'Sailor' Malan

Adolf ‘Sailor’ Malan Human Rights Activist & War Hero Adolf Gysbert ‘Sailor’ Malan was a leader of the largely white South African protest movement in the first few years of the 1950s known as the ‘Torch Commando’. The group was formed by the Springbok Legion and elements within the United Party through forming a non-partisan committee called the War Veterans Action Committee (WVAC). The agreement between the left leaders of the Springbok Legion, Cecil Williams and Jack Hodgson, and the United Party, was brokered by a Springbok Legion man in the United Party, Vic Clapham. These initiators agreed to put together a WVAC team made up of Adolf ‘Sailor’ Malan as president, Louis Kane- Berman, Ralph Parrott, Major Pretorius and Doreen Dunning. They were chosen because of their leadership role as soldiers, and because they professed non-partisanship in political party politics. This was not entirely true as some did have a role in the United Party, but this was outweighed by their military credentials. Springbok Legion personalities included many United Party members, such as Harry Schwartz who continued to play a major background organisational role in the Torch Commando. For his leadership role and for the things that he publicly said in defence of democracy, constitutionalism, justice, anti-racism and standing up for the poor and people of colour in particular, Sailor Malan was isolated and purged from historical memory. He was a Battle of Britain spitfire fighter pilot and war hero. As he was strongly anti- Nazi, he was dismayed at seeing it on the rise in his homeland. This is how he should be remembered – as a war hero and an opponent of the rise of the South African answer to the Third Reich in Germany. The Wellington farm-boy, with an Afrikaans father and British mother, was born in 1910. He was Christened Adolf Gysbert Malan. At the age of 52 in September 1963 he was one of the great South Africans of the 20th century. He had in his life embraced the very motto of his squadron -"I Fear No Man”. I Will Rejoice But despite his achievements, his opposition to the Apartheid Regime and his contribution to fighting the twin threats of Nazism and Fascism, was forgotten after his death. His gravestone read - “In the shadow of Thy wings will I rejoice.” When he hung up his pilot’s wings his life’s end was tragically dominated by Parkinson’s disease. He found comfort in his relationship with his loving family, wife Lynda, and his son and daughter Jonathan, and Valerie as well as his dog. Once ‘Sailor Malan’ had dominated the skies over London, in the air warfare known as the “Battle for Britain” in 1940. He was a Wing Commander in Spitfire Squadron 74 and he is noted for being one of two greatest airmen accredited with the highest rate of shooting down enemy aircraft from his cockpit. He shot down 34 enemy aircraft in the ‘official count’. Malan was a farm boy from Wellington whose first shots were fired from a “kettie” (self-made catapult) progressing to being adept with a shotgun. By the tender age of 13, he left school and joined General Louis Botha Maritime College, a school of hard knocks. Like many a young man, he was motivated by wanting to see the world, as a merchant seaman. At the age of 15 he was working as a seaman on the Union Castle Shipping Line and carried on as a seaman for the next decade. He was attracted by those magnificent flying machines, this time to get a bird’s eye of the world. Adolf Malan also trained with the Royal Naval Reserve with the rank of Sub-Lieutenant. It was his switch over from Naval Service to become an airman that earned him the nickname “Sailor”. It would seem that both his forenames were neither favoured by him nor by Lynda, the woman he married, who called him John. But it was his more than a decade at sea that led to everyone calling him “Sailor”. But it was not just an adventurous spirit and inquisitiveness to see the world that drove Sailor Malan. Many young women and men around the world, including in South Africa, were watching the rise of Fascism and Nazism in Spain, Italy, and Germany and they were alarmed about what was happening. Some young South Africans like the writer Uys Krige, answered the global call to join the International Brigades to defend the Spanish democratically elected left government and Republic. Sailor Malan saw the clouds of war developing and his generation felt the impacts of the World War I that reverberated globally. He was also aware of the strong Nationalist Socialist under-currents in South African politics. A Farm Boy At Heart Though coming from the farmlands of the Cape, he had a broadly progressive international outlook. A