When I arrived at Swinderby in
May 1976 I had already had a haircut to remove my Golly Locks. I have a framed collage to my right as I type
which includes an image of said hairy person.
I was one curly haired member of a group of anarchists totalling three
including Sean O’Reilly and Lance Ford.
The “Gollies”….What the hell were we thinking when we made that
decision? No wonder the babes crossed
the road. Anyway back to the air force
thing.
Prior to 1976 I had only
experienced one flight experience and that was as a baby under a year old. So no conscious memory at all really. It was a trip to Guernsey with the whole
family aboard; good job we didn’t crash because the Franklin blood line would
have terminated.
During RAF basic training there
is a schedule on the timetable entitled flight experience. Our Squadron were treated to one of the last
flights in a Belfast of No 53 Squadron RAF based at Brize Norton. The Belfast was decommissioned in September
1976 and we flew in May 1976. RAF
Coningsby was where we were taken through a series of circuits and bumps and
with the rear loading door open got to see the Lincolnshire countryside from a
somewhat precarious perch (harnessed of course). It was an awesome experience and it makes sense
that every airman / airwoman in RAF Service can hold his or her hand up and say
“I’ve flown”.
I next came into contact with
aircraft quite quickly which is perhaps unsurprising given that the point of
the RAF is aircraft. RAF Northolt in
North West London was home to the Queens Flight,
To
No. 207 Squadron, RAF Northolt. By 1984 this unit operated 13 DE Havilland Devon’s,
nine from Northolt, plus a detached flight of three aircraft at RAF Wyton,
Cambs and one from Edinburgh/Turnhouse. Ferried senior officers of all three
services around the UK and Europe, and also operated a regular ‘round robin’
courier service, carrying documents and packages between UK bases; another task
was the transporting of Technical personnel to recover RAF aircraft reported
unserviceable away from base.
I flew one training sortie with a
handful of suited officer types to visit Guernsey to collect a sizeable order
of alcohol for the Officers Mess Christmas Party. Bloody Rodney’s always looking for a corner
and cost cutting deal even if the fuel costs outweighed the alcohol
savings. The most memorable part of the
sortie was the instruction given to me by the good Flight Lieutenant Henson as I recall. "Whatever you do Franklin,
do not open the Thermos Flasks above 10,000’".
Righty Ho Sir says I and dutifully comply. We gain some altitude when aforementioned
Flighty Louis says anyone for tea? He
then opens a Thermos and the hot water escapes into the cabin space dousing all
there assembled. Tit! I served with 207
Squadron and really enjoyed working with these old boys…
32 Squadron was a different
kettle of fish. HS125’s and the spiffing
little jets transporting all other than the Hoi Polloi. It was the great divide
between the prop jobs and the jet propelled.
32 Squadron Aircrew exuded superiority over their adjoining and to be
fair longer in the tooth colleagues at 207 Squadron.
The Queens Flight and those
beautifully polished red helicopters from RAF Benson and HS 125’s. We also had Wessex Whirlwinds and Gazelles
routinely zotting back and forth. I do have a shot of the BOB Flight in the fly
Past in London for the 2002 Golden Jubilee, but cannot locate said image. Finally on the subject of aircraft the Red
Arrows in that same Jubilee celebration along with Concorde; sadly now grounded.
Have I ever been aircrew;
technically yes and on one auspicious occasion I played an injured pilot
trapped in the cockpit of one of our fire crew training aircraft. I think it might have been a DC6 but not sure. I had my instructions to play unconscious and
almost became so as fire crew and rugby buddy Alex Mills bounced my head on the
ladder down from the cockpit. Happy
days.
Northolt was where I enjoyed
seeing the Battle of Britain Flight on the tarmac at the same time as the Red
Arrows were lined up on the pan. The BOB
Flight was a regular sight in my skies not least over Little Brington in Northamptonshire
long after I had turned in my RAF Beret.
Leaving Northolt was timely. I had spent over four years on the base and
had become far too established a fixture.
I obviously had ideas above my station as well, feeling inclined towards
the WRAF Accommodation one fine evening along with brothers in arms, Mick
Chester, Nigel (Legin) Williams, Dennis Andreozzi. Our cover was blown and the Group Captain
clearly felt we needed to be made an example of….I secured 10 days in the
Regional Services Detention Rooms in Gloucester with Mick and Legin. Dennis miraculously escaped
incarceration. Guess he must have made a
deal with the Snowdrops.
That period of time served stood
me in great stead when lecturing Police students on jail time. “Believe me I
know how it feels” I often said when tutoring.
I was posted to RAF Bruggen and
worked as a Mission Planner in the Combat Operations Centre (COC). Fantastic
job at the ebb end of the Cold War. I
was responsible for creating Combat Mission Folders for Jaguar Bombers
operating from the base. I had an
insight into target locations East Germany and beyond. We had four Squadrons and an atmosphere hard to
describe but I have a crack anyway. The
Officer class particularly the fly boys were top of the pile and we had four
squadrons worth of bloody jockeys. There
was something of the camaraderie that comes with being in a threatened zone; an
enemy target area that bridges the ranks and classes, to a degree. A bit more
give and take.
In TACEVAL and MINEVAL Exercises
we rehearsed our combat roles. I now
wear a face mask to address sleep apnea and it’s a doddle after wearing a
respirator for 6 hour stints during exercises.
