50 Years on, an old pilot provides a footnote to history, and Robert Ball recalls the Collett tragedy.
SEPTEMBER 24 1944. Typhoon 1B. R(ocket) P(rojectile) and cannon in support of paratroops west of Arnhem. Attacked according to plan. Paratroops in a bad way. No Flak.
-Lt. Athol Fisher
THIS excerpt from the logbook of a South African pilot seconded to the RAF, recalls the Battle of Arnhem, 50 years ago, when 10000 Allied paratroopers landed to capture a key bridge on the Rhine, with disastrous consequences.
The battle was the subject of the film A Bridge too Far. Only 2 400 paratroops returned. The rest were killed or captured.
This week, while Prince Charles and the Queen of the Netherlands paid tribute to the heroes of that action, an Eastern Cape family turned their thoughts once more to their own tragic loss. The pilot who kept that logbook, their brother and uncle, flew in support of those paratroopers and was himself to perish three months later, ending a life which had seemed so full of promise.
From all accounts,
Antony Ewart Collett, known as Tony, was a remarkable young man.
Serviceman… A photograph taken during the war of three Eastern Cape servicemen. From left Supply Petty Officer WJ van Deventer, then of 40 Alcock Road, Walmer, 2nd Lt. Tony Collett of Dunblane Middelburg, Cape and 3rd Officer AL Miller of Jeffreys Bay. The picture was taken during the BBC programmer Songtime in the Laager, which was broadcast weekly from London in the BBC’s African shortwave service. Can anybody tell the Herald what became of Miller and van Deventer?
Of 1820 Settler stock and the younger son of Col Ewart Collett CMG DSO, a distinguished South African officer in the South African War and First World War, he grew up in Port Elizabeth and on the family farm, Dunblane, at Middelburg, Cape,
At St Andrew’s in Grahamstown he won colours for five sports — rugby, cricket, hockey, athletics and tennis, a feat equalled by only three others in the history of the school.
Despite all that activity, his academic record was good, and there was little doubt that he was destined to be a St. Andrew’s Rhodes Scholar and go to Oxford. But even before he left school, the Second World War had intervened.
Typically, the 1,87m 80kg 17-year-old chose the most exciting option – he wanted to fly.
And he was flying when he died.
It was a tragedy that still haunts his family and his friends.
For the rest of her life, his widowed mother kept his tasselled rugby cap on her bedpost. His elder brother David and his sisters, Grace and Ena, never ceased to mourn him and his memory has been kept alive by his many nephews and nieces, most of whom hardly remember him, if they are old enough to have known him at all.
One nephew is Andy Collett, who now lives in Port Elizabeth and who bears an extraordinary resemblance to Tony.Andy, too, has an almost obsessive interest in flying.
Nephew… Andy Collett, right of Port Elizabeth, who has finally tracked down a witness of his pilot uncle’s death in the Second World War.
He is the custodian of his uncle’s memorabilia. Over the years he has used his uncle’s logbook to trace flying contacts and records. Tony joined up in 1942, training in the SAAF and receiving his wings from “Ouma” Smuts herself.
Then he was seconded to the Royal Air Force, necessitating a long roundabout journey to England, via Montevideo where he wrote home about seeing the wreck of the Graf Spee, the German pocket battleship so dramatically scuttled after the Battle of the River Plate in the early days of the war.
Clearly, the RAF thought highly of Tony’s abilities. Andy has their assessments of him – an above average pilot who was exceptional at bombing and an above average gunner.
At Arnhem, Tony’s unit, 184 Squadron, gave anti-flak support to Dakotas carrying in paratroopers and later covered the aircraft when they brought in supplies. It was a tough job and hard to do much in the terrible weather.
Tony’s friend, Dermot Quick of Grahamstown, a fellow member of the squadron, says: “The Dakotas were being knocked down like flies.”
At different times in the war, Tony flew Hurricanes, Spitfires, then Typhoons. And it was in a Typhoon that he was to die, not long after Arnhem and just short of his 21st birthday.
His logbook, now Andy’s treasured possession, closes with the words Missing in Action in red ink.
Last Picture… Lt. Antony Collett SAAF, left with fellow 184 Squadron airmen at Volkel, Holland, in December 1944, shortly before he was killed in action. Others in the picture are, from left, Squadron Leader W Smith, the squadron adjutant whose name was Frew, Lt. Athol Fisher of Kimberley who witnessed Collett’s death, Lt. James Himiona Wetere DFC a Māori from New Zealand.
After the war, the family was told where Tony was buried. Andy’s elder brother, the Rev Ewart Collett, of Port Alfred, has visited and photographed the grave in Rheinberg, Germany. But they did not know the circumstances of his death. Now Andy, through Quick, has traced Athol Fisher of Kimberley who was part of that last operation and who witnessed Tony’s final moments.
The date was December 27, 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge which began when the Germans broke back through the American lines.
Tony’s squadron was supporting the 51st Highland Division, sent by Montgomery to help. Quick says the squadron was facing conditions so tough that the Americans grounded their own aircraft.
From his own aircraft, Fisher saw Tony’s death. “I saw him and another Typhoon pilot, a Canadian, I think, come from two different directions, locked on the same target. They collided and were lost in the explosion.”
Only a few minutes later, Fisher was himself shot down and taken prisoner. He was treated for burns and injured his back. He was held for the rest of the war, having a tough time as Germans had little food. He lost nearly 20kg. It was to be nearly 50 years before Andy contacted him to hear that account.
Quick says that for the two remaining South Africans in the squadron, December 27 was a black day indeed when Collett and Fisher did not come back. Only much later did they hear that Fisher was still alive.
Today, at 70, Fisher has had a happy life in Kimberley. He still works and is active in the Air
Force Association and the SA Legion. And he’s proud to say that his son is a pilot, too. Fisher remembers Tony Collett well. “A fine chap. A gentle gi-ant, full of laughter.”
As for Quick, his war service ended in March 1945 when he was knocked down over the Rhine while supporting paratroopers. He was badly burnt and was in hospital undergoing plastic surgery from then until October, when he returned to South Africa. In 1960 he came to Grahamstown where he is now retired. Today, Quick recalls Tony as “the greatest guy I ever knew” In war conditions, he says, Tony was the best man to have around, one who didn’t brood on the risk of being killed. “What happens, happens,” Tony used to say. It did. But that fine young man lives on in many hearts.
Eastern Province Herald (Port Elizabeth, South Africa) 23 September 1994
