The 50 years of flight, fright and glory

Kenyans now have a chance of reading never-before-told insider accounts of life in the Kenya Air Force.

Founded on June 1, 1964, the Air Force marks its 50th anniversary with a massive display of air power — and a big bash to match — on June 4. The date has been earmarked to allow for its full participation in national festivities during its actual Madaraka Day birthday.

It has chronicled the journey of its life in The Kenya Air Force Story: A Golden Jubilee Commemorative Publication, a 288-page book. It is a collection of stories by past and serving officers.
President Uhuru Kenyatta is expected to preside over the festivities and book launch.

Defence Department spokesperson Bogita Ongeri told the Saturday Nation yesterday: “The day will give a chance to Kenyans to witness the power that is deployed in air defence since independence. It will take the form of the usual service day but with enhanced performance befitting 50 years of existence.”

The celebrations are to be held at Moi Air Base in Eastleigh, Nairobi, and will bring together Air Force veterans, some of whom served at its inauguration in 1964, with serving officers. They include retired Maj-Gen Dedan Gichuru, the first African commander of the service and one of Kenya’s first five military pilots.

The 50-year journey of the Air Force has also been chronicled in a documentary film to be aired exclusively on NTV on Monday and Tuesday next week. In it, the current commander, Maj-Gen Joff Otieno, says: “All of us in the Air Force cannot but marvel at the evolution of what started as the Royal Air Force, Kenya Flight. It had five officers and two Chipmunks in one station at Eastleigh, Nairobi, but is now a robust service with fighter jets, cargo and troop transports and helicopters. It also has a VIP squadron, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, all supported by highly efficient ground services and operated by several thousand local personnel.”

Gichuru tells of the long and circuitous route the group of first officers took to travel to Israel for training early in 1963 because Kenya’s soon to become first Prime Minister and then President, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, did not want to alert colonial authorities that he was preparing to form an African-led and manned air force.

He says: “The Kenya Air Force started when Mzee Jomo Kenyatta sent a group of us to Israel for initial pilot training. This was early in 1963 when we were not even an independent country. Mzee was thinking ahead; he knew that the soon-to-be independent country needed its own indigenous pilots to man its air force.”

The group travelled by bus to Dar es Salaam to catch their flight there because doing so from Nairobi Airport at Embakasi might have given them away.

Central figures in the 1982 coup attempt, the most traumatic event in Kenya Air Force history, are also candid about the event. Nick Leshan, who retired as Vice-Chief of the Defence Forces, was the air transport major who was commandeered to fly a Buffalo aircraft to Dar es Salaam by coup leader Hezekiah Ochuka and co-conspirator Pancras Okumu.

Now he says: “My happiest moment in my three and half decades of service in the Kenya Defence Forces is getting back the Kenya Air Force from what it was called after August 1982 – the ’82 Air Force. The unfortunate events of 1982, of which I was a hijack victim, resulted in a death and resurrection. The return of the blue uniform meant everything to me.

“To me, the term 82 Air Force was an insult. Yes, some people in the service had made a big mess and plunged the country in chaos. But not everybody was involved in that matter. And you don’t destroy an institution because a few people have done the wrong thing.”

The current Chief of the Defence Forces, Gen Julius Karangi, a former Air Force Commander himself, alludes to the symbiotic relationship between the service and civil aviation.

“Command of the Air Force came with new challenges,” he says. “However, having grown in the system at Moi Air Base and having held several positions in KAF, I found myself in familiar grounds and took a relatively short time to settle. The most challenging issue that I faced was the aspect of crew retention.

“The Air Force trains excellent pilots and technicians and as the markets expand most airlines want to depend on the Air Force to supply them with skilled manpower. Airlines offered what was often irresistibly high wages and our personnel, especially pilots, went for these green pastures.”

The biggest beneficiary of Air Force air and ground crews has been the national carrier, Kenya Airways, which at some point was reputed to have 50 per cent of its pilots and 70 per cent of its technicians from the Air Force.

Yet it was not always one-way traffic; when the Air Force pulled off its greatest engineering feat of its life — the restoration to flight status of a crashed F-5 jet that was acknowledged by manufacturer Northrop Corporation of the US in 1988 — plenty of assistance was rendered by Kenya Airways.

But the two institutions have only just flown together once, as far as the Kenya public knows, during celebrations to mark 50 years of Kenya’s independence last December 12. Then, military formations were accompanied by a Kenya Airways Boeing 777.

Retired Generals Mahmoud Mohammed, the army man who crushed the 1982 coup, Duncan Wachira and Harold Tangai also feature prominently.

Retired Maj-Gen Michael Gichangi, the current Director General of the National Intelligence Service, served as a squadron and instructor pilot and was the first to achieve 1,000 hours on the F-5 jet fighter.

Fifty years ago, the theatre of Kenya Air Force combat operations was the North Eastern Province where the independence government was battling insurgents, known as Shifta, seeking secession from Kenya to become part of what was referred to as Greater Somalia.

The Air Force role was to provide support for the Kenya Army. Today, the service is still flying in that direction, only that this time it is deep inside Somalia engaged in a full blown war against Al-Shabaab terrorists.

The difference between 50 years ago and today is that part of the personnel in today’s Air Force includes women who serve as pilots, engineers, technicians, crash and rescue, air defence, air operations and air traffic control personnel. None featured in 1964.