The first pair to depart was led by Wing Commander Cope. He described the occasion:
'At 0400 hours, the Station Commander bade us farewell and we took off from Lossiemouth with the paint in some places still wet. My navigator was Carl Wilson and the second aircraft was crewed by Glen Mason and Dick Aitken and we set of to rendezvous with the Tristar tanker over southern England, and then flew together non-stop to Muharraq airport in Bahrain. Another four aircraft followed us over the next few days.'
The first six aircraft
had arrived in Muharraq by 28 January and immediately commenced a week-long intensive training programme. With air supremacy firmly established, the priority for the Tornados had changed to interdicting the supply lines of the Iraqi Army, and bridges spanning the Rivers Euphrates and Tigris became priority targets. On 2 February, seven days after arriving in theatre and just ten days since the decision to deploy, the first mission was flown, with two Buccaneers 'spiking' for four Tornados bombing the Al Suweira road bridge. Leading the first Buccaneer war sortie was the Squadron Commander, Wing Commander Bill Cope, and his navigator, Flight Lieutenant Carl Wilson, with Flight Lieutenant G Mason and Squadron Leader W N Browne (12 Squadron Flight Commander) in the second aircraft. Flight Lieutenant Wilson reports:
'Two of us took off with four Tornados of XV
Squadron and we headed to the Victor or VC 10 tankers operating over Saudi Arabia south of the Iraqi border. After tanking, we made for the border, with a fighter escort, and checked in with AWACS by which time we had already been airborne for over two hours. In effect, we operated as two sections with one Buccaneer to a pair of Tornados and this had the advantage of providing redundancy if one of the 'spikers' became unserviceable. We flew above 20,000 feet and sat five miles behind our pair of Tornados closing up as we neared the target. The IN was good, but the pilot had to map read to positively identify the target, at which point he lowered the nose gently and put the sight on the bridge. My Pave Spike was slaved to his sight and once I had the target I called 'happy' and he was free to manoeuvre and keep an eye on the Tornados. Once they had released their bombs, they climbed away to head for the tanker, while I marked the target and fired the laser after five or six seconds. The time of flight of the bombs was about thirty seconds, which seemed an age.
