“So we went off to do this ‘Show of Force’ around the City. It was a mixed 208 / 12 Squadron detachment.
We put 2 pairs around the City and I was No 2 in the second pair. Bill Graham and Nige Maddox were leading the first pair and we whizzed round the City of Beirut. It was the best two-
With all four aircraft safely back at Akrotiri, there followed a lengthy dialogue between CBFC and COMBRITFORLEB but the latter stuck firmly to his view that the Buccaneers should have threatened Soukh Al Garb to show solidarity with the Lebanese Army.
Despite a degree of lack of confidence in the reliability of the radio link between Episkopi and Beirut, it was considered that the situation warranted a repeat performance and another pair flew the same profile on 13 September. Again, all went well – the US Navy was very co-
The requirement under ROE 2 was to retaliate if the flats came under fire – Cyprus was most likely to learn of this via a call from the FAC on the HF net, or a FLASH signal from COMBRITFORLEB himself, telling the ASOC what had happened, what damage had been sustained and what response was required. The ASOC would relay all of that information to the Buccaneer detachment at Akrotiri while ordering the aircraft to scramble. All that the crews had to do was go and do it. While this sounded fine in theory, there were two significant problems. First, reaction times, which, in reality, were governed by the available secure communications links between Episkopi and Akrotiri. These were appalling, relying upon an intermittent DSSS system or a FLASH signal. What was needed was a dedicated secure voice connection between the Buccaneer Detachment Ops Room and the AHQ. Within a couple of weeks it had been provided and it had been extremely reassuring to observe the RAF’s machinery lumbering into action to sort things out.
Op PULSATOR -