I was part of 51 Sqn and spent the whole of Granby (Desert Shield/Storm) in Cyprus. We arrived within a few days of the invasion with our first aircraft. The second arrived shortly afterwards, with the final one rushed through major and EWAD to get all 3 out there.

All of the squadron personnel moved to Episkopi after only a few weeks to make room for others. The initial reluctance to move was soon overcome when we realised the food, accommodation and general situation up at Episkopi was much better than Akrotiri. The only real pain was the bus journey to and from Akrotiri for the 12 or 24 hour shifts. 84 Sqn put on a Wessex one night to get a team of ground crew from Episkopi to Akrotiri when the road was closed at Curium because of a terrorist alert.

The night before it all kicked off I was working late as one of a team of Fairies trying to get at least one of the three serviceable. The favourite had a problem with the Astral Box main computer and it was touch and go whether any of the aircraft would become serviceable. We had no idea at the time why SEngO was on our backs every half hour. It was only the next morning when waking to hear that it had all started that the reason for his anxious state became clear.

S-D

Remember it well S-D. just like yesterday. I had not realised it was 25 years ago till this thread popped up. The build up for us started a while before Christmas. We worked long hours, often split shifts to accommodate the mods we were developing. Going home for tea then back till 2 am. I think we did 31 TRIMs and other Mods. When the last one went out it was very heavy. Bill the weights was within a pound and 1/8" on CoG when we went down the Boscombe to do the weigh. I quiet word with Sengo Bob when I handed him all the drawings and diagrams to ensure nothing extra had been squirrelled on board. Must have been Astral Boxes finest hour, certainly it's swan song.

Operta Aperta
 

Thoughts of Gary Lennox and Kev Weeks 16 Sqn Laarbruch lost on operations 22 Jan 91. Kev a neighbour on the Goch OMQ and a real gent. Last memory of Kev on his way to the garages at the end of Moylander Str, first stage of his journey to Tabuk. Like many in these forums, never forgotten.

That evening I was on shift in the Air Force Ops Room [AFOps] in Whitehall, wearing my Suit, Pinstripe, Whitehall Warrior :cool:

The "War Appointment" of "CAS's Briefer" was held by a colleague in DAFSD. However, when the buildup started, it was realised that [as "Mr Aviation Fuels"] he was better placed remaining at his normal desk. Thus it was that I was catapulted, un-briefed and completely ignorant, into the centre of AFOps ... and spent the next few weeks on permanent 7-day night shifts. Eventually, as things started to settle down, and the build-up became a sort of routine, I was stood down to resume normal office duties.

It must have been the morning of Wed, 16 Jan 91 when I turned up in the office as normal. My DD said "What are you doing here? You're on watch in AFOps tonight!" Instead of saying "Thanks for letting me know in advance", I just reversed course and took the Tube home to grab a bit of extra sleep before retracing my steps back to MB in the evening. So it's starting tonight!!

The next 6 weeks were spent back on a permanent 12-hour/7-day[night] shift pattern. CNN permanently playing on the TV on the end wall, my own personal ASMA console with 'extra access' codes, and bits of paper flying around the room. It was on ASMA that I was able to log in to the live HOTREPs from returning missions, flown/led by several mates from Staff College - quite a spooky sensation, as they braved SAM and AAA while I enhanced the shine on the seat of my trousers in a comfy chair in a Whitehall office building.

My main memories are on this video.. ZD483, full of holes. I was on the ABDR team that got it back to being a war goer. "How the hell are we going to fix that?" We did mind and it did another 8 missions before another no war related structural failure (Canopy hinge bracket cracking), saw it swapped out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2c6...&feature=share

That Night!
 

