On Laughter-Silvered Wings article

Gail Strever-Morkel recounts her personal journey in recording her father’s remarkable life story y book, On LaughterSilvered Wings, about Ted Strever, my father, follows one man’s journey from boyhood to manhood. It traces his life and character development through the humble beginnings of a South African childhood during the economic depressions of the 1920s and 1930s; an early life fraught with instability and financial insecurity.

The story recounts his experiences as a South African Air Force pilot during the Second World War, and marks his coming of age achieved by his tenacity, perseverance and ability to overcome adversity as a Coastal

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Command bomber pilot. His wartime exploits include the first mid-air skyjack in history, and a daring solitary attack on the Italian fleet after losing the rest of his strike team. Later, his painful recovery after being burnt in the inferno of a horrific air crash in the Ceylon jungle, and his many emergency and crash-landings. The story finally unfolds when, as commander of 27 Squadron RAF, he carried out dangerous rescue operations behind enemy lines in the jungle of Burma, for members of the Indian resistance movement.

The journey of writing my book started with two early passions.

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Firstly, my love as a child of hearing family stories of old. Secondly, my being an intrepid hoarder of family photographs, letters and memorabilia, which earned me the nickname of ‘Magpie’.

Tip 1: What not to do Some thirty years ago I felt an urgent need to record, and so preserve, my father’s life story; I did not want it to die with him. My most personal motivation was to celebrate his indomitable spirit, to leave some trace of his voice and keep alive his zest for life. He was at this time, as he put it, ‘in the departure lounge’. I was a ‘30-something’ wife and

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Family Archives A Hero in the Family mother with a busy household and full-time study at university. I thus tried to take the easy way out. I presented my father with a tape cassette recorder, a set of tapes and an ‘instruction’ leaflet, which read: Darling Dad, Please tell me your life story on these tapes. When you are relating anything remember to describe how you were feeling, what the atmosphere was like, what the setting/scenery was like.

All my love Gail. xxx Two years later, with nothing from him, I realized this tactic was not going to work. If I was going to get anything out of him, I needed to be present and personally engaged with him and his story. As we lived some 400-plus kilometres from each other this was going to be a slow process, achieved in small bites. I decided to do our recording sessions on every weekend or holiday visit to his country cottage. Here, I coerced him into an hour or two of ‘life-story’ time.

Tip 2:Be fully involved Once Dad and I had begun our journey of reliving his past together, I understood how vital it was to share with him all those exciting, frustrating, hilarious and painful moments. My original expectation of him – sitting ‘cold’ and speaking into an inanimate object with no listener or dialogue happening – was an impossible one. Had he done the tapes this way, his story would have been ‘bloodless’, lacking life, humour and expression, and I would have been deprived of all the precious hours spent with him, which I now hold forever dear.

Tip 3: Be organized As we completed tapes I took them home, numbered and labelled them: ‘Tape One: 1920-23’, for example. I then spent many hours transcribing them using an old-fashioned Dictaphone machine with earphones and foot peddle. When the content of each cassette was printed out I sent a copy to Dad for checking and inserts.

The recording sessions started in 1983 and ended with his death in 1997, at which time, having obtained his dusty correspondence file from his office, I managed to send numerous questionnaires to his friends and acquaintances for more w w w. d i s c o v e r y o u r h i s t o r y. n e t

In this excerpt from Chapter 1 of On Laughter-Silvered Wings, Ted Strever describes an incident that happened in June 1942 when he and his Beaufort crew came under attack while trying to defend Malta, ‘one small lonely island in the middle of the Mediterranean’, from the Italian fleet.

In at the Deep End Soon I realized what was happening and shouted, ‘By God, it’s the bloody 10-inch guns of the battleships aimed and firing at us.’

There was now no mistaking their intention. All of a sudden we were flying into black smoke, with explosions all around TED AND the wreck after a crash-landing at Ta’Qali, Malta, us, but fortunately 1942. Author’s collection we couldn’t hear them over the noise of the aircraft. In spite of not having the support and comfort of the other eight Beauforts around us to disperse the anti-aircraft fire, I decided that since we had found the fleet we would go in alone. So I flew on.

There were two battleships escorted by two cruisers and seven or eight destroyers – eleven warships in all. The escorting ships were ahead of the battleships, forming an avenue on either side of them. I decided that the safest place to go was right down the centre of the avenue, straight towards the battleship, reasoning that if they fired at me they were going to hit their own ships on the opposite side, which would surely make them more cautious. Well, I can assure you they didn’t desist.

I went in low, right between the escorting ships, head-on to the battleships, aimed – ascertaining from the bow waves that the battleship was in motion – and dropped my torpedo and shouted to Dunsmore in the front, ‘Fire the Vickers gun straight ahead!’ (My torpedo just missed the bow of the ship and I realized that, having already been attacked by our strike force ahead of me, the ship was stationary and had a bloody false bow wave painted on it to fool the enemy.)

