 before the war ended. In my squadron, we had several combat-damaged Sabres, but none were lost to MiGs.”  It was on 24 June 1953 that Maitland was flying as ‘Mission Spare’, an opportunity rarely given to fighter leaders rather than the wingmen. If anyone dropped out the ‘Spare’ would take his place; otherwise, unofficially, one could range free.  “In North Korea, at around 35,000ft a flash of wings caught my eyes, far below,” remembers Maitland, “I never took my eyes off it, rolled over, pulled through, aileron turned and went down, in and out of supersonic.  The scene rapidly revealed itself and decelerating I saw, very low, a Sabre turning inside a MiG.  I slightly misjudged and came out a bit behind, which was just as well, because after the Sabre another MiG was turning neatly inside it.

“Everything happened in a flash.  I fired an almost un-aimed burst at the MiG from behind the Sabre, the Sabre fired hitting the MiG all along the side of the fuselage, mine broke away firing his guns.  Apparently they (the MiG pilots) did this to lose weight to be able to turn faster.  At the same instance, a shower of tracer went over me. I broke towards it to find myself crossing a MiG, which had its dive brakes out.”  Maitland now entered a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with the Soviet aircraft, and takes up the story.  “We crossed almost level and I reversed back and to my astonishment, found that he had done the same and was coming aggressively towards me with all his guns going.”

“There was little chance of him getting a hit at that sort of angle, but it was an impressive sight, and I realised that I was in the dreaded ‘scissors’ which we talked about so much.  Like the old-fashioned defensive circle of aircraft, the first to break out was likely to be unlucky.  Two aircraft turned towards each other and as they crossed reversed direction.  One eventually got behind the other forcing it to break away and be shot down or be shot down anyway if it stayed!  I decelerated and reversed far too hard, the whole airframe rumbling, making a mess of the turn so that the MiG, still firing, scissored well behind me, and I was losing.  Getting a grip of myself I reversed again, making a better job of it and pulled back much of the lost ground, through the superior performance of the Sabre.  Reversing again he had broken out, keeping on turning and I had him.  At this point another shower of tracer came past.  We were really, really low by now, well below the barren hilltops.”

Maitland ignored the tracer and opened fire on the MiG, he saw strikes along the left wing and then unexpectedly, the MiG rolled gently on its back and flew straight into a ridge of rocks.  Maitland broke violently and looked around, but the sky was empty.  He made for home, low towards the coast and the sea, where MiGs never followed. “We were issued with these one-piece suits for over water operations, which we called ‘frog-suits’, in case we ditched“, recalled Jock.

“I remember that as I climbed out for home, I thought of the photograph of myself in uniform, which my parents proudly displayed on their bedroom chimney piece in Scotland.  With deep regret I thought of a similar scene in a house in China or Russia, of a smiling young man in uniform, who I had just killed.”

When he landed his ground-crew was delighted to see the smoke blackened gunports on the Sabre and welcomed Maitland with a great deal of enthusiasm.  An interesting sidenote to this encounter came when Maitland was going into his de-briefing.  A Colonel stopped him and said, “Was that you at Uiju, did you see mine go in?”  Maitland replied, “I saw you hit him but I did not see him go in.  Did you see mine?”  To which the Colonel asked, “Which one was that?”  Maitland was irritated by the colonel’s patronising attitude and replied, “The one that was right up your arse, Colonel!” and went into the de-brief.  When Maitland was back in the UK he was awarded the DFC, which must have been recommended by that same Colonel.

Maitland saw other action during his time in Korea, but the first encounter has remained vivid in his memory.  Another surprise he recalled was when he visited a shot-down MiG that had been recovered by the Royal Navy. On removing the engine covers a genuine Rolls-Royce Nene engine was revealed.  Several boxed examples of the Nene were ‘given’ to the Russians by the British Labour government of the day.  That they turned up in the ‘Korean’ MiG-15 is no surprise. Russia made their own copies of the Nene and immediately gained advanced jet-technology by way of a short-cut afforded them by Sir Stafford-Cripps and others.

After his time in Korea, Jock Maitland returned to Britain as an instructor at the Day Fighter Leaders School on Meteors, “A bit of a let-down after the F-86!” Then onto Hawker Hunter F. Mk Is and later the F. Mk 4, before moving to Amman in Jordan to take over 249 Squadron flying de Havilland Venoms on ground-attack duties.

An emergency move to Cyprus was followed by the Suez campaign, and as Jock recalled with a grin, “I shot up far more MiGs than I had ever shot down!”

However, by 1957 the British Conservative government made severe defence cuts and declared the end of the manned fighter. All the RAF Middle East Squadrons were disbanded. Maitland resigned his commission in protest. “No one noticed!” he reports.

Staying in aviation, Maitland moved to Croydon Airport and instructed on Tiger Moths and other aircraft. During the 1950s there was a renewed interest in aviation and Maitland was keen to expand his flying interests. Together with a business partner he started Maitland Air Charters. However, he realised quite early that new housing was engulfing Croydon Airport and that aviation from the established base would cease in time. Consequently, he decided to move his base of operations and took a lease on RAF Biggin Hill, which he opened as a civil airport in 1959. To promote his air charter and travel business and aviation in general, in 1963 Maitland organised the first Biggin Hill International Travel and Air Fair, which was held over five days. It was a success. At the Air Fair the general public were able to go on board airliners and get a flavour of air travel. Jock built up the Air Fair and, later with son Jim, he headed a small team that organised and promoted the world-famous event, which continued unbroken until 2010. For his achievements in civilian aviation Jock Maitland was awarded the Jeffrey Quill Memorial Medal and the MBE. Now retired he still meets up with old friends and is as sharp as ever and retains his unbounded enthusiasm for aviation.

Words: Francois Prins