25 years ago! Our group of RAF chaps were attached to 1(UK)Div HQ and formed the ASOC(SH). Arrived 2 weeks before that night – spent that time in the desert getting used to working with our ASV436 vehicles and our driver/sigs – great chaps Coxy and a guy whose name can’t remember now. We had one of about 12 x 436 amongst the HQ. Very tired and wet most of the time in the winter desert weather learning to put the HQ up, break it down, move several km at night, put the HQ up again – repeat. The HQ food was sparse and very poor at times. After 2 weeks we were declared as good as we were ever going to get as armoured vehicle commanders/operators and the HQ was ready to move to the concentration area in prep for the ground assault.
R&R time back at Al Jubail for one night in a comfy bed – went to sleep still dirty (I’ll have a good shower and change into fresh clean clothes in the morning - Stupid Boy!) Alarms all night, beds up against the windows, S6 and NBC kit on, and us taking silly photos of each other trying to sleep on the floor. Air War had started. Back in our Landrover first thing in the morning to get the hell out of Dodge and back to the “safety” of the desert!! Interesting days and the subsequent months through Saudi/Iraq/Kuwait as we advanced as part of that (US)Corps, it was quite surreal navigating using celestial skills and very basic maps. Without doubt the highlight of that time was a cold shower under a makeshift bucket each day when we were not in NBC kit.
Credit to all the guys doing the flying – would have preferred to be up there myself rather than in the panzer that became my home for 4 months. Final interesting point: many RAF were in hotels on rates with good accommodation for the duration, while the ground elements were in the field with nothing but “water money” as added cash in the bank. No one on the ground got worked up about that issue – as they knew all the work being done in the air was going to save lives on the ground when it came to them going over the top. It undoubtedly did – so thanks guys to all of you in the air during that time.
MPN11 – ASMA yes! we had a terminal in the 436! A piece of office basic IT in an armoured vehicle and after every move the RAF Cpl TCW chap came running into the HQ trailing the co-ax cable to plug in to the dish in his landrover and we were up talking to: ships, HQ, UK, everywhere – before the Army signalers could even get their Ptarmigan comms systems or radios working. Used to **ss off the RSigs Captain after every move when the Full Colonel Chief of Staff used to say “I see ASMA beat you again Comms Ops”
You couldn’t make it up …
kbc

MPN11.
Pretty much "Snap!", only my little team were sucked in 24on/48off.
One evening CDS and his entourage required a briefing at short notice and so I hastily threw my suit jacket on, gathered up my notes and slides and headed off.
As I started I was initially under the uncomfortable impression that he was actually nodding off, as he kept looking down at my feet.
It was only on getting back to my desk that I realized I was still wearing my soft moccasins ( liberally sprinkled with white paint from house decoration) having kicked off my shoes earlier on.

Riyadh - 21 January just after midnight I was sleeping in my "Bedroom", actually a part of the villa dining room, when the Air Raid Warning siren went off. Out of bed wearing only a pair of shreddies, quickly donning Battle Bowler and Respirator, and taking cover under the washbasin in the downstairs toilet to avoid any flying glass from the window. Short time later a very load bang and shaking of building, and a covering of plaster from the ceiling. Very warlike NOT.

After a few days we got rather blase about the Scuds, and being confident that the Patriots were dealing with them, we stayed out to watch the firework display from the Patriot batteries. Even took photos of the firings. That is until a 9" metal rod came through the Int Offs Portakabin roof and missed him by inches. After that the shelters seemed a better idea.

The other noteable event was, during the early hours one morning, working in HQ Air Tasking Order office, putting the AAR details in the ATO, there was gunfire in the corridor outside. Since we were several floors below ground level under the Saudi Air Force HQ my first thought was that it was Iraqi Special Forces who were not going to take prisoners. In a room of about 100 US Senior Officers I was the only person with a weapon. Fortunately what had happened was that a Saudi guard had fired his rifle by accident and an American guard had "returned fire". Nobody was hurt and there was no need for a Gunfight at the OK Corral. The next day we had a room full of "Rambos".

On that memorable morning I was fast asleep in a sweaty Motel near Al Jubayal. I was woken at about 0130 from my Bunk. As one of two Chinook Field Repair Teams we were placed into a very long (I think about 15 hours!) and circular convoy into the Saudi desert at 0400.
On arrival at Al Quysumah we Rigga's were told that one of the cabs had a Fwd Xmsn failure and that we had to return to where we left! (And a return time of just three hours!)
We spent the next day fixing the cab and returned again to Al Quysumah to find our tent awaiting us!
We later moved to Wadi Al Batin (near Hafr Al Batain) where, one evening, we found ourselves surrounded by a US Army Tank unit digging in for a long stay...we later found there was an Iraqi Convoy headed toward the other end of the Wadi!!!

