Major Terence Murphy Royal Marines

Major Terence Murphy, who has died 79, who pioneered the helicopter gunship and who  fought guerrillas in southern Africa before settling there.

                The Aden Emergency 1963-67 was one of Britain’s small wars, when in March 1966 Murphy arrived to lead 45 Commando’s Air Troop.   Murphy was the senior of three RM pilots, but his helicopters were still at sea in crates.    While waiting for their arrival, Murphy,  a Qualified Helicopter Instructor or QHI, was lent to the Army Air Corps and so was able to use Army helicopters for training.   Theatre familiarisation for the new pilots included flying in desert conditions when low-flying raised clouds of dust, and hot/high mountain flying.   One exercise was to land among rocks overlooking Aden’s Crater. It required concentration and only when safely landed did Murphy point out the iron grid where  the local Parsi left their dead and a flock vultures would be tearing out the entrails of a corpse.

            When the ship carrying the boxed aircraft arrived, the crates were unloaded, a naval air mechanics assembled the aircraft, they were ground- and air-tested, air tested and Murphy soon had his three, new RM Sioux helicopters flying.  

            Once he was flying at fairly low level over a desolate inland area when he saw a lone Arab on a hill raise his rifle and take aim.  Feeling vulnerable in the unarmed Sioux helicopter, Murphy was determined to fix a machine gun on the starboard side of the aircraft, which would allow his pilots to fire back.   Murphy claimed that this was the first time helicopters had been so armed and thus he was the inventor of the modern attack helicopter.

            Terence Patrick Murphy was born in Grimsby, Lincolnshire and educated at the former Benedictine Belmont Abbey in Herefordshire, before being  commissioned into the Royal Marines in 1953.  

            When after two tours in 40 Commando, he volunteered for flying training his RSM wished him well with the words, “Good luck, Sir, but don’t drop anything on us.” 

                Royal Marines pilots had ceased to qualify for Fleet Air Arm wings some ten years earlier and Murphy enjoyed the challenge of being one the first of a new generation of pilots, gaining his wings in 1959.   He joined 806 Naval Air Squadron flying Seahawk jet fighters, and the next year he made his first operational decklanding on the fleet carrier Albion, and became the first RM pilot to fly in a jet squadron.

            When the concept of the assault ship, carrying helicopter-borne marines, was born, Murphy volunteered again, and became one of the first assault helicopter pilots, known as ‘junglies’, and joined 848 NAS in the commando carrier  Bulwark in 1961.

            After a tour on general duties in 43 Commando, Murphy passed the instructor’s course at the RAF Central Flying School, and joined the School of Army Aviation, Middle Wallop where he became a QHI.

            After service in Aden he returned to the School of Army Aviation where there as the social life was frenetic and there was a happy Mess atmosphere, developing a lasting affection for the Army Air Corps.

            In 1966 Murphy attended Shriven ham for the General Staff Science course and then Camberley for the Army Staff College.   Two years later he reluctantly arrived at the Ministry of Defence as a desk officer.   The next two and half years were regarded as successful, but Murphy felt like a ‘condemned man’.  

            Then after two years in Singapore as a company commander in 42 Cdo, he persuaded his wife to allow him to join an expedition which drove overland from Singapore to England.    His ‘never-take-no’ for an answer, bluster and self-confidence  saw the expedition through many tricky situations as it negotiated its way through India and Pakistan on the eve of a second war, up the Khyber Pass to Afghanistan, through Iran and Turkey, and then Greece, blagging its way into hotels, charming truculent border guards and ‘persuading’ officials   to refuel the expedition’s Landrovers.

            In 1972 Murphy took command of  3 Commando Brigade Air Squadron (BAS) at a time when it had been assessed as having one of the worst safety records:  he was determined to put this right and change anything else that was found to be below top standard.   Two years later BAS won the Army Air Corps Flight Safety Trophy at the end of his tour.  He also set up an annual mountain flying training at Saillagouse in the Pyrenees.

            However, faced with the prospect of ever more staff appointments, Murphy resigned  1974.  He turned down an offer to become Aristotle Onassis’ personal helicopter pilot, because the pay was too poor, and in August that year Murphy joined the Rhodesian Air Force  where he flew intensively during the closing years of the Rhodesian Bush War.   When that war finished with the deliration of a the independence of Zimbabwe and a majority black government, Murphy transferred to the   South African armed forces.

            He became a colonel in the headquarters Special Forces, before retiring aged 61.   However he was recalled during the interregnum between the Afrikaner government and the election of President Nelson Mandela to command a camp of 7,000 unruly ANC guerrillas:  and to integrate these into the new South Africa army.  In this he was aided by Gilbert Ramano, chief of the armed wing of the ANC, first worked for Murphy and then became  Chief of the Army.   Murphy recalled, “We worked well together.”

            Murphy settled in Simon’s Town, Cape Province, to build a house overlooking the beautiful bay and to enjoy a life of fishing and sailing. 

            Murphy married Brigitte Couët in 1967 who survives him with their three children the sea from HMS Richmond on the 21st November to the sound of the boatswain’s pipe and the bugle, and cloud of cormorants which flew past the ship..

Terence Murphy, born August 27 1934, died 6 November 2013