Page 234 - Airpower in 20th Century - Doctrines and Employment

234 airpower in 20 Century doCtrines and employment - national experienCes
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Quitexe on April 10, or Lucunga with massacre of civilians, among many others.
The military start with the rescue operations to recover the occupied or devastated
villages, suffering a few attacks such as the ambush of a column in Cólua, on April
2, where Portuguese forces suffered nine deaths, among them two officers. On April
29 a column of para troopers drives a large group of rebels out of Mucaba in a siege
on a stronghold of residents, after a fire action carried out by PV2 aircraft.
These major operations launched by ground forces, through siege and recovery
of positions, as was the case with Operation Green Stone, the assault operation of
Nambuangongo, and operations in the hills of Canda and Sacandica were supported
by air units of the Air Base No. 9 and the AB3 in Negage. The PV2 91 Squadron
st
nd
conducted 56 missions in March and 88 in April, the NORD 92 Squadron 92 mis-
sions in March and 103 missions in April. The PV2 pilots made an average of 60
flight hours per month and the NORD pilots about 45. This flight effort would grow
in a crescendo until November 1961 – in this year the PV2 flew about 3,000 flight
hours, and the monthly number of missions increased to approximately a hundred
(in July); the NORD reached 2600 hours (until the end of the year transported about
29,000 passengers and about three thousand five hundred tons of cargo).
In late March 4 T-6G airplanes flying from Luanda, reached the airfield of Negage.
They were basic flight training aircrafts, adapted to ground attack with 7.62 m/m
machine-guns, installed in outer nests, combs of 37 m/m rockets, 15 and 50 Kilos
bombs, in different configurations. The armament in the external stations affected
significantly the aerodynamics performance of the plane, although in parameters
which were acceptable for the execu tion of the mission. These aircraft had radio
equipment for contact with the ground forces, in FM.
On April 30 there were 4 T-6, 4 Auster and 4 DO-27 (light aircraft used for liai-
son and reconnaissance, capable for transport of 5 equipped military, or 440 kilos of
load, and also used as close air support with nests of two 37 m/m rockets installed on
the lower surface of the wings), operating in Negage by 14 pilots already in placed
there.
These numbers increased gradually and at the end of the year there were 15 T-6G
and 9 DO-27 in this Airfield. In the month of March the T-6 performed 22 operational
missions, 72 in April and 103 in May (highest average of the year) being the majority
armed recon operations. There were 11 close air support operations in April and 25 in
May. The DO-27 aircraft, which in April and May were only four, performed 96 air
actions in April and 161 in May, averaging about 50 hours/pilot assigned per month;
and in April the DO- 27 pilots there were 13, in July 18 and in November 22. The
fleet of T-6G, performed 1867 hours of flight until the end of 1961, and the fleet of
DO-27, a total of 3254 hours of flight in the same year. All the pilots placed on this
Airfield were qualified in more than one aircraft, to support this effort of flight that
the Unit was requested to make in emergency situations. These figures give a rough
idea about the quick reaction to the situation, by the building up of the air power in
the region. The same had occurred with other units.