I hope you gave the ATCO a good debriefing once the first couple of ales had done their thing?
Flippin' right. I'm normally a fairly easy-going chap, but after I'd signed in I was still fizzing with so much adrenalin that OC 23 had to order me not to go anywhere near ATC on the grounds that my committing acts of violence on the controller would cause him (OC 23 that is) too much paperwork. Instead, he phoned the SATCO who readily agreed that the controller was in for a "your hat, my office" conversation. After a couple of beers I'd stopped shaking and I don't recall the matter ever being mentioned again.
In hindsight, I think BEagle has a valid point that keeping the tanker airborne until the last F-4 was down would've made more sense, particularly at night with MPA unavailable. At the time, we didn't really think about it and it was a generally accepted way of operating, as JTO and Courtney rightly point out. I'd be interested to know how the RN handled the risk of a foul deck (apologies to our dark blue chums if that's not the right term) during night ops in the middle of the oggin. And while we're on the topic, huge respect to anyone who operated an F-4 from a carrier - hats off to you, gentlemen.