RAF Strike Command 1968-2007: Aircraft, Men and Action

654 Pages·2012·26.96 MB·English

by  Kev Darling

Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1 Fighter Command – the Final Decade
Chapter 2 Bomber Command – the Last Ten Years
Chapter 3 Coastal and Transport Commands
Chapter 4 Strike Command is Born
Chapter 5 Integrations and Further Changes
Chapter 6 The RAF at War in the South Atlantic
Chapter 7 Operation Corporate – They Also Served
Chapter 8 Farewell to the Old – Hello to the New
Chapter 9 War in the Desert – Operation Granby/Desert Storm
Chapter 10 Onward to the Future and the End
Appendix I Comparative Strengths
Appendix II Aircraft and Operating Squadrons
Bibliography
Introduction
When Bomber and Fighter Commands were shoehorned together
many thought that this particular marriage would not work.
Fortunately for Britain’s defence Strike Command would play
its part well. This book is dedicated to those men and women that made
Strike Command function: to the aircrew, some of whom lost their lives
on active service, the ground crew who stopped the foregoing being no
more than an expensive walking club and to all those support personnel
who could supply anything from a bolt to a boiled egg, frequently at very
short notice. I count myself lucky to have served alongside many of them.
Like most military organizations the command was subject to
financial stringencies, some were imposed by politicians looking to
further their own agendas while others occurred due to the cost of new
equipment. The latter increased in price due to the complexity of
emerging technologies, although once proven they would remain in
service; sometimes well past their sell by date. Possibly the low point in
the history of Strike Command would come in the mid-1970s when, due
to financial stringencies, morale was at an all time low. Fortunately
NATO came to the rescue with its insistence that all countries adopt a low
profile for their aircraft and their support infrastructure. Extra money had
to be found to carry out this task, and fortunately it was.
With nearly everything painted green the old routine of training for a
war that no one hoped would happen was resumed, although it was rudely
interrupted by the Falklands War in 1982. This revealed a few deficiencies
in equipment that were quickly dealt with while the type of training
carried out by all personnel was mostly vindicated. New equipment was
also coming on stream; the Sepecat Jaguar was settled in service, and new
versions of the Harrier were being developed, while the Panavia Tornado
was starting to enter service. The service also said farewell to some old
favourites such as the Avro Vulcan that had performed so well during the
Falklands War.
The fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism in
November 1989 led the leaders of the West to declare a misguided ‘peace
dividend’. There followed a short period of base closures, cancelled
programmes and personnel being made redundant. Much of this would be
put on hold in August 1990 when Iraq invaded Kuwait; the author first
heard this news courtesy of the BBC World Service at 30,000 feet on the
flight deck of Tristar ZE705 en route to Mount Pleasant from Ascension
Island. The world’s response was impressive; not only would all the
nations of the West band together, they were quickly joined by the Arab
nations in the region. The premise behind the war was not only to
establish complete air superiority, but to use massive air power to destroy
and thoroughly demoralize the Iraqi forces. Not only was this successful,
it also allowed the ground forces to carry out their counter invasion with
little let or hindrance.
During the remaining seventeen years of Strike Command’s existence
the squadrons have hardly had time to draw breath between conflicts
before packing up and moving onto the next conflict. Not bad for an
organization formed to protect Britain against one particular enemy.
Unfortunately, the chosen name for the replacement organization was the
rather anonymous Air Command. Would Air Expeditionary Command
have been better and more accurate?
Obviously, such a work as this requires the help of others even though
it is but a primer on the subject. Therefore, I would like to thank my old
friends Bob Archer and Robbie Shaw for their help with illustrations. I
would especially like to thank my old friend and boss Wing Commander
Mel James for his assistance with Operation Corporate information and
photographs.
Kev Darling
Wales 2012
Chapter 1
Fighter Command – the Final Decade
As the day dawned bright and sunny over the airfields of Britain
little did those who scurried to work on that Friday realize that
ten years from 30 April 1958 the command that had won the
Battle of Britain would cease to exist. Thus as shift bosses chivvied their
troops into hangars and onto the flight line, as young pilots dreaming of
derring-do entered the briefing rooms daydreaming of future glories, little
did they realize that some of them would be in senior positions to take the
nascent Strike Command into the future.
Fighter Command had embraced the jet fighter with alacrity very
early on in its career. Success with the Gloster Whittle powered by a
Whittle/ Power Jets centrifugal engine on 5 March 1943 had led to the
development and deployment of the Meteor F1 to Specification F9/40.
Production deliveries of the first production machines, later to be named
Meteor, took place in July 1944, No. 616 Squadron being the recipient.
Powered by Welland engines, the new fighter was deployed on V-1
‘Doodle Bug’ interception patrols. Codenamed ‘Diver’ these flights took
place from Manston with the unit scoring its first success in August.
While much of the squadron remained in Britain one flight was detached
to Nijmegen in the Netherlands, although the Meteor was banned from
flying over enemy territory thus two of the significant aircraft in jet
aircraft development failed to meet in combat. The deployment lasted
throughout January 1945, this first version of the Meteor being withdrawn
from use soon afterwards.
This first venture in to the realm of the jet fighter was followed by the
Meteor Mk 3 whose various improvements included higher thrust and
more reliable engines, a ventral fuel tank, plus a sliding canopy. No. 616
Squadron would be the first recipient with No. 504 gaining their
complement soon afterwards. The follow-on would be the Meteor F Mk 4,