Rigga,

I think we were in the same berm, I remember that same morning.

Alber Ratman
 

I escorted that one back from the target that night.

Ah yes. The phantom Iraqi convoy. Remember that. Got swallowed up in a sandstorm never to be seen again from what I remember. :)

Hmmm I thought they were DAS (or DAC or something like that), a Kenyan company with Nigerian pilots! Mostly held together by locking wire and bodge tape (the aircraft not the pilots!).

Not Granby footage, but a DC-8 leaving Lyneham at a later date.. Exactly how I remember it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAKIeoXplgE

Southern Air operated LYE-AKT-DHA-LYE rotations in one duty day on behalf of London European Airways with a DC-8-71.

Heavylift's B707 was at Burbank getting hush kits fitted, but the good old Belfast's and Guppy were used quite a bit.....

dragartist, not just the finest hour for Astral Box, but it must have been one of EWAD’s finest hours too. For all the new mod’s that went onto the aircraft, we, along with the aircrew had to learn how to operate and maintain them pdq. Boz, MAWS, GPS, Havequick, etc are just the ones I remember. We certainly had some interesting debriefs from the Nav’s as they got to grips with chaff and flare.

Unfortunately, the spares situation was not great. I can remember the decision being made to swap aircraft on one morning see off. Not an easy decision as we had to swap both INUs, both TACAN Tx/Rx and I think two pedestal and aerial combinations.

S-D

I well remember it. I was one of the Training Co-ordinators in Ops at LYE at the time.

I was in the bowling alley when it kicked off and remember the reaction on learning that the BBC had announced that hostilities had started.

A very busy time during the run up and subsequently with 18 or so flights departing every night and aircraft returning mostly during the day. Plus all the civilian charters. At the beginning the place was full of W/Cdrs and other wheels for several nights until they either got bored or were convinced that the Ops Staff actually knew what they were doing and left them to get on with it!

After that it slowly returned to normal night shift staffing, Ops Controller, Training Co-ord and the Eng Controller and his colleague all working flat out but like a well oiled machine. Can't remember if we had a Mover actually in Ops by that time or if that was later on, if we didn't they were just through the hatch next door.

OK, I was thoroughly REMF, but a very satisfying time doing "The Job".

Doc C

An excellent RNZAF WO ran the Gnd Def desk at KKIA and did a superb job. Cool, calm and collected and very efficient.

His part of the Ops Room was shared with a Mov Det, including an arrogant little Sqn Ldr who obviously considered that his rank outweighed his ability.

One night some American had a negligent discharge, loosing off a fair number of rounds into the dirt about a mile away. The Sqn Ldr Mover went into headless chicken mode and started ordering people to Stand To... But he was largely ignored as everyone knew he was an utter tw@t, whereas his teams worked their bits off to support the Op.

This was the final straw for the WO, who eventually managed to persuade him that the Iraqis weren't coming over the fence. Next time the Gp Capt appeared, he went up to him and said "Sir, you're going to have to arrest me soon". "Why?", queried the Gp Capt. "Because if that idiot doesn't keep his nose out, I'm going to deck the bastard!".

Words were had, the Sqn Ldr was told to STFU and the good Kiwi carried on as before!

I was sleeping on the ground in a sleeping bag near Khafji until about 2 am. A hotel, no matter how crappy would have been great but I recognize that's not what I signed up for.

Can anyone remember if the Tornado GR1 was fitted with mode 4 IFF during Granby, I believe the F3s were but I am interested in GR1. I am just asking as for my GR1 cockpit rig build I have just got a IFF controls which is from Tornado, I already had one but from what I can tell the one I have was an earlier version which does not have mode 4, the new one does and I have ben told that is thee type fitted to Granby jets, but I think the chap who told me was speaking as a F3 pilot or nav, so I am unsure if it was also fitted to GR1, it makes sense that it should be.

