RORAIMA Airways last Friday evening at Duke Lodge Restaurant paid a special tribute to its former chief pilot, Captain Miles Williams with a special Roraima Award.
Close friends in the aviation and military sectors gathered to celebrate his 48th birthday and participate in the award ceremony.

Among those present were former Chief of Staff of the Guyana Defence Force,  Major General (ret’d)  Norman McLean, Deputy Chief of Staff Colonel Bruce Lovell,  Colonel Mark Phillips, former Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Harmon, Mohammed Azeez Neezamudeen, Major Patrick Nicholos, and Roraima’s Capt. Gerry Gouveia, Learie Barclay, Alvin Clarke, Air Services Capt. Annette Arjoon-Martin and others.
Capt. Gouveia welcomed the guests and unveiled the evening’s proceedings, leaving Capt. Williams speechless as he commenced his description of his former colleague, who is now a US-based Guyanese.
“Many times people live their lives, and do extraordinary things and then they fade away. Life’s challenges and family obligations consume and direct what we do and where we go.
Ladies and gentlemen tonight I would like to tell you a story, a story about a Guyanese Special Forces ex-military officer, a Guyanese
military pilot and someone whom I consider a Guyanese hero – Miles Williams,” Capt. Gouveia began.
He went on to note that Williams joined the GDF as a 2LT and served as a paratrooper and special
forces officer before being transferred to the Air Corps where he was trained as a pilot. He served in the Air Corps and flew on many missions as Gouveia’s co-pilot to save lives, rescue people and
resupply GDF forces in the far flung reaches of Guyana’s hinterland.
In the early years, there were no navigation aids to guide the airmen and they were forced to utilise pilotage and dead reckoning and the good old skill of recognising and remembering the shapes of the mountains and the rivers as well as the colours of particular leaves on trees as they descended to find their destinations.
Following Gouveia’s presentation, Air Services Captain, Annette Arjoon-Martin in her comments about Capt. Williams recalled the days of her turtle preservation tours to Shell Beach where they would fly to the location in the North West District and overnight to watch the interesting event unfold before their eyes – turtle nesting.
She noted that this would normally be a three-hour wait with mosquitoes biting for hours.
Interestingly, she recalled, one evening while they sat watching the turtles preparing the holes before nesting the eggs, Williams decided to assist the turtles in digging so that their waiting time would be shorter. This was a very funny situation as the rangers nicknamed him ‘turtle daddy’, she added to much laughter.
Williams in response was lost for words as he thanked Capt. Gouveia for all he had done for him in his career.
He made mention too of many others who contributed to his success and pledged to return his services to Guyana someday. Capt. Williams now resides in Florida, where he is the personal pilot of the Governor of the State of Florida.