Admiral Woodward's attitude to the RAF intelligence product...?
Thread Starter
Easy to get a vertical photo like that from an oblique F95 in the nose, just roll to exactly the right angle of bank, and....
........ ah, ok. I see what you mean!
........ ah, ok. I see what you mean!
The vert to which you refer could very easily have been taken by a Harrier with a PFO F-95 (the SHAR was, I think a SFO F-95??) with the appropriate lens. Given the timing of the piccies after BLACK BUCK, I suspect most likely to have been taken by a SHAR. Simply fly over at the appropriate height, and wiggle a bit to get the required frame for a print. Simples!!
Off thread - but to close Langley's comment......
I worked under Woodward in 82 on Hermes.
I worked under the "Sandy" that I think he refers to in RAFG 92 until he left in 93 and RAFG became 2 Gp.
Different characters in every way.
During my arrival interview at RAFG as a new Stn Cdr, the 1* of the day (great bloke who will not take much identifying) and who was directly in my link to the 2* (not great) and 3* (worse - Sandy) told me that if I treated his (Sandy's) visit to my Station as if it was a Royal Visit, then I would get it about right.
Great advice - and he was spot-on.
I like Marmite - but, Langley, your apparent admiration for the man is not held commonly.
Never mind the curtains - what about all the china from the Berlin house??
I worked under Woodward in 82 on Hermes.
I worked under the "Sandy" that I think he refers to in RAFG 92 until he left in 93 and RAFG became 2 Gp.
Different characters in every way.
During my arrival interview at RAFG as a new Stn Cdr, the 1* of the day (great bloke who will not take much identifying) and who was directly in my link to the 2* (not great) and 3* (worse - Sandy) told me that if I treated his (Sandy's) visit to my Station as if it was a Royal Visit, then I would get it about right.
Great advice - and he was spot-on.
I like Marmite - but, Langley, your apparent admiration for the man is not held commonly.
Never mind the curtains - what about all the china from the Berlin house??
My perspective was as a civilian Head of Branch [Met.] in my last and best posting. Both SASOs I served were great blokes, albeit very different. I like a tight ship. Friday Air Staff briefings and monthly HoBs were much improved because slackness or incompetence was not tolerated. The church [St Boniface: I was RAF Churchwarden] was very well supported and the Mess lively.
What happened in RAF circles I knew not. I do know that the gentleman did not try to blag the gleaming vintage office barograph as he left. That was another senior officer [he did not succeed .....].
Enough from me on the subject, back perhaps to the good Admiral.
NutLoose when the pics were taken (of course, after 1 May). I have the original diary of the AN/TPS-43 radar and I could check for any high flying contact.
Best regards!
Best regards!
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I don’t know, the article I mentioned to you simply questioned the photos being taken by Harrier, judging by the damage no repair attempts have been made and why would you take it post war?
Persisting slightly with the thread drift on 'difficult' seniors, I had a colleague some years ago who was in a unit support role at Rheindahlen around the time that all the china and glassware in Berlin mysteriously vaporised, a phenomenon apparently wholly unconnected with 3 Pantechnicons subsequently seen heading for the UK. He told me he kept 2 sets of files, one in the office and a duplicate at home because he had been warned that too much detail in his audit trail was likely to result in the files being 'lost' in transit (in the days when files were sent between offices with comments, notes of action etc. on the inside sheet).
The Rheindahlen RAF Mess silverware [or some of it] was auctioned by the members before the pongoes were suffered to join and found Churchill Mess. The tone immediately dropped, and some of the behaviour was intolerable. One problem was unsupervised and drunken teenagers. On one occasion [Christmas Draw? New year Black Tie?] the Mess staff civilians refused to clean the bogs next morning.
Back to the silverware: I have some very nice souvenirs, honestly acquired, of six marvellous years.
None of which has anything to do with the thread.
Back to the silverware: I have some very nice souvenirs, honestly acquired, of six marvellous years.
None of which has anything to do with the thread.
As Bomber H has stated, the SHAR F95 was SFO and we had two lenses; the normal one for standard low-level phots and another with a longer focal length for high-level work. This was only rarely used, as the resolution of the 2 1/4" square wet negs using the standard lens was amazingly good.
As as a matter of course, we took vert shots of Stanley airfield (often on a daily basis) on our way to/from CAP at around 25,000'. These were passed to the Army Photographic Interpreter on Hermes for analysis, although I was also PI trained (don't ask!) and managed to find a few things that he missed! The best one was a target that he identified as "rows of penguins" near Fox Bay; they were, in fact, hundreds of 40gall barrels of fuel! Didn't half burn well after No1(F)'s first attack.
Mog
As a matter of interest, was all photo recce done with the internal F-95 camera, or did the RAF GR.3's ever carry/use the recce pod?
Did the good admiral have anything to say about the MRR sorties that the Victor K2 Tankers were flying from the 19th April, when the Task Force was less than halfway between ASI and FI? Before the Nimrods were AAR capable.
Jack
Thread Starter
Since he seems to have had an entirely unrealistic expectation of what the Nimrod MR could and could not provide with Searchwater, one wonders whether the good admiral was getting that kind of advice, and, if he was, whether he was remotely capable of heeding or understanding it?
Mog
He was tasked to look for the land based Exocet launcher near Port Stanley:
Because of the poor coverage of the recce pod I had to spend a lot time flying along with one of the wings slightly raised, using opposite rudder to counteract the tendency to turn, ... the wretched cameras in the pod kept stopping ... (This was a pretty normal operating problem with our crummy recce pod)
He also mentions the replacement, at his suggestion, of the 4 inch lenses in the GR3's F95 with 6 inch lenses taken from the recce pods for high-level work. The additional magnification "gave quite a bit more detail for the Photographic Interpreters to study".
Some Victors were fitted with F95s in the bomb aimers windows. A vertical one in the forward window and an oblique in the right window. The controls were in front of the RHS pilot seat. As to which aircraft, it depended if they still had the windows. If they were damaged, they were replaced by solid panels as there were no spares and no requirement for use, until the cameras were fitted.