Just before the ground war during Operation Granby I had orders to pick up the then Lieutenant-General Sir Peter de la Billiere and entourage from Riyadh King Khalid International Airport. I had great difficulty getting permission to land from the American controllers who said I did not have authority to land. After holding off for half an hour I managed to persuade them to give clearance. We closed down at the Royal Pavilion. An American Colonel rushed onto the flight deck and asked what we were doing there our passengers were at Riyadh Air Base. I could see myself spending the rest of the war sweeping hangars out back at Brize. A very panicky check of the op order by my nav confirmed that we were where we were instructed to go….phew. Our passengers were in the wrong place, or we had been given incorrect instructions, never found out which, but probably the latter. The Colonel then couldn’t understand why we thought it was all very funny. I asked how long it would take to file a flight plan to move down the road or how long it would take them to drive to us. They drove to us. When they arrived I told the loadmaster to just chuck them on board and we would worry about the manifest when airborne. Half were in civvies half were in uniform but none looked like Saddam so I thought it would be OK. It was a bit embarrassing to go around asking for names so the manifest was compiled once they had fallen asleep by reading the names off tags on briefcases.
