On exceedingly rare occasions, instead of dropping the 4lb bombs, some of us were allocated a pair of 100 gal tanks filled with water to drop on the range against more realistic targets. The ground crew took great pleasure in painting the fuel tanks in the squadron colours for their last flight! It was a very hot and sweaty environment in the cockpit, and pilots were working quite hard to get the parameters correct for their delivery with a minimum release height of 35 feet at 450 knots. On one dry pass, Derek North was lucky to survive when his damp leather flying gloved hand slipped off the control column as he initiated his 4G recovery. The RSO was horrified to see his aircraft virtually disappear behind the 15ft screen and very relieved to see it reappear out of a cloud of dust as it staggered to regain height back in to the circuit pattern!

Once in a while more realistic targets were provided, such as the 25-ton truck that was gifted by the army to be ‘bombed’. It took a very considerable effort to get this vehicle from Sharjah to the range. Finally, after hours of effort, at the end of a very long day, it was placed in position for the following morning’s range detail. As a precaution, it was decided to cut all the axles on the truck so no one who might be so inclined, could tow it away. Suffice it to say there was a lot of head scratching when the range team arrived early the following morning to find the vehicle had not only disappeared but had done so without leaving a trace of how or where it had gone! (Webmaster’s note: for more details of this, read Rod Dean’s article ‘The World’s Best Vanishing Trick’ HERE).

The flying was superb with minimal restrictions: in UK, the minimum height we could be cleared down to for practising air to air combat was 5,000 feet; with experience out there we were cleared down to 250 feet! There were of course few navigation features in the desert regions, but there were camel train tracks, which were reasonably reliable, a few very small oil installations and oases, and some well-known and accurately plotted oil drums. It was not unusual to come across the occasional Bedouin alone on his camel in the middle of nowhere! Indeed, as we relied on the mark one eyeball and a very inaccurate barometric altimeter, it was difficult to judge exactly how high we were above the desert when navigating across miles and miles of featureless sand – sometimes one would come across either an exceptionally large camel or discover one was flying very much closer to the sand than intended!

Prior to 1970, the Labour Government under Harold Wilson had decreed that the UK would pull all its forces back from locations East of Suez. When the Conservatives came into power, they planned to reverse this policy, but I think the plan was by then too close to fruition. In August 1971, the Emir of Bahrain reiterated his nation’s independent status and it was decided that British Forces should leave Bahrain in September. Rumours were rife about our future and it was eventually made clear that 208 would disband and myself and a few of the other pilots would join No. 8 Sqn which would redeploy to Sharjah in September of that year; the remainder would be posted back to the UK.

The No. 208 Sqn disbandment parade was held at Muharraq on 21 Aug 1971 on the flight line outside the Squadron building.

Muharraq Memories 2 - 03

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