Chinook Sqn Middle East - 1st Gulf War

[tomdocherty72]

I am currently researching the operations of Chinook Sqn (Middle East) otherwise known as 18 Sqn & Ops Flt of 7 Sqn combined, during Op Granby and the the Safe Haven relief ops in Turkey/N Iraq. I would appreciate contact with anyone who served with the squadron who has reminiscences, stories, photos etc for use in my research. (I served with the sqn myself - some of you will recognise my name). I will be happy to receive PM (or email me). I had posted this previously in a slightly different format and it was almost immediately locked closed. I PM's a moderator to find out why? Had I broken a forum rule somehow? No response as yet. If you are more experienced with PPrune than I am perhaps you can shed some light on this (if this one does not get locked too!) No smarta###se comments please. I am Scottish and have no sense of humour (hereditary). Just so you can put any doubts to rest about my reason for requesting the information I am grounded (dicky ticker and knackered leg) rear crew filth with tours on Chinook Wessex and Puma and a few of you may recognise my name. I am hoping to produce something about the squadron commemorating the passing of 20 years since Gulf War 1.

Cheers

tomdocherty72

[rolandpull]

I though us lot on 240 OCU put the first three cabs into Dyabakir. In fact when I stepped off the Herk at Diyabakir, there was nothing except a Herk and a bunch of bewildered ODI pax thinking we were in the wrong place! The adjacent on base air to ground range subsequently proved we were right!

[tomdocherty72]

Diyarbakir

Hi Rolandpull,

Thanks for responding. I recall that the Turkey det was a mix of 240 OCU 7 and 18 Sqn. I managed a month before going home with a bad dose of the s##ts. I did not get there till about ten days after we had come back from the Gulf having been promised we were going nowhere for at least three months by a senior officer from MOD! Ha Ha!

Brought in some Chinooks from Akrotiri, where they had been unloaded from a ship. We spent days re-roling them before staging through Incirlik to Diyarbakir. I recall the fun we had dodging rockets and shrapnel from the air to ground range only yards away on the other side of the perimeter road from our tented site and tents being blown down by prop and jet wash (not forgetting the lovely and regular visits to the toilets!). I remember some of the guys being extremely ill, due mostly it was rumoured to the fact that the locals used human excrement as fertilizer and the Chinook was very good a stirring up our own self-inhaling dust bowl!

If you have any tales you would like to add to my research send me a PM with your details and I will tell you more about what I am working on.

Cheers

tomdocherty72