I have to confess I was already demob happy before Saddam invaded Kuwait. I was, post resettlement on the edge of staying in, I was having a conversation with a Sergeant Dick Powell, he very nearly convinced me at the last minute to head over to the General Office at Portreath and say I'd changed my mind. I didn't, certainly not because of Desert Shield as it was at that time, but because I' made a decision to take the Bull by the Horns and leave. By the way, does anyone on pprune have any experience of serving on 19 Sqn at the time, they made a little known detachment to Akrotiri at the time, I understand to in anticipation of the conflict spilling over.

FB

Yes. The GR1s had Mode 4 IFF.

I was in Akrotiri for Granby, deployed from Wildenrath ATC. I recall 19 Sqn was deployed there for the Air Defence of Cyprus. They got up to all sorts of shenanigans...

...indeed. I think they got a wee bit frustrated at not being allowed to go any further east!

Cheers for the confirmation, Peter

GRANBY



On 18 Jan 1991 I was in the ‘Brass nut’ in Keflevic with the rest of the crew from 2 sqn NAB Geilenkirchen nearing the end of a 2 year tour learning to fly the AWACs before returning to join 8 squadron which was just forming at Waddington.

We had arrived in Iceland that day on a routine deployment. The American news on TV started to show amazing pictures of the opening bombardment in Iraq.

Thinking that we were well out of the way we continued to enjoy the delights of Kef in January - minus 3 with sleet and a howling gale!

At about 10pm the captain - a great guy from Holland whose previous tour had been flying Dutch F5s- came rushing in to say that early next morning we were to RTB Geilenkirchen ASAP- pick up some war kit and proceed to Preveza in Greece which we did and duly arrived at about 9 PM.



The following evening we were at F290 over southern Turkey controlling the next massive airstrikes on Iraq - air refuelling at midnight at F190 ( lower than normal for us ) in the cloud tops which was quite tricky as there was a lot of turbulence ,the refuelling box was pretty small - which meant a lot of turning and every 10 mins we had to break off to allow higher priority fast jets to top up.

Also the tankers being at war had all their lights switched off! The boom operators tactic of keeping the boom low until the last second also was quite hairy.

Luckily my Dutch hero had no problem at all and didn’t even break sweat!



On our int brief the pessimistic American blond had told us that they had no idea where the large numbers of Iraqi fighters - MIG 29s,MIG 25s etc had disappeared to and thought that they might be operating from the motorways which were only about 50 miles south of us! We would not see them approaching as they would be in the blank area beneath our radar.



The other worry was that an airway was operating about 50 miles North of our orbit and a cunning tactic that concerned us was a that clever MIG pilot would formate under an airliner and then undetected attack a big juicy target (us) from short range when it would be too late to evade!



Sure enough about 3 hours later the back end reported a ‘double’ radar contact on the airway!

After about a minutes discussion on what to do the captain made his decision - wing over/ gear down/ airbrakes out rapid descent!

The Boeing 707 has a reputation of being able to descend very rapidly (as proved by a crew who had unintentionally stalled in the orbit a short time before) and we hit safety altitude at about F100 over the Turkish mountains in what seemed seconds later!



Lessons learned:



Air power is VERY flexible.

The Allied Air Power demo was MASSIVE

The B707 is/was a great aircraft.

Always take some spare kit with you on deployment !

Did my first Op Granby mission in the good old Tri motor 13 Aug 1990, did not get a medal as only did 6 sorties in the Air War.
Mole Man

That's odd, mole man :
The Gulf War medal was awarded for:
Teachers, god-botherers and sundry sun bathers in Cyprus were entitled and you weren't? Surely some mistake??

From middle of August 1990 through to early April 1991 totalled 183 days "in theatre". Early days/weeks busy but safe but got "interesting" from early January 1991 through until end of February 1991.

I feel quite humble listening to these tales of derring -do. A bit of a theme for my whole career really.

Just before it all kicked off I was sat in a war canoe about 200 miles out in the Atlantic, as part of our final operational workup, waiting to get bounced by a whole stack of Buccaneers. When they all got cancelled, I thought "well, I know where they are all going". We carried on our workup and were in our final briefing at a secret base somewhere in England, when someone came in and said, "its all over!". One ship went east and we went west. A month or two later, we were the only Grey Funnel line in the West Atlantic, so we were ordered to go to New York for the Victory parade.

