A quick turn-round on Wake Island.

Having read Ron Dowler’s article reproduced in the Autumn 2021 edition of the Association Newsletter, it brought back a number of memories which I thought that I would share with members. I was a 25 year old Captain on the Squadron at the time, and it was one of the perks of having the Sqn boss, Wg Cdr Colin King, on my crew as my Nav Radar that we were one of the 4 Vulcan crews which deployed to the Far East on that “cold, foggy November morning” in 1973.

We flew westabout, initially double staging via Goose Bay to Offutt AFB Nebraska, (not knowing at that stage, of course, that I would be posted to Offutt as the Detachment Commander 7 years later!). The following day my crew, consisting of Co-pilot Ray Walters, Nav Radar Colin King, Nav Plotter Tony Bown, AEO Tom McSorley and our crew chiefs C/Tech Jarman & C/Tech Crowley, again double-staged to Hickham AFB, Hawaii, via McClellan AFB, San Francisco. Next day, we set off across the Pacific, on yet another double stage, routing firstly to Wake Island (see photograph), losing a day enroute crossing the dateline (so I am actually a day older than everyone thinks I am!). Then, following a quick turn round (QTR), after all there was literally nothing else to do on Wake, we flew to Anderson AFB on Guam. One memory of that night was that we got very little sleep due to the B52s, which were painted black, taking off all through the night to bomb Vietnam, as the USA was still involved in the war at that stage. The final leg was the longest, over 5hrs 30mins, down to RAAF Darwin, where we landed on 14th November.

After a few days of well deserved rest, my crew flew a local sortie on 19th November ending with dropping 7 x 1000lb bombs on Quail Island Range north of Darwin. Four days later we flew to SAF Tengah, Singapore. During the next week we flew a local sortie, which included low flying over the Malayan jungle, and yes, I do remember the ‘height of the trees’ (some being well over 200ft high!), and then dropping 12 x 28lb practice bombs on Song Song Range. Because the Wg Cdr wanted to fly up to RAF Kai Tak, Hong Kong, which was also the International Airport at the time, (another perk!), there were various hoops I had to ‘jump through’ before being allowed to do so. Firstly, there was the inevitable video to watch, and then I had to fly on the flight deck of another aircraft to witness the ‘Checker Board’ approach, which basically was an almost 90 degree right turn on the final approach around 600 feet. Fortunately, I managed to get a flight in a VC10 transiting from Singapore to Hong Kong and return. One memory I have is of the VC10 co-pilot, who was American on an exchange tour, as we flew up to Hong Kong passing the Vietnamese War Zone, he was heard to comment out loud “..and that’s another day’s Combat Pay!”. Finally, with ‘all of the boxes ticked’, my crew flew up to Kai Tak on the last day of November. The other pilot with me was Sqn Ldr Joe L’Estrange, who many of the Vulcan fraternity will remember. Disappointingly, we landed on the other end of the single runway due to the prevailing wind, and so a ‘Checker Board’ approach was never achieved. After a memorable weekend in Kowloon and on Hong Kong Island, we flew the 3hrs 30mins trip back to Tengah.

Two days later, my crew flew another local sortie into Malaya, which included a practice diversion to Butterworth, and then, sadly, on 10th December it was time to depart for the UK. However, the final perk of having the boss on my crew was that he wanted to fly back to Waddington in a Vulcan via Gan, Masirah and Akrotiri, and thus complete a round the world deployment. This was achieved with only a slight delay when taking off from RAF Masirah the starboard main undercarriage failed to retract. However, the problem was rectified overnight having landed back at Masirah, and the final two legs were uneventful, landing back at Waddington on 14th December 1973.

Vulcan XM598 at Cosford.

Post Script. The airframe for our deployment was XM598, which now resides in the Cold War Museum at RAF Cosford (see photographs). The reason that it is in the Museum is not because I flew it around the world, but because of its connections with the Falklands War nine years later. XM598 was the primary airframe for the Black Buck 1 mission, however because the crew could not pressurise the aircraft after take off, due to a problem with sealing the DV window, XM 607 took its place, and the rest, as they say, is history. However, XM 598 then became the spare aircraft for the rest of the Black Buck missions, and hence its rightful place in the Museum.