Peace mission of last British pilot to shoot down enemy
“IF I’d met him in a bar anywhere else in the world, we would have clicked straight away. It just so happened we met on a very dark night, sun going down over a very inhospitable part of ocean and we were out to kill each other. It doesn’t stop us being friends.”
These are the words of David Morgan, 71, a former Sea Harrier pilot and Falklands veteran who is said to be the last British pilot to shoot down an enemy plane in combat.
The man he speaks of, Hector Sanchez, was once an enemy but is now a good friend; a fellow veteran coming to terms with his experiences and the bravery required for reconciliation. Last month, Mr Morgan went to the Falkland Islands with Mr Sanchez, Luis Cervera, another former Argentine pilot, and Pablo Bolzán, 38, the son of Danilo Bolzán, whom Mr Morgan had shot down on June 8, 1982.
Pablo had previously seen the wreck of his father’s aircraft and heard part of the story of his death. But the visit was the first time Mr Morgan was able to give him all the details. Speaking from his home in Wiltshire after returning from the trip, Mr Morgan said it had helped Mr Bolzán come to terms with what had happened. “It was nice to realise that [Pablo] holds no resentment at all and was genuinely friendly and glad to meet me,” Mr Morgan says. “He knows the full story now. It meant a lot to him.” Mr Bolzán intends to take his children to the wreckage, Mr Morgan says, so that they can begin to understand. Nearly 40 years ago, Mr Morgan was on patrol south of Bluff Cove, East Falkland, chasing Argentinian Skyhawk fighters. He had seen a jet bombing British landing craft at Fitzroy. He raced after the fighter, suddenly filled with what he describes as an intense hatred. Those who have seen combat often say it is the enemy equipment, rather than the human being, they are trying to destroy. Not this time. “I was going for him, not the aircraft,” Mr Morgan said. “I wanted to kill him.”
He fired a Sidewinder missile that honed in on the hot engine exhaust and destroyed the plane. He said he felt “absolute elation” and fired at a second jet. Again, it was destroyed, but unlike in the first engagement, the pilot ejected.
Mr Morgan was briefly aware of a human shape with a parachute streaming behind him and in an instant the feeling of hatred was replaced with empathy for the struggling man. But he was soon firing his cannon at a third Argentine jet, flown by Mr Bolzán. The intense and conflicting emotions of those 10 to 15 seconds left a deep psychological wound. “I certainly wasn’t prepared for the psychological side effects,” he says.
Mr Morgan was introduced to Mr Sanchez in 1993, who immediately told him, “don’t worry David, we were only doing our jobs”. Since then a firm friendship has been built.
How do former enemies reconcile? Mr Morgan says the first thing is to “wipe away the feelings that are aroused during combat”.
“What you have to try and do is eventually come around to the discovery that actually the other side is probably the same as you,” he said.