A postscript to the operation and the RAF’s participation...
When announced in the news in the USA what had happened, several engineers were at Boeing helicopters doing their Chinook courses, including those due to become RAF instructors for the Chinook ground school back at Odiham. The locals reading in the papers about the attack and seeing RAF ground crew at Boeing wrongly put two and two together to make five and wouldn’t believe their denial that the were simply on courses and not involved in the whole exercise.
Ive not reread it but seem the remember it was all a bit of a screw up, air filters arriving but not being installed and engineers who were not CH-53 qualified being sent to maintain them because the were after all helicopter engineers and available.