Its feasibility having been confirmed, the planned profile became the preferred option, provided that the weather held and that the Syrians, with their more capable air defence systems, did not encroach too far into Lebanon. In the meantime, CTF60 had published a concept of Combined Air Operations which afforded Buccaneers participating in attack operations over the Lebanon priority over all other air traffic. All of which had answered the second question – ‘How were the Buccaneers going to hit their target?’

Still unresolved, however, was the first question – ‘What was the target to be?’ If  COMBRITFORLEB reported that he was under fire, would he actually know where from? The various factions operating in and around Beirut fielded a wide variety of artillery pieces, which meant that, within a radius of about 20 miles, there were large numbers of guns, of many different calibres, any or all of which could threaten the British flats. Current Intelligence briefings indicated that the preferred operating pattern for the gunners was to fire off a few rounds in quick succession and then move. Since the response time for an air strike would be of the order of 45 minutes, it was clear that, even if it had been possible to identify which gun had been fired, it would probably be long gone before the Buccaneers arrived on the scene.

It was rumoured that the US forces were able to detect an incoming artillery round, track its trajectory and calculate the position from which it had been fired. We were never able to establish whether there was any truth in this tale but the RAF never benefited from such a capability – perhaps because it did not exist or, if it did, because it would have been too difficult to disseminate the time-sensitive information to the relatively remote Buccaneer Detachment. On the other hand, it became apparent that CTF60’s routine intelligence output noted the co-ordinates of some of the larger, permanently manned, artillery sites, sometimes supplemented by photographic imagery. In consultation with the Air Cdr, it was agreed that it would be worth pre-planning attacks against these permanent sites on a contingency basis, regardless of whether they had fired the offending rounds or not. The flaw in this approach was that these permanent, big-gun emplacements were all Syrian backed and there was no hard evidence to indicate that the Syrians were actually shelling the city and to have delivered a ‘counter’ strike against non-participating Syrian forces could well have provoked an even worse response. Nevertheless, after referring the question to London, the MOD approved the pre-planning of such sorties with the specific proviso that Ministerial approval would be needed prior to execution.

When the Buccaneers first arrived at Akrotiri they had found a Phantom squadron already in residence on an Armament Practice Camp and these had been included in the forces assigned to Op PULSATOR, their function being to provide Air Defence (AD) for the attack aircraft. The most obvious ways of employing the fighters would be to fly them as close escorts or to provide sweep sorties ahead of the strike to ensure air superiority. This was not as easy as it seemed, however. Apart from having to dovetail the activities of the Phantoms with those of the Buccaneers, there was the more critical problem of co-ordinating the type of no-notice sorties that we envisaged with CTF60’s air controllers

Op PULSATOR - 10

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