Bill Snowdon
Hi Steve,
You asked for memories of the RAF service of your late father Bill Snowdon. I served with Bill on 120 Sqn at RAF Kinloss in the early 1970's. I was the Air Electonics Officer on a crew when Bill (who was than a Master AEOp) was the lead wet operator after we had converted from the Shackleton to the Nimrod MR1. Bill was a very reliable and competent acoustics operator and I very much valued his expertise as a member of my team. I remember him being on the crew when we carried out the first round the world trip by a Nimrod - we staged through Canada then flew across the Pacific to Hawaii, Guam and on to Singapore and after a short break returned to UK via Gan (Maldives) and Cyprus.
I lost track of Bill after I was posted as an instructor on the Nimrod OCU at St Mawgan. However I do recall meeting him again in the mid 1980's when I was AEO Leader on 42 Sqn (Nimrod MR2). Bill was then working for the Underwater Acoustics section of Marconi (based at Rochester I believe) and paid a visit to the squadron together with Peter Duckworth who was also a retired AEO working for Marconi.
Hope this helps,
Ian Chisholm Sqn Ldr (Rtd)