this being the first version to enter mass squadron service, a total of
twenty-four units being thus equipped. No. 92 Squadron would be the first
to equip in May 1948 while based at Duxford whereas No. 245 Squadron
would achieve a measure of fame when some of their machines were
fitted with in-flight refuelling probes for aerial refuelling trials.
Having delivered three versions of the Meteor to the Royal Air Force,
Glosters would then go on to manufacture the most prevalent model, the
Meteor F Mk 8, a total of 1,079 aircraft being delivered. In contrast with
the earlier machines this version featured an extended nose, clipped
wings, modified tail unit and a Martin-Baker ejection seat. At its height
the F8 equipped thirty squadrons, including ten assigned to the Royal
Auxiliary Air Force. The final front-line Meteor F8 was retired by No.
245 Squadron in April 1957 having flown various marques of the Meteor
continuously from August 1945.
Also in the race to deliver the first jet fighter to the RAF was de
Havilland with its Spidercrab, later given the slightly more sensible
service name of Vampire. Already well known as the builder of the
‘Wooden Wonder’, the Mosquito, de Havilland would enter the DH 100
in answer to Specification E.6/41. The powerplant for this diminutive
fighter would be the Halford H1 designed by Major Frank Halford. This
was a simpler and slightly smaller version of the Welland engines
specified for the Gloster Meteor; in fact, the first Halford H1s would be
fitted into some aircraft from the early Meteor production in order to test
them for future usage. The first DH 100, LZ548/G, the ‘G’ indicating that
the aircraft required guarding when away from home base, undertook its
maiden flight on 20 September 1943 some six months after its Gloster
rival had flown. In appearance the Vampire series was a small single-seat
twin boom fighter that still featured wood in much of its construction. The
pilot plus engine was housed in a short pod as were the four 20mm
cannon. The first production of the Vampire F Mk 1, TG274, made its
maiden flight on 20 April 1945 with first deliveries being undertaken to
No. 247 Squadron during March 1946. Changes took place throughout
delivery, thus from the fortieth aircraft a more powerful Goblin, as the
Halford H1 had become, was fitted, while from the fifty-first aircraft the
F1 featured a bubble canopy and cabin pressurization. Eventually, a total
of eleven front-line units were equipped with this model.
Given its diminutive size it was no surprise that the short endurance of
the Vampire needed to be addressed and quickly, therefore the next model
would be the F Mk 3 to Specification F3/47. Although underwing tanks
had been introduced with the F1 this later version also had increased
tankage in the wing panels. In its initial iteration the extra wing fuel
caused some instability, which was cured by lowering the tailplane and
extending its chord while the fin and rudder were reworked to increase the
available surface area. The first prototype first flew on 4 November 1945
and was subject to a prolonged development and testing period before first
deliveries were undertaken to No. 54 Squadron in April 1948. Eventually,
a total of thirteen units were equipped with the type.
While the Vampire proved to be a stable platform it was obvious that
any further development as a fighter would be limited by its size and
space limitations thus any further models should be dedicated to ground
attack only. To that end de Havilland reworked a redundant F1 as the FB5
prototype. To cope with the differing demands of the ground attack role
the new model featured a strengthened structure that allowed the carriage
of two 1,000lb bombs or eight rockets. The wings were also clipped to
improve the roll rate. The undercarriage was also altered, having an
increased stroke to compensate for the increased weights involved. The
prototype undertook its maiden flight on 29 June 1948 with deliveries to
the first operational squadron, No. 54 Squadron, at Odiham during
October 1959. Eventually, a total of forty-one squadrons were equipped
with this model, most employing the type for ground attack purposes. The
final Vampire fighter bomber was the FB Mk 9 that was intended for
tropical usage thus it added a conditioning unit to the basic FB5 airframe,
which resulted in an increase of eight inches to the starboard wing root
fillet. The first deliveries were undertaken during January 1952, the
redundant FB5s being returned to Britain for training duties. Overall,
twenty-four fighter bomber units were equipped with this version.
It had become obvious by 1953 that the Meteor and Vampire had been
totally outclassed by the emerging crop of Soviet Union fighters.
Unfortunately, the next British fighter was still in the development stage
and therefore a stop gap was needed in a hurry. The only available
candidate was the North American F-86E Sabre that had already proven
its worth in Korea. It would be Canadair who would build the RAF
fighters under licence from North American Aviation (NAA). Altogether,
some 430 aircraft were built for Britain, which were flown across the
Atlantic by pilots from No. 1 Long Range Ferry unit as part of Operation
Beechers Brook. While the majority of the new fighters were delivered to
the units based in Germany, two units in Fighter Command were equipped
with the type these being Nos 66 and 92 Squadrons. The F-86 Sabre F Mk
4 was withdrawn from service in 1956, the majority being refurbished for
further use by other nations.
The first British swept wing fighter to enter service was the
Supermarine Swift, which could trace its ancestry in a tortuous way back
to the Spitfire. Unlike its more illustrious ancestor, the Swift was an
unmitigated disaster in its earliest form. Developed to meet Specification
F105, the first Type 541, Swift F Mk 1, undertook its maiden flight on 25
August 1952. This version was equipped with a pair of 30mm Aden
cannon, a fixed tailplane plus a Rolls-Royce Avon engine without reheat.
Development problems delayed service entry until 13 February 1954
when No. 56 Squadron traded in its trusty Gloster Meteor F8s. The pilots
were then faced with an aircraft that was beset by flight restrictions that
included gun firing, maximum speed and altitude. This was compounded
by a spate of accidents that caused the type to be grounded in August of
that year. By the end of that month the squadron had received the next