Buccaneer Anecdotal History
The Buccaneer Anecdotal History comprises three presentations given by former Squadron Commanders to Association Annual Reunion Dinners in
2010, 2011 and 2012 respectively, plus an article written by Squadron Leader ‘Skids’ Harrison, the Buccaneer Chapter Representative, for the 2014 Newsletter. Some additional anecdotes from the Buccaneer era are also included. Click on the photographs below to access the articles.
Bill Cope in the third Annual Reunion presentation, describes 208 Squadron’s participation in Operation GRANBY (more widely known as part of Operation DESERT STORM), or how our rather elderly aircraft performed in what was then, a very modern war.
Ben Laite continues the story of the middle Buccaneer period during the last year of Honington and the first year at Lossiemouth, including the Squadron’s deployment to Cyprus for Op PULSATOR, and the provision of Air Support to Army colleagues on the ground in Beirut.
Graham Pitchfork – Flight Commander between 1974 and 1976 and CO between 1979 and 1981 talks about 208 Squadron from its reformation on 1 July 1974 at Honington as the RAF’s fourth Buccaneer squadron, to his handover to Ben Laite on 4 December 1981.
Squadron Leader ‘Skids’ Harrison completes the Buccaneer saga in his 2014 Newsletter article describing the final years of the aircraft on 208 Squadron between 1992 and 1994 - the end of the ‘Buccanera’.
In this section, there are some 18 shorter articles, anecdotes and photograph galleries, all gratefully received from individual Chapter members, relating to the Buccaneer era from 1974 to 1994.
