A Gulf Story (Part 4)

I’m going to try to steer myself back to the original story about a damaged jet today, I’ve described some of the players in a light hearted way, but now we are back to that serious business of launching and recovering multi million pound pieces of technology and much more importantly, the crews that were operating them into what had definitely become a ‘shooting war’
The shift that I was working on was rostered on ‘days’ this meant that for many of the missions at this early stage in the conflict, the daytime shift would prepare the jets, the armourers would load the weapons, depending on the requirements of the mission, target etc, the ‘fairies’ who maintain the complex navigation, communication systems would load the programs that would hopefully keep the jet in contact with the other jets in the attack and the other assets essential to the mission, such as the Air To Air Refueling tankers, