Nutloose,
Thanks for posting that great link. Fascinating to hear from so many people who were involved in facilitating the RAF's air operations. It is quite clear that the whole affair would have been impossible without the active support of the US DoD. The paper is a must-read.
Three quotes that stood out for me:
Air Vice-Marshal John Price
You will, I am sure, note one significant absentee; there was no financier. Margaret Thatcher in her book, The Downing Street Years, recalls that she sought the advice of Harold Macmillan about the composition of the War Cabinet. He said, ‘Keep the Treasury out.’ She followed that advice. We followed that precedent. The Prime Minister was reported at the time as saying, ‘We will not count the cost, but will keep an account of the cost.’ We did – sort of.
Air Vice-Marshal Ron Dick
I asked if the US would help in providing whatever was necessary.
The admiral said that, of course they wanted to help, and asked how much fuel were we thinking of. I told him that we would like an eight- million gallon tanker full of jet fuel off the settlement of Georgetown within the next seven days. The UK could not provide one, but we hoped the US military could help us out. The admiral pulled the screens back on the big plotting chart on his wall showing the whereabouts of every tanker in which the military had an interest. After some discussion on the telephone, he fingered one of the plots and said they could divert it to do what we wanted. I seem to remember that it was a tanker on its way to Guantanamo. ‘How are you going to store and use the fuel?’, the admiral wanted to know. I told him that the ship would have to lie off Georgetown with lines ashore and be used as a floating fuel station until empty. ‘How long will that take and will you need any more?’, was his next question. I said that we would need a similar tanker seven days after the first, and then another in seven more days, and so on. ‘You can’t use that much fuel!’, he said. I assured him we were going to try, and he thereupon set about making long-term plans to meet the requirement.
...
There were, of course, many other instances of close Anglo-American co-operation besides the aviation fuel at Ascension. Among the more important were those in the fields of intelligence and communications, and there was an early request for AIM-9L Sidewinders. There was no fuss; our request for immediate delivery was quietly brought up to the top of the priority list as soon as I asked. We also bought navigation systems, like Omega, to cope with very long range over water missions, and other weaponry came in the form of Shrike and Harpoon missiles.
Air Vice-Marshal Tony Stables
The Conveyor part of this equation went ahead, largely without hitch, as did our flight to Ascension, although the transfer to the Norland was not without its moments, given that, individually, it was impossible to carry the amount of flying and survival clothing with which we had been issued. Additionally, no one had thought to inform 2PARA that we were joining – or so they claimed. This resulted in an undignified shouting match while we sought to find somewhere to sleep, compounded by our being asked to leave the Officers Mess after 1800 hrs because the colonel insisted on jacket and tie!