Page 22 - March2020

In early 70 I was transferred to National Defence It was always helpful to have former staff college
Headquarters (NDHQ) to the Directorate of Equipment
Requirements Air (DERA 5 )slot. I again replaced Buzz
Borland, who had gone to Bell Helicopter in Fort Worth.
His immediate predecessor was Ted Crosbie who was
working with Frank Piaseki and the Hiller team, the
previous Director, a Gp Capt Murray was working with
Hughes, so once again I was in the deep end of the pool.
The Light Observation Helicopter (LOH) program was in
the final approval stages, but the competition was still
active. The project officer was John McLeish, and in
company with Norm Ramsey the program was
successfully completed with Treasury Board approval on
26 March 71 (my birthday). DERA 5 was the successor to
the old Directorate of Land Air Warfare office, DLAW and
was a fascinating place to work. It was always blessed
with good people and the incoming chief always had the
full support of the staff. Norm Ramsey had steered the
Huey program with Ted Crosbie, and John McLeish the
LOH program with initially Ted, then Buzz, Norm and at
the end myself.
We operated with a very small team of truly dedicated
professionals. The DERA group was the spark plug and
guidance for the Central Planning Team, which included
reps from the Aircraft design engineers, Al Sentence and
Stan Knowles, the maintenance and program people,
Norrie Nishimura, the systems guys, the financial bean
counters, Dick Blythman, Bill Crossman, Terry Marshall
and a number of others but never more than about 20
people. The system was somewhat flexible but it seemed
to be designed to support disapproval rather than
success.
My original Director was Col Herby Herbert who was
always supportive, as was the head of the Air Force Staff,
then BGen Dave Adamson along with John Buzza and
others. We had a narrow tight rope to walk in trying to
maintain support of two divergent at times titular heads
of our section. We had to have the endorsement of the
Army, but were in competition with tanks, radios etc,
sibling rivalry, and on the Air Force side were seen as a
threat to fighter programs and weapons updates etc. It
was a lesson or apprenticeship in the art of bridge
building and coalescing opposing forces. I think we were
very successful and much credit goes to the staffs, who
worked through the turmoil.
friends in location through out the HQ, and old
friends from Rivers, Gagetown, MOBCOM etc.
We were a very successful group, with the single
Huey, the Twin Huey, and the LOH programs. It
was a momentous increase in the Army Aviation
inventory and coincidentally one of the major
increases in the pilot seats in the Forces. All of this
was occurring in the early stages of unification and
probably the biggest benefactors were the ex
Navy pilots. There was a limited number of Army
background people available and not all of them
were in the pilot classification. The Navy had a lot
of helicopter experience through the Sea King and
earlier programs, while our Army people with the
most experience were in 403 and 450 Sqn so it
was natural that many Navy people were selected.
A tent was preferable to a rolling deck and night
over water work. Very few RCAF members had
extensive helicopter time.
In 1972 I was posted to Petewawa as CO of 403
Sqn. Bert Casselman had been promoted Col to
command Portage.The initial training of the first
CO’s and key personnel for the Tac Hel Sqns had
been completed and many of the original
members had been posted to the new units, Pat
Thornton, John Hugill, Joe Oakley, Alf Tait and
others. Another interesting posting and once
again blessed with excellent staff with Marsh
Wright as DCO succeeded by Bob Chisholm. 403
was transferred to Gagetown in 1973 and I
returned to Ottawa, to my old job in DERA 5.
NDHQ was going through one of its many
reorganization turmoils and DERA 5 was re-
assigned to the Land staff as a section under the
Directorate of Land Resources (DLR) as DLR 6. We
were reduced in strength down to just 3 officers.
Don Frierson, US exchange, and Murray
McDonald. and myself.