Buccaneer 1981 - 1984 (1)

President, Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, good evening and thank you for inviting me to give the presentation this year. I am going to tell you about life on 208 during the last year at Honington and the first year at Lossiemouth. I shall cover in some detail the deployment to Cyprus for Operation Pulsator, which entailed the provision of Air Support to our brave army colleagues on the ground in Beirut. Graham Pitchfork very generously but I suspect very sadly handed 208 over to me in December 1981. At that time, the Squadron was employed in [3] the Overland Strike/Attack role, which meant our job in war was to hit targets on land, such as airfields, ground defence installations, communications centres, and so on, with conventional weapons known affectionately as iron bombs. The main weapon in that category was the 1,000lb iron bomb.  We were also trained to be ready to carry and drop nuclear weapons. All overland. I am stressing these otherwise tedious details so that you might appreciate the significance of what comes later in tonight’s story. Life on 208 then was straightforward enough though there were many challenges each day in providing enough flying for the training of the crews in each of the roles. And aircraft serviceability was always a concern! [5]. But Jules Flood [6] made his 1,000 hours on Buccaneers and we celebrated that with him! There were several [7] VIP visits including one from HRH The Duke of Gloucester. And of course there were the inevitable minevals when even the Thrift Shop was not safe from Spetznatz intruders! But there were also times of enjoyable exercising, like a fortnight on the Moselle on exchange with a German F104 Squadron at Buchel. Even out there, it was not all hard graft [9] at flying in marginal weather!

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Buccaneer Chapter 1981 – 1984

Ben Laite

Commanding Officer 1981 - 84

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Buccaneer 1981 - 1984 (2)
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