The 'Magnificent Seven' later posed for photographs with the President on the stairs leading to the 'Squadron Badge' corridor.


He also took pains to reassure members that the Association would continue in strength, due to the outstanding efforts of the Committee, whom he took pains to thank individually: Desmond Penrose, the Meteor Chapter Representative; Jamie Buckle, the Hawk Chapter Representative; Paul 'Skids' Harrison, the Buccaneer Chapter Representative; Dave Gill, the Groundcrew Representative; Iain Ross, the Hunter Chapter Representative; Rick Page, the Treasurer; Nigel Huckins, the Membership Secretary; Graham Pitchfork, the Association's Historian; Ben Laite, a Life-Vice President; Eugene Moriarty, the Association Secretary; Malcolm Ward, the Newsletter Editor; Neil Meadows, the Webmaster; and last, but certainly not least, Air Marshal Sir Rob Wright, the Association's President.


A full list of the Committee of the Naval Eight / 208 Squadron Association can be found here:


The Chairman then recounted a short anecdote illustrating the team spirit on 208 Squadron. In 1983, 208 was based at RAF Honington and was about to move to RAF Lossiemouth to transfer from the overland strike/attack role to the maritime strike/attack role. Ben Laite was the Squadron Boss and the Squadron had just embarked in its last overland strike/attack exercise: Maple Flag in Northern Alberta in Canada. At the time, there were quite a few 'Daves' on the Squadron: himself (Dave Trembaczowski-Ryder), Dave Southwood, Dave Harle, Dave Hall, Dave Bye, and Dave Atton, the SengO.


At the beginning of the deployment, the Squadron had gathered in the bar, and an American officer came up to the guys and introduced himself to many of them. However, every answer he got was 'Dave,' because everyone he had spoken to was, in fact, called 'Dave.' The guys therefore thought it would be a very 'jolly jape' to call everyone on the Squadron 'Dave,' and so the other ('non-Dave') Squadron members became 'Dave Ron', 'Dave Roger', 'Dave Terry', and so on, which really confused the Americans (let's face it, it wasn't difficult!) and for the remainder of the deployment, the Squadron therefore became known as 'Team Dave.' The Chairman noted that there was now even a television station named after them.


He had been crewed with Dave Bye as a constituted crew and, on one particular sortie, they were at 100 feet, flying pretty fast, and it was quite noisy in the cockpit. However, when they landed and taxied in, the groundcrew pointed at their port wing, in which there was a huge hole. They had obviously had a birdstrike, an operational hazard at ultra-low level.

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