Air Chief Marshal Sir Peter Squire
David TallboysMarch 3 2018, 12:01am,
Courageous pilot who led the Red Arrows and won a DFC in the Falklands
The rising whine of the Harrier’s Rolls-Royce Pegasus engine outdid the howling gales on the carrier’s deck, and then Wing Commander Peter Squire took off. It was June 10, 1982, and he was about to fly out over 200 miles of storm-tossed sea for his targets near the Falkland islands capital, Port Stanley.
He had already braved the Argentine defenders’ anti-aircraft fire once that day, hurtling in at 300ft a few hours before, and had returned with vital “recce” photographs. On this, his second mission of the day from the Task Force flagship HMS Hermes, he was heading at 500mph, in his green and grey RAF GR3 ground- attack aircraft, towards what he now knew were the most heavily defended enemy positions on the islands.
As the light faded — it was after 7pm — he and his wingman picked out the targets photographed earlier and screeched in at low level to pound them with cluster bombs. A series of explosions followed from Squire’s weapons, then the Harriers roared away again, both aircraft having taken minor hits, to be patched up by their ground crews.
It was a measure of his mettle that only two days earlier Squire had been forced to make a crash-landing at San Carlos because of engine failure. “As a result of the rate of descent and the fact that I am pointing directly at a Rapier FU [missile fire unit] I elect not to eject and the aircraft hits the ground very hard,” he recorded. The aircraft was a write-off, but he walked away with just a bump on his forehead.
A brilliant fighter pilot, Squire was a former leader of the Red Arrows aerobatic team and would go on to become Chief of the Air Staff. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his valour and leadership as officer commanding RAF No 1 (F) Squadron in the Falklands. The citation mentioned his “great courage” and “steadiness under enemy fire”. He was lucky it was not awarded posthumously because, on the day after his attack on Port Stanley, an Argentine bullet tore through his cockpit, narrowly missing his head, as he bombed Mount Tumbledown.
The dark-haired, trim 36-year-old, who had a wife and three young sons aged between 2 and 10, had the task not only of giving close air support to Britain’s land forces, but also of minimising tensions between the Royal Navy and the RAF. It was a challenge for which Squire was well suited. “You would not find anyone saying anything bad about Peter Squire,” a friend recalled. “He was hugely respected, the most honourable man I knew.”
Finding himself, counter to his expectations, operating under Royal Navy air command, Squire did as much flying as his men, personally completing 24 attack sorties between his arrival on May 18 and the Argentine surrender on June 14.
The RAF pilots looked enviously at the navy’s Sea Harriers, which were better equipped and, designed as interceptors, flew much higher and less close to the enemy. The RAF GR3s lacked radar and their radio systems often failed. In the final battles of the conflict they had to defy an Argentine Blowpipe guided missile operator on Mount Longdon. “We note a significant increase in groundfire, including small arms, AAA [anti-aircraft artillery] and SAM [surface-to-air missile],” Squire recorded on June 11 in the diary he kept during hostilities. “The next few days could be full of excitement.”
They certainly were. On June 12, racing close by Mount Harriet and Mount William, Squire damaged a 155mm Argentine gun position with cluster bombs on Sapper Hill, southwest of Stanley. The next day he attacked an enemy company headquarters at Stanley. The raid involved the first operational use of hitherto untried and unpractised laser guidance technology. He scored a direct hit with the second bomb he launched.
It had been touch and go whether this could even be attempted. From Squire’s arrival in the South Atlantic in mid-May with his original tiny contingent of 8 pilots, 6 aircraft and 19 ground crew, the odds had seemed against the RAF Harriers getting up-to-date equipment in place. Squire had to contend with the opposition of the Hermes captain, Linley Middleton, to his receiving lengthy signals from Britain on how to use the technology.
The matter was urgent because Squire and his men, uncomfortably quartered in Hermes and flying by old-fashioned map-and-stopwatch navigation methods from her deck, were taking huge risks daily. Laser guidance would allow them to drop their bombs farther back from the target. In the event they operated without it until Squire’s raid on June 13. They lost four aircraft: three shot down and one damaged beyond repair.
Squire used all his habitual measured calmness to persuade the navy to let him have four replacement RAF Harriers flown directly to the Falklands from Ascension, using air-to-air refuelling. Middleton, a former naval aviator, whom the mild-mannered Squire considered “a bully”, had opposed this too, calling it “a publicity stunt by the RAF”. The original RAF Harriers had cross-decked to Hermes on May 18 after being brought south in the container ship Atlantic Conveyor.
Those flying with Squire were squadron leaders Bob Iveson, Peter Harris and Jeffrey Pook; and flight lieutenants Mike Beech, Ross Boyens, Nick Gilchrist, Jeff Glover, Mark Hare, Tony Harper, Murdo MacLeod and John Rochfort. Iveson, Pook and Glover were shot down. All survived. Glover was the only British prisoner taken to the Argentine mainland.
Peter Ted Squire was born in Felixstowe, Suffolk, in 1945, the son of Wing Commander Frank Squire, DSO, DFC, and his wife, Margaret. As a flight lieutenant piloting a Catalina flying boat of No 210 Squadron in the North Atlantic on July 9, 1943, Frank Squire had damaged the German submarine U-465.
Peter wanted to be an aviator from the age of eight, but feared treatment for a “lazy eye” might frustrate his ambition. He considered himself to have acquired attributes such as leadership at King’s School in Bruton, Somerset, where he played in the 1st XI at cricket and the 1st XV at rugby. He joined RAF Halton, Buckinghamshire, as a teenage apprentice and won a scholarship to RAF Cranwell; he was commissioned as an officer in 1966.
While at Cranwell he met Carolyn Joynson, a trainee teacher, at a social event in 1964. Their closeness survived his posting to Singapore in 1968 to fly Hawker Hunters with No 20 Squadron and they married in 1970, when he was allowed to take married quarters at the age of 25. The couple would have three sons: Christopher, Richard and Edward. His wife and sons survive him.
Having won an aerobatic competition at the Central Flying School, Squire was posted to RAF Valley on Anglesey as an instructor and Hunter international “display pilot”.
Now a squadron leader, he was chosen to lead the Red Arrows in 1973 and that year gained the Queen’s Commendation for Valuable Service in the Air. He had earlier resisted joining the Arrows, preferring operational duties.
His stubbornness did not, despite his fears, hold back his career. After a posting in 1975 to Wildenrath, West Germany, as a flight commander with 3(F) Squadron on Harriers — and a happy interlude “snorkelling and eating lobsters” while sent for a spell to Belize — he joined RAF Strike Command’s HQ tactical evaluation team in 1978 and three years later was given command of No1 (F) Squadron based at RAF Wittering in Cambridgeshire. He was promoted to group captain in 1985 and went on to be station commander of the Tornado training establishment at RAF Cottesmore, Rutland, until 1988. He then went to Air Plans in Whitehall.
Further MoD jobs followed. He was promoted to air marshal in 1996 and knighted a year later. His period as Chief of the Air Staff from April 2000 until August 2003 included the setting up of Operation Veritas against the Taliban in Afghanistan after 9/11, and the still larger Operation Telic, the invasion of Iraq, in his final year.
Remembered by colleagues as a “gentle but inspirational leader”, Squire continued flying into retirement, serving as a staff pilot with a trust near Bath to give air cadets experience of flying. Whether the rookies were aware of the past of this distinguished man showing them the ropes is not known.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Peter Squire, GCB, DFC, AFC, fighter pilot, was born on October 7, 1945. He died suddenly on February 19, 2018, aged 72