Gas, Gas, Gas, was the shout, military boys and girls know the
form. The priority for airfields that
might be subject to imminent attack is to get their aircraft off the ground and
airborne as quickly as possible. The mass launches from RAF Bruggen were bloody
awesome. I will never see anything like
this again in my lifetime. Some 30 odd
Jaguar Aircraft from four Squadron locations at each quarter of the Bruggen
Airfield. Jaguar traffic congestion with
pairs offset by no more than 10 metres getting airborne on short takeoff to be
immediately followed by the next pair once the back thrust had dissipated. All 30 airborne within 26 minutes. Living to fight another day and at GBP
7,000,000 each these AC are expensive commodities. I love the smell of AVGAS in the
morning.
I spent three years in Bruggen
and during that time we lost seven Jaguars and a handful of aircrew. I’ll never forget the tradition when an
aircrew death occurs. The Squadron who
had suffered the loss would open their bar that very night and the bill would
be written off against the bar tab of the lost soul. Drowning of the sorrows. Tradition that might sound a little harsh but
makes a whole lot of sense.
I remember the COC acquiring a
Saracen for little journeys across the Peri-track to deliver combat mission
folders to aircrew who’s HUD had malfunctioned.
Our combat mission folders into the hand of the bomber aircrew and our
careful analysis protecting these elite fly boys en route to their targets.
One of my MP buddies was to find
himself in Desert Storm One undertaking his duties in a war zone and later I
can share my own close encounter with that theatre of war. I will also talk to my friend and colleague
Max Collier who was to lose his life in the conflict.
I left Bruggen in October 1983
and arrived at RAF Uxbridge. My only
aircraft contact was the static gate guardian the Hurricane. Urban RAF and a different excitement. It would be 6 years before I would again
scent that great AVGAS smell and hear the jet engines roar.
RAF Marham was home to the
Tornado GR4, was the crew home for the AVRO Vulcan and the Nimrod. Big players at around the time I was in
residence 1989 to 1991. I was selected
to form part of a protection team escorting Cluster bombs From Marham to Brize
Norton. These sizeable bombs were loaded
on RAF flat bed trucks in cradles and ratcheted to the eyeballs. Neatly sprayed on the side of each green
coated weapon in yellow was the bomb designation and weight. In traffic I glanced at a car driver in the
next lane and watched him mouth the words cluster bomb and then gasp; it was
hilarious…What mate? Never seen a big bomb before?
In May 1990, Marham played host to a visit by the Royal College of Defence Studies (RCDS) for the third successive year. It was a spectacular event with static and flying displays, during which nobody would have envisaged the wind of change which was shortly to bring Marham rapidly into Transition to War (TTW). Mum, John and some family attended this event and with access to all areas I was able to give them an end of runway view for the Tornado bombing run. It was a full speed low level attack of the runway, with simulated bomb tosses, and ground explosions. The aircraft moved so quickly and the slipstream wind lifted Mum off her feet and deposited her on the bonnet of her Vauxhall Cavalier. It was an awesome day.
Iraq invaded Kuwait in August, and within weeks, crews from No’s 27 and 617 Sqn’s deployed to the Gulf. By October the contingent from Marham had grown to some 250 in number. As these personnel returned in December, Nimrod tankers from 55 Squadron were deployed to Bahrain, where 70 personnel remained over Christmas. By this time Marham the main airhead, was fully active as Hercules aircraft ferried equipment by day and night from the base to the Gulf - a massive logistics exercise.
The operation, known as 'GRANBY', continued into 1991. Numbers 27 and 617 Squadrons were again deployed to the Gulf where, on 16 January, the operation to liberate Kuwait began with the bombing of Baghdad. Crews from both Marham Squadrons took part in the offensive. The Station was honoured when the Honorary Air Commodore, Her Majesty the Queen, gave a morale-boosting visit to the Unit that same month, and this was followed by a visit from the Chief of the Air Staff in February. I was actually on duty in full dress uniform when Her Majesty dressed in blue walked within an arms length of me in full salute posture.
With Kuwait liberated, a cease-fire was called at 5am on Thursday 28 February 1991. Shortly afterwards, in March, all 3 Marham Squadrons and the support personnel returned to tumultuous welcomes. Later, on June 6 Tornados from Marham supported a Gulf Victory parade flying over London.
SAC Chris Anderson was on a field line from Riyadh when his unit came under attack from Saddam Hussein’s Scud Missiles. It was a surreal experience hearing him shout that he and others would have to cut the call short to take cover. The whole Granby episode was an exercise in painting all things salmon pink for the desert theatre of war including bicycles which were thrown onto C130’s along with the rest of the supplies. Ground crew had the unpleasant side netting in the fuselage to hang onto as they were transported. It was the closest I was to come to actually deploying and it would have been my familiarity with Mission Planning that would have got me a ticket. Similarly to the Falklands conflict my task was not to join the fray but support from afar. That is the way the cookie crumbles…as they say. Would I have gone? Absolutely, and probably with a mix of excitement and trepidation.
Flight Lieutenant Max Collier was a Tornado Navigator having previously been a Mission Planner at RAF Bruggen. I had the great pleasure of serving with him on both RAF Stations Bruggen and Marham. He was shot down in the Gulf and may he rest in peace. I still get a buzz when I walk through an airport or see fast jets in the air.
