Nimrod in Malta.
I am sure any aggression towards us based at Luqa was purely the thugs in Mintoffs labour party. The average Maltese man women and child was so incredibly nice towards us and the older Maltese generation knew better than to bite the hand. We were told that we contributed £35m to their economy and during the withdrawal that part of their economy almost but disappeared. The lesson was not wasted in Mintoffs office either.
His connection with Gadaffi and Libya was well documented and his invitation to Gadaffi and in particular ,his commandos, to fly into Luqa ostensibly to take over the airfield, was neatly rebuffed by the presence of 42 marine surrounding Gadaffis men.
There was in incident over the med north of Libya which apparently involved some U.S. aeroplanes going against some of the Libyan Air Force. This resulted in a restriction of us not transiting south of N35.00.00 for a while but I've heard that a C130 with a few funny bits on it did and probed the area a few times before they shot up his (Gadaffis)palace in Tripoli -was that about the time of Pan Am?
I don't know if that N35 thing was ever rescinded.