As we sailed up the Hudson River, the commentator was telling everyone that we had not actually been to the Gulf and every sailor onboard was moaning and saying 'Shhhhhh!'.

In the best traditions of Service banter, we sent lots of postcards to colleagues, with the words 'Cheers easy' to those ships who were there, including the team on Gloucester who shot down the C-201 that was thrown at the Missouri.

We found ourselves in Kuwait in 1992, looking at all the damage and speaking with many of the locals about their experiences and those of the unfortunate Palestinians and Phillipinos. They were very grateful for all of your brave efforts.

My Granby was inglorious but not boring. HQ RAFG remained very interested [nosey, even] although a large chunk of our assets were deployed. Air Staff briefings were daily, and attendance escalated such that Sir Sandy decreed only Wg Cdrs and above "place smells like a zoo".
Our little Met cell had some mysterious extra comms equipment moved in, and three of us were to man it if push came to shove. There had to be a password to get into it, and we chose "umbrella" but the received wisdom was to have a miss-spelled version.
Thus DCMetO or Met 1 cracked his head under his desk as I wandered in and asked politely if he was sheltering from a scud. "I've forgotten the password, and its written under my desk!"
There are lots of ways of miss-spelling umbrella.
We never did use the gismo in anger..

At a small transport base in Southern England, those pilots departing for warmer climes were instructed to report to the guardroom to draw and sign for their gun - sorry, weapon - and 6 bullets - sorry, rounds. On landing at various warm airfields, we were often encouraged by the Army to carry out target practice on their ranges and to scoop up replacement bullets - sorry, rounds - in whatever quantities we required. When about to repatriate to Blighty, it was traditional to poop off ones bullets - sorry, rounds - at a suitable target somewhere in case one was diverted to somewhere in Southern England whose welcome committee might not appreciate the presence of guns - sorry, weapons - and live bullets - sorry, rounds - despite the Government of the day passing legislation to authorise this activity.
A particular RN aviator had diligently disposed of his ammunition before returning to said small base in Southern England. His presence was required at the Guardroom to sign in his gun; having done so, he was asked for the return of his 6x9mm rounds. "I've fired them", he replied. This precipitated great consternation among the Admin and Regiment "jam stealers" in the small transport base in Southern England, but eventually they realised that, although not the case in UK, we had been fighting a live ammo war in a warmer place and were fully entitled to have discharged our weapons in pursuit of peace, but it took a while!
cheers
mcdhu

Equally inglorious at HQ RAFG was the fact that, whilst many were involved with work in support of the deployed force, others had begun to grapple with the planning of a rundown of the Command following the fall of The Wall, 'Options for Change' and the eagerly awaited 'Peace Dividend.'

It was my second tour there, after a break of many years. The run-down was indeed sad, but works and bricks and the many charities and facilities kept the place from getting morbid or too run down. The big nasty change was amalgamating the Mess to let the other services in. Churchill Mess tone definitely went down. An Oktoberfest was marred by disgraceful behaviour. Apart from collecting our duty frees we more or less stopped attending. Glad to leave in 1996..

This day 30 years ago, up at 5am for another "fun" day. This time at Dharhan, fellow chap in tears as he just "broke down". Once into matters at hand, some form of "normality" restored him after a short time. Brought home to us though, "what are we here for and why?" Will let others form their opinions/views on that.

30 years ago today - sitting writing Flight Reference Cards for kit we need to deploy with next week. Tomorrow, I need to write training course for the rest of the guys that are going to use the same kit in anger.

Funny, it all seemed par for the course then, just like doing flight trials out of Boscombe Down and OLF'ing round Wales between Christmas and New Year was "perfectly normal.

Today, we are stuck at home unable to see our grandchildren because of an invisible enemy that is all around us.

Oh for the days when it was so straightforward and you knew where the bad guys were - sausage side with guns and SAMs!

28 Dec 1990, 4 hours in a Tornado GR1A on the final trial sortie of the ‘Gulf Pack 2’ upgrade of the recce systems. Monstrous turbulence when trying to tank, the low level was mainly IMC. ‘Amber’ on recovery for an ILS to land. It all seemed quite normal at the time. The next day the aircraft was flown into theatre. I have to say that the flying at Boscombe during the build up to Op Granby was one of the really great periods of my career.

