Bedford
Does anyone recall the "Bedford Incident"? It was 1971 I think. At the culmination of a force dispersal exercise the scramble message contained "exempt Bedford". Naturally no one thought anything of it, went off to fly the briefed sortie and recover to base. A couple of days later I was in the Ops room at Waddington when the bomber box bleeped. I thought it was going to be a routine broadcast; but no; it was the Bomber Controller bringing Bedford up to RS05. This was shortly after Horsley became AOC 1Gp and apparently had noticed that the requirement was to maintain dispersed operations for 28 days. He decided that the capability should be exercised and the Bedford crews drew the short straw. At the time Bedford was a Scampton dispersal.
YS