Buccaneer 1981 - 1984 (3)
But we were engaging in all of these sort of routine activities against a backdrop of some serious uncertainty. The time was rapidly approaching when the Tornado would be operational at last! That would mean the Buccaneer being withdrawn from the Overland role and confined exclusively to the Maritime anti shipping role. The Maritime anti shipping role was nothing new for the ex-Navy Buccaneer of course, but something quite new for the 208 of the early 80’s. What was worse was that there
was already a Buccaneer squadron committed to Maritime operations, some number between 11 and 13, I think! And even worse than that terrible thought, there had been a second Buccaneer squadron in the role, No 216 Squadron at Lossiemouth. It became apparent that the most popular plan with the staffs was that 208 overland would be disbanded but the aircraft and some of the crews would move to Lossiemouth to recreate 216 Squadron. Fortunately, 208 had effective reinforcements in the shape of senior officers at high level who argued for the retention of the 208 number-plate and standard. Our own now Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Stear, thank you sir, was extremely persuasive. The happy news was
eventually issued that after all, the second maritime squadron at Lossiemouth working alongside the other lot would be 208.
I recall with great pleasure bringing that news to the Squadron Association at this reunion in October 1982. The move to Lossiemouth was not straightforward [22] but we left Honington and arrived at Lossie to be met by the 
Station [23] Commander, Group Captain Peter Oulton. 208 began training in the anti-shipping role and the [24] tactic
we were to employ was to use laser guided iron bombs to sink enemy ships [25]. The promise was that, eventually, the Squadron would be armed with the Sea Eagle anti-ship missile but that was definitely 
some long way [26] into the future. Only about half of the Honington 208 had moved to Lossie and the Squadron complement was made up with several maritime crews from 12 Sqn. The idea was to give 208 a core of crews already trained in the anti-shipping role. Some 3 hectic months after arriving at Lossiemouth and while still negotiating the many hurdles involved in settling a virtually new squadron into a new role and new accommodation, the order came to deploy as quickly as possible to Cyprus for Operation Pulsator.