The flak coming at us from all these ships was indescribable. There was tracer, green, orange, blue … the water was boiling around us. There were big black shell bursts exploding. As I jumped the battleships from bow to stern I felt a crack in my back and … shoomph! … the hatch was shot off over my head, filling the cockpit with flying shrapnel and leaving gouges in the instrument panel. The turret at the back was shot away. A 20mm shell hit us on the wing root, where Bob Gray was manning the Vickers gun, and the shrapnel ripped into his thigh.

Incredibly, the aircraft kept flying.

Phew! … We got out of that lot! Now, you must realize that because of all the messing around looking for the fleet, we had only attacked at about 6.30 and it was now 6.40, about twenty-five to thirty minutes after sun-up – which was a very hazardous time to be flying around the Mediterranean. However, now that we were clear of them I assessed the damage. Shells had broken all the hydraulic pipes, there were holes all over the place, no radio, and we were in a terrible mess. The only things working were the engines and the control surfaces, the fuel lines, and the oil pipes, and there we were, stooging around an empty Mediterranean sky.

With no radio contact, a seriously defective aeroplane, fuel gauges close to the empty mark and a wounded crew member, I said to my navigator, ‘Well, what do we do?’

He threw up his arms. ‘I don’t know!’

This wasn’t a lot of help and made me lose confidence in him at that stage. I then attempted to fathom the correct course and ETA to Malta. I reasoned that on the original course I must have finished up north, or to port, of the target (the fleet), and that if I flew the reciprocal course I would end up to the left of Malta.

So I turned 90 degrees again, and off I set.

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Family Archives A Hero in the Family

TED AND an Indian V Force resistance fighter after a successful rescue operation, Mingladon, Burma, 1945. Author’s collection

information. The response was amazing. Addressees who could not add much to my quest put me in contact with others who could. I had replies and help from places all over the world: Bermuda, Canada, England, Italy and New Zealand, to name a few. I also travelled from Cape Town to Harare to interview as many people as I could – especially those of Dad’s generation, before they passed on …

So I felt ready to put this book together – but then life threw me a curve ball and my project had to be shelved. It is now ten years later and one night, lying awake at three in the morning, I realized that I might be lying on my deathbed saying, ‘I never wrote the book’, feeling I had not honoured all those who had helped me with their time, effort and encouragement. The next morning I tried to find something on my computer from this early research, and to my surprise I found a file entitled ‘Interviews’. Thinking that it was only a few pages, I pressed the print button and, to my astonishment, a hundred pages spewed out of the printer. I then knew I just HAD to write the book. I was ready to go. Or so I thought!

Tip 4: Research The process of structuring and writing a book is not really the difficult part of the process; once I got going it became obsessive and all absorbing. However, as I found out, the research of hundreds of big and small details can stall the process for weeks or months at a time. Tenacity, faith and patience are definitely needed, the latter not being one of 18

my strong points. Actually, there were times, when by the most uncanny means, I received just the information I needed. This made me start believing my project was somehow ‘blessed’.

Tip 5: You need allies I was very privileged to have the invaluable help of two prolific authors along the way. Firstly, Roy C. Nesbit in the United Kingdom, who shared his in-depth research on aspects of my father’s skyjacking story and gave me permission to use photographs from his collection.

Secondly, my South African mainstay, Professor Louis Changuion, who in addition to providing his immense knowledge of South African history, read, edited and commented on my manuscript. I drew heavily on the information I received from my father’s childhood friend Wally Levy, and his ‘comrades in arms’, Lieutenant General R.H.D. (Bob) Rogers, Carey Heydenrych, Herschell Reilley and Eddie Whiston. These sources provided me with the background and context into which I could weave my story. In this way one man’s story became enmeshed with the world story – HISTORY!

was writing a book about my father, was a rather sceptical, ‘Why? Who was he? What did he do?’ – as if anyone outside of celebrity or fame couldn’t possibly have a good story to tell. I knew in my bones he had a good story to tell. I also knew his story wasn’t only about him; it was about an extraordinary generation of men and women. In addition, I hoped my book would highlight the incredible sacrifice and contribution made by South African Air Force pilots in the war effort overseas, many achieving great success in accomplishing, and often going beyond, their duty. This contribution has largely been left unacknowledged, both internationally and within our own country, South Africa.

Tip 7: Make a start For me, the full meaning and value of my story only emerged during the process of researching and writing it down. Originally my intention to document my father’s story was for the family. However, the process took on a life of its own and developed into On Laughter-Silvered Wings. What has made it all the more worthwhile is receiving excited and happy comments from my family. For example, on receiving her copy, my niece Lauren wrote, ‘Oh! Auntie Gail, Thank you – it is a gift to him, the whole family, history and the world.’

It has been an enriching, moving, sometimes frustrating but wonderful journey. I

Tip 6: Determination I gave a draft of the first chapter to a literary acquaintance and got it back two days later with, ‘I think you should stick to painting.’ However, since my father’s favourite saying to his children was, ‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way’, I just kept going.

Also, the most frequent comment I got, when it was mentioned that I

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Gail Strever-Morkel’s book On LaughterSilvered Wings is published by Pen and Sword at £19.99.

READER OFFER: 20% off plus FREE UK postage and packing. Call 01226 734222 and quote 161939 or visit www.pen-andsword.co.uk and enter code w w w. d i s c o v e r y o u r h i s t o r y. n e t