Was on Op Jena (originally called Op Typhus but the Sqn Ldr in charge of the Flight objected and his boss agreed), one of several adjuncts to Granby; during the build up we certainly appreciated all the fantastic work that was being done on our behalf by people in various HQs. Our Chinooks received their intake particle separators/ sand filters just in time, the M134 procurement (which even included a GE expert coming out to the FOB to oversee the installation of equipment sourced from a "third party...!") worked really well, the Robertson tanks were exactly what was needed and GPS was an absolute godsend. Many hours studying the almanac to ensure visibility of the right number of satellites at the planned 'fix' timings really paid off - but we still used all the other DR tools as we couldn't really rely on the 'new' technology. The HQs also listened when we showed them that the RWR mod installed on deployment wasn't up to the task (way too many false returns) and quickly enabled re-fitment of the old Vulcan kit until the new stuff could be re-programmed. You even have to commend the ability of the system to manufacture and distribute the huge stocks of 2-colour desert DPM clothing. OK, it didn't take into account the experience of the Omanis (who'd rejected the original 4-colour desert DPM in favour of a modified version, owing to the unfortunate propensity for that original to virtually glow-in-the-dark even without the need for IR or other night-vision devices) but it was better than nothing.

The response from those back home stayed really good when build-up turned to dust-up. When it became apparent that the NAPS/ anti-anthrax and whooping cough innocs were doing more harm than good our in-theatre medic and the Regimental doc took the necessary action and gave excellent advice (thanks Brian!). When it became clear that the winter conditions were among the worst on record, boxes of cold-weather/Arctic kit started appearing (some of the sand-coloured windproof jackets were manufactured in 1942 and had bone buttons...); a Chinook with no side windows fitted, front door open and ramp down doing 120kts in OATs below zero is not a comfortable place to be, so the extra layers were really welcome. I only gave up the Canadian parka last year, and the high-altitude gauntlets are still in a box upstairs for use in really bitter conditions.

We felt very looked-after, and it made a huge difference. As did the wonderful surge in BFPO mail, both from families and from complete strangers. BZ to those who stayed behind but still made it all happen.

Indeed! Upstairs at KKIA the postal folk had pinned up dozens of letters from total strangers which were a delight to read. We also had quite a few (mustn't-call-it-Christmas) cakes. But Mr Kipling not only made exceedingly good mince pies, but effing thousands of them - we had walls of them in the tanker QRA hotel annex. If we had visitors we'd offer them as many boxes as they could carry with them!

RAF catering was very good. So good that the Army banned its troops from using it as otherwise their own cooks wouldn't have any work to do.

I'd gone back to do some Sky Guardian and HaveQuick 2 work during a 2 week break, as well as some fighter evasion stuff in the VC10K simulator. We didn't have fill-gun loading of MWODs for the HQ2, so the codes all had to be loaded manually, which was a complete faff. When the security people heard that the MWOD codes had been freely photocopied for distribution they nearly fainted. Not that we really had any option; few crews seemed to understand HaveQuick or be bothered to learn about it - but fortunately we never experienced comms jamming, so didn't really need to use it.

Regarding Mode4, it worked just fine as far as were concerned in the VC10K. But were still required to do periodic Mode 1 and Mode 3 code changing - no clever automatic device required, just a cheap Muharraq souk watch pressed against the headset ear piece which beeped at the required interval!

I had somehow ticked the "No hotels but plenty of sand" box on my Granby application, so ended up in a more canvas and guy rope dominated environment. One of the few treats was the mail run with the "blueys" from total strangers. They were mostly thoughtful and comforting, and we were all encouraged to start pen-pal relationships. I couldn't believe some of the troops were writing to these red-hot nymphomaniacs (at least on paper!) who were responding with some orthopedically challenging suggestions requiring lashings of lubricant and safe words, whereas I managed to get delightful 72 year old retired sheep farmer from Derbyshire, who loved to make fruit cakes (not a euphemism!) for her grandchildren. I'm sure it was better for my moral compass, but I still feel like I missed out on part of my education.