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I’m soon to begin posting some of my experiences at the cutting edge of my service in the Royal Air Force. Hopefully you’ll find them interesting and often funny. It was a strange time.
I was in the RAF from 1975-84, and my trade was in administration – i.e. I flew a desk. But for five of those years I worked on two of the 20 or so air defence bases that protected UK air space. And sometimes that got very interesting.
At least once a month the siren would go off.
When this happened, we knew it was exercise time. My blue uniform was swapped for combats, beret for helmet, and pen for 7.62mm SLR. Because, when that siren went off, I was part of the defence of that thin blue line.
How important was that line? Well, British forces contributed 4 divisions to the effort in Germany, whilst the rest of the forces were responsible for UK air space and keeping the Atlantic open for re-supply from America.
The unsinkable aircraft carrier.
US forces first called Britain that during World War Two, and it was a fact that had the Cold War gone hot, Britain’s importance would have been just as great. For if British air space fell, then no American reinforcements or supplies could ever get to Europe, and the Soviets would have won.
Hence, that thin blue line of the RAF would have become crucial. Those bases would have become among the most violent places on Earth, constantly attacked by bombers, missiles and infiltrated Soviet SPETZNAZ special forces.
I was only a very, very, very small cog in all this, but that was what we were training for in those exercises. And they often got scary as well as very, very funny.
© Anthony North, November 2007
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