WONZ 270 – Wally Steward: Army Pilot

Guest: Captain Walter Steward (retired), RNZA, Air OP pilot, known as Wally.

Host: Dave Homewood

Recorded: 18th of October 2022

Released: 27th of January2023

Duration: 1 hour 47 minutes 46 seconds

In this episode Dave Homewood speaks via Zoom with Captain Wally Steward, who was an officer with the Royal New Zealand Artillery, in the New Zealand. He was selected to train as a pilot with the RNZAF, to become an Air Observation Post pilot for artillery spotting. Training on North American Harvards up to the stage where he gained his pilot’s brevet, he then progressed onto the Auster J5. He worked as both an artillery officer on the ground and a pilot for a while, before he and fellow Army pilot Roger Pearce were selected to train as helicopter pilots, under the instruction of John Reid of Helicopters (N.Z.) Ltd.

Once they were proficient flying helicopters, Wally and Roger were sent to Malayan Borneo in 1964 where they were supposed to fly helicopters with the British Army. But on arrival they found their helicopters were not ready. So following a survival course in Singapore, they were posted to 7 Reconnaissance Flight, part of No. 656 Squadron, Army Air Corp, at Kuching, Malaya. They underwent their theatre familiarisation there and then they converted to the Auster AOP9.

Once they were familiar with the Auster AOP9s, they got their assignments. Roger was posted to Sibu while Wally was sent on a detachment to Simanggang near Sarawak, where they had solo a Auster detachment. His Auster AOP9 was positioned there to support an infantry battalion whose role was defending the Sarawak area from incursions over the border from Indonesian soldiers.

Eventually the Sioux helicopters were ready for them, so Wally and Roger refamiliarised themselves with helicopter flying, and they they formed an Air OP troop at a detached based outside of Kuching, with Roger in charge and Wally and another pilot flying three Sioux. They were supporting a British artillery regiment.

After several months Wally was posted to Kalabakan, in the Sabah region, in the north of Borneo to take command of the air platoon of the 1st Battalion of the Scots Guards, with two Sioux helicopters flying from a dirt strip.

In January 1966, Wally was posted into Vietnam. He converted onto the Bell UH-1D Huey at Bien Hoa, and there he then joined A Company (“The Cowboys”) of the 82nd Aviation Battalion, in support of the US 173rd Airborne Brigade.

Wally did a second Vietnam tour as a Forward Observation Officer (FOO) at Nui Dat with the First Australian Task Force, which included a New Zealand Rifle Company, 161 Battery RNZA, and a NZ SAS detachment. He served mainly during this tour with 3 Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment.

Wally later left the NZ Army and joined the Army Air Corps of the British Army, and served a further 20 years with that Army. Seven years of that was as a test pilot.

Quick Links:

• New Zealand Army Aviation Association History

• Captain Walter Steward’s Vietnam Page

• The No. 656 Squadron Association Borneo Confrontation History

• 82nd Aviation Battalion, US Army