Ah! Prune at its best - not like all the political ranting that seems to be in vogue lately!
Sorry folks - in my rush to be helpful I took Jefford's mighty tome off the bookshelf and of course its title is 'RAF Squadrons' - my oversight on forgetting that there are smaller units called Flights. The latter haven't always been well covered or documented in lists of units. For instance when I was at Changi in the late 60s I think the biggest unit in terms of numbers of airframes was the Meteor Target Towing Flight ( 1574? Help! ) which IIRC had more aircraft than the 12 Hercs we had on 48 Sqn. Another unit that never gets mentioned is Far East Comm, which had 3 Hastings and 2 VIP Andovers - or was it the other way round?
Anyway back to Aden - Some of you may have copies of the 'Action Stations' series of books; I looked at the edition that covers overseas airfields and under Khormaksar the author ( Tony Fairbairn, like Jefford a son of an RAF Officer ) states that by the mid-60s RAF strength peaked including 3 Sycamores of the SAR Flt. He doesn't say when they were replaced by Whirlwinds.
Anyway TTN one way or another your question has been answered.
Herod in no way would I dispute the date you gave, maybe the paperwork and admin stuff moved to Bahrain in October while the folks in the front line stayed on till the end? My copy of Jefford's book is the 1st edition and I know there has been a 2nd edition.
Happy Days all!
Last edited by Brian 48nav; 24th Nov 2017 at 08:19.
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