That necessitated inclusion of more of our first-tourist crews and a resultant experience “dilution“. However, I could still have put a senior officer on every mission; riches indeed!
I was concerned that the evident anxiety present amongst the Tornado detachment would be transmitted to my crews. Inevitably there was a degree of concern amongst our crews, but thankfully no hysteria.
I am very proud of the Maritime Buccaneer Wing aircrews’ performance. They quietly and quite efficiently, got on with the task in hand.
THE GROUNDCREWS
Our groundcrews played a blinder. Albeit we had more Groundcrew than a squadron at home would have had, and 2 SENGOs as well - the results were still impressive. So much so that, on at least one occasion Gen de la Billiere stopped his morning briefing on aircraft serviceability statistics to ask why his briefing staff always emphasised the availability of the Tornados when the statistics for the older Buccaneer and Jaguar were nearly always better. I do not know how they replied…
The Buccaneer serviceability rate in theatre was second only to the Jaguar. We never lacked a spare aircraft at crew-in; the Groundcrew stoically put up with stressed-aircrews‘ foibles, errors and even rejection of serviceable aircraft when sometimes pilots failed to properly set up the Havequick radio - one of which was me!
The technical support from Lossiemouth was just what better than I could have hoped for - exemplary. If we had fallen short in our task it would not have been RAF Lossiemouth’s fault.
HUMOUR
The aircrews walking back from a mission were understandably much happier and relaxed than those walking out. Some of our youngsters on the way out were perplexed to meet Mike Scarffe walking in looking quite dejected. On asking why, he said “ I have been tasked with bombing a dis-used airfield”. After a few seconds to let that sink in he broke into a mischievous grin and added “Well it is now!”.
Scarffy was the originator of several little pearls which can be found in the squadron’s line book.
