John McVicar Malloch ICD, was a South African-born Rhodesian bush pilot, gun-runner and sanctions-buster who flew in World War II and in various legal and illegal roles around Africa and the Middle East until the early 1980s.
20 Facts About Jack Malloch
1.
2.
Jack Malloch was born in Durban, Natal, South Africa on 8 October 1920.
3.
Jack Malloch was sent back to South Africa in 1933 to attend a boarding school in Somerset West in the Cape Province, but was withdrawn from the school in 1935 to begin working as a garage mechanic.
4.
In 1943 Jack Malloch was accepted into the Royal Air Force; in December 1943 he received his pilot's wings and was sent to an operational squadron where he saw service as a fighter pilot.
5.
Jack Malloch was kept safe from German capture by local partisans, who found a hiding place for him in the mountains.
6.
Jack Malloch married his wife Zoe in Salisbury in January 1948.
7.
Jack Malloch kept flying, and in March 1951 was one of the pilots who participated in the first Spitfire ferry of the new aircraft from the UK out to Southern Rhodesia for use in the Rhodesian Air Force.
8.
Later, in October 1955, they sold the company to Hunting Clan; Jack Malloch was retained as a pilot.
9.
In 1960, Jack Malloch formed a new company named Rhodesian Air Services, an airline head-quartered in Salisbury; from 1963 to 1964, the RAS was involved in gun-running in the Yemen.
10.
Jack Malloch began working for one of the secessionist leaders, Moise Tshombe, as a pilot.
11.
Jack Malloch started working for Tshombe again, and between August and November 1964, he flew in support of the mercenary Mike Hoare against the Congolese rebels.
12.
Jack Malloch made his first gun-running flight into Biafra to supply the rebels in July 1967; between 1967 and January 1970, he and his company ATA were making nightly weapons flights into Biafra.
13.
In January 1970 Jack Malloch formed a new company, this one named Afro-Continental Airways, as a subsidiary of Air Trans Africa.
14.
Jack Malloch's CL-44 was destroyed by fire at Salisbury airport in February 1982.
15.
In January 1970 Jack Malloch was called up as a reservist to the Rhodesian Air Force.
16.
Jack Malloch piloted the Rhodesians' largest SAS HALO paratroop drop over Mozambique in October 1977, and in November of the same year was involved with both the Rhodesian Army and the Rhodesian Air Force in Operation Dingo, a major raid conducted against the ZANLA-run refugee camp and, illegally, training center in Chimoio, Mozambique.
17.
Jack Malloch was heavily involved in the SAS operation in north-eastern Zambia to blow up a bridge, known as Operation Cheese, in September 1979.
18.
In 1978, Jack Malloch persuaded a Rhodesian Air Force base to part with the Mk 22 Spitfire which had been sitting on a plinth outside the air base for over 20 years.
19.
Jack Malloch began renovating it the same year, which process included having a five-bladed variable-pitch propeller custom-built by a German firm.
20.
Jack Malloch was killed in his Mk 22 on the last day of filming the documentary Pursuit of a Dream on 26 March 1982 when he flew the aircraft into a thunderstorm.