recurring theme expressed throughout his life is that he did not suffer fools gladly. He had a disdain for loud-mouthed politicians and people not prepared to roll back poverty and walk the political talk. His focus was that ideological scrapping did not put food in mouths, roofs over people’s heads and provide jobs to earn a living. To Sailor Malan, leaders like Mussolini, Hitler and Franco were rabble rousing psychopaths and little-men that led the world to misery and slaughter, and they needed to be stopped. He saw protecting democratic values and institutions and defending humanity against the tyranny of the Nazis and the Axis as being a priority in his life. He did not take to soldiering lightly and he was not a conscript, but a professional airman driven by conviction. Sailor knew already from the World War I lessons that both sea and air warfare would dominate in a new war, and that speed, nerves of steel and accuracy would overtake the type of clumsy warfare of a decade earlier. This was the background that led him to take up flying lessons on the Tiger Moths at a Bristol aviation school in January 1936. By the end of the year he had graduated to more advanced flying and aircraft and joined Fighter Squadron 74 known as the Tiger Squadron. By August 1937 he became an Acting Flight Commander of "A" Flight and was noted for being a crack marksman. It was at this time that he developed his famous leadership skills and in 1939 he was promoted to Flight Lieutenant. At the beginning of September 1939 saw him leading the led Red Section of "A" Flight flying Spitfire K9864 in his first wartime patrol. By June 1940 he was a regular in the air and faced fierce fighting over France. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. In August 1940 as commander of 74 Squadron, Sailor took leadership in the skies of the Battle of Britain when the Squadron downed 38 enemy aircraft. Within the following weeks they downed 84 aircraft and dealt a huge rain of damage to the Nazi German Airforce. Sailor was awarded the Distinguished Service Order on Christmas Eve 1940. This was followed in July 1941 by a Distinguished Service Order award. The citation said: "This officer has displayed the greatest courage and disdain of the enemy whilst leading his Wing on numerous recent operations over Northern France. His cool judgement, exceptional determination and ability have enabled him to increase his confirmed victories over enemy aircraft from 19 to 28, in addition to a further 20 damaged and probably destroyed. His record and behaviour have earned for him the greatest admiration and devotion of his comrades in the Wing. During the past fortnight the Wing has scored heavily against the enemy with 42 hostile aircraft destroyed, a further 15 probably destroyed and 11 damaged." Highest Scoring Pilot In 1941 Sailor Malan was noted to have 27 enemy aircraft personally shot down, 7 shared destroyed and 2 unconfirmed. There were also a further 3 probable enemy aircraft destroyed and 16 more damaged. At that time he was the RAF leading ace airman. He was noted as one of the highest scoring pilots to have served with Fighter Command during World War II. He was transferred to the reserve as a squadron leader on 6 January 1942 and as part of his service he also toured the USA. In 1943 he became station commander at Biggin Hill, and promoted to substantive wing commander on 1 July 1943. In October 1943 he became officer commanding 19 Fighter Wing, RAF Second Tactical Air Force, then commander of the 145 (Free French) Fighter Wing. At the height of the air war, volunteers of colour from the United States and Canada, the British colonies in the Caribbean, Africa and India, who had initially been brought into the war literally as servants, began to fight within the armed forces as equals. They were given opportunities to be professional and equal soldiers and the opportunity to excel. A less known story is how the RAF experienced a desperate need for airmen, and were forced to open up to people of colour from the Caribbean Islands, Nigeria, the Gold Coast, Sierra Leone, Malaysia and India. Sailor engaged and interacted with people of colour in a way he had never experienced in South Africa. Comradeship manifested itself. As a commanding officer he shared not only in the airmen’s triumphs but also their tears. Both in deeply personal sharing of grief, and in terms of shared humble background. Sailor Malan was deeply affected by personal loss in the war, when his younger brother, Francis ‘George’ Malan, from RAF Squadron 72, also as a Spitfire pilot in Tunisia, died on 26 April 1943.

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