Originally Posted by
Finningley Boy
The Jaguar's entry into service, and later the Hawk, saved Abingdon from closure as an RAF Station in the 1970s. The serious cuts then, in the transport fleet, Andover removed from tactical role, Britannia, Comet and Belfast gone, Abingdon was otherwise surplus and would have provided a home to the army earlier.
FB
No it didn't. I happen to know a little about this as I was "holding staff support" as I awaited my exit from the mob during the work done leading up to the 75 Defence Review. Working with some folk in main building who had previously been involved in the closure of Manby, Oakington and Spitalgate. Abingdon was nothing to do with the Strategic transport fleet at the time of the Mason cuts, and none of the units at Abingdon were slated for closure or even down sizing. The Andovers had departed for Thorney Island years previously, and the units there were all support units; No. 1 PTS, JATE, UKMAMS, RAF Movements School, and London UAS had just moved in with its associated AEF from White Waltham. So the 75 review certainly did not leave Abingdon surplus. The main problem was Brize Norton. With the phasing out of the Britannia fleet, and eventually the Belfasts (they were originally to have stayed and the Hercules fleet been reduced), Brize was left with just what was going to be a much smaller 10 Sqn and the associated VC10 bits of 241 OCU. There was serious consideration to moving 10 Sqn to Lyneham and closing Brize Norton altogether. But the decision (after NATO had complained at the cuts) to retain the Hercules fleet at approx 60, and the VC10 fleet at 13, plus the move of 242 OCU from Thorney island to Lyneham, rendered that proposal unworkable, so the decision was taken instead to move the units from Abingdon into Brize Norton, along with 38 Group TCW from Benson and 115 Sqn from Cottesmore, and move the units from Bicester and Leconfield into the now vacated Abingdon, thus allowing Bicester and Leconfield to close. There was quite a political flurry to enable Labour to announce that they were closing 12 RAF stations, mainly to placate their extreme Left wing who had been promised substantial defence cuts, and to help disguise the fact that there were no actual reductions in front line combat forces.
Thus Bicester, Leconfield and Thorney Island were vacated and were able to be added to the closure list, a silly list really as it included places like Driffield that had been on care and maintenance for decades, Biggin Hill which didn't actually close, West Raynham, which stayed open but the flying units moved out, and Chessington that also didn't actually close for years.
So Abingdon was never under threat of closure, but the mad rush to ensure that Brize Norton stayed open, and to be able to announce a closure list of 12 stations, was the reason for the move of the Abingdon units. I actually staffed a paper that proposed moving the units from Leconfield and Bicester direct to Brize Norton, thus saving quite a bit of relocation expenditure and disruption, but was ignored as I was a Flight Lieutenant fast jet pilot who clearly didn't know what he was talking about...
Sorry about this verbosity, but it was a fascinating and weird time for me, and I was there...