"Commanding Officer DOWN!"

3SQN Commanding Officer, WGCDR Vance Drummond, stands up in the cockpit of a 2OCU tandem-seat Mirage trainer A3-106 at Williamtown, early 1967.

Vance DRUMMOND, a New Zealander from Hamilton in the North Island, came from a very aviation-minded family.  (Vance’s older brother Fred had enlisted in the RAAF in WW2 and sadly was killed in 1941 in a Spitfire accident in Scotland.)  Vance joined the RNZAF in mid-1944, aged 17, and was demobilised after VP Day in 1945, having just completed his training as a Sergeant Navigator.  He then served as an Interpreter with the New Zealand Army in the post-war occupation of Japan.  When he got back to NZ he tried to re-join the RNZAF as a fighter pilot, but was rejected as “too old”.  So he came to Australia and was accepted by the RAAF (!) in 1949. 

Flying a 77SQN Meteor fighter in the Korean War, Vance was shot down by MiG-15s in a swirling battle on 1 Dec 1951.  He ejected safely and then survived some dreadful experiences as a POW in North Korea, making several escape attempts before being released across the cease-fire line at Panmunjom in September 1953.  

PANMUNJOM, NORTH KOREA.  1953-09-01.  STILL WEARING THEIR BLUE CHINESE PRISON UNIFORMS,
FIVE PILOTS SHOT DOWN WHILE SERVING WITH NO.77 SQUADRON RAAF ARE SHOWN SHORTLY
 AFTER THEIR RELEASE FROM PRISONER OF WAR CAMPS IN NORTH KOREA.
LEFT TO RIGHT: (BACK ROW) PILOT OFFICER RON GUTHRIE; FLIGHT LIEUTENANT OLAF BERGH (RAF);
FLIGHT LIEUTENANT JOHN "BUTCH" HANNAN
(FRONT ROW); PILOT OFFICER VANCE DRUMMOND AND PILOT OFFICER BRUCE THOMSON.  [AWM JK0855.]

He returned to the RAAF, flying Sabres, and was awarded the Air Force Cross in 1965 for his work in No.75 Squadron and his leadership of the 'Black Diamonds' aerobatic team.  Vance then flew 381 missions in Vietnam with the Americans as a Forward Air Controller, flying USAF Cessna 0-1 Bird Dogs.  

33624 Wing Commander Vance Drummond, of Hackett, ACT, with his Cessna O-1 'Bird Dog' (nicknamed
'Snoopy') at Vung Tau airfield, South Vietnam.  For the past eight months, WGCDR Drummond has been
on exchange duty with the USAF in Vietnam.  WGCDR Drummond's first months in Vietnam were at
Saigon with the Tactical Air Control Centre.  Now WGCDR Drummond flies 'Snoopy', snooping along in the air
just high enough to clear the tall Vietnamese trees growing out of the jungle, looking for Viet Cong (VC).
  He is the only RAAF officer [as of mid-1966] in Vietnam flying a Forward Air Control ("F.A.C.") for the USAF. 
He only sees other RAAF members when he calls at Vung Tau base on a monthly basis to collect his mail and pay. 
His job as FAC is to search for columns of VC moving through the jungle; and when spotted, he calls up the
strike aircraft and directs them to the target with the four 2-inch smoke rockets carried on his wing pods. 
[AWM VN/66/0037/02.]

Vance won US and Vietnamese decorations for valour in this role and was recommended for an Australian DFC (despite policy tensions between Australia and England at that time limiting Royal assent for Vietnam awards) for saving the lives of an encircled US Army unit. 

Vance’s remarkable career ended tragically in May 1967 when, holding the rank of Wing Commander and three months after his appointment as C.O. of 3SQN, his brand-new single-seat Mirage fell from altitude and crashed into the ocean off Newcastle. 

A3-77 was not a 3SQN aircraft, instead it was on the books of No.2 Operational Conversion Unit in Williamtown.  It had only been at 2OCU for a few weeks.  3SQN had not at that stage taken ownership of any of their new planes.  At the time when Vance was killed, there was no existing 3SQN equipment or personnel establishment in Williamtown - other than a thin manila folder!  All of the prospective aircrew and groundcrew were in training with other units.

The exact cause of the crash has never been proven, as no wreckage was recovered (other than a single cockpit gauge, netted by a fishing trawler). 

A training exercise had been taking place at 35,000 feet and Vance’s aircraft was seen to break off suddenly from the engagement and go into a steep dive.  His wingman followed him down through the cloud and saw him go into the sea.  The wreck settled into deep water 50 miles out from the coast.  No radio transmission had been received from WGCDR Drummond and there had been no earlier indication of any sort of trouble.  [The balance of opinion after the official inquiry was that Vance may have suffered a medical incident that disabled him.  The 2OCU Unit History Page 251 describes three days of search-and-rescue missions looking for Vance.  An oil slick and some debris was sighted on the first of these missions, but after that no further sightings could be made.]

Eleven months later, Vance’s widow Margaret and his 9-year-old son David attended Government House at Yarralumla to receive Vance’s Distinguished Flying Cross from the Governor General.

[This text based on Vance's Australian Dictionary of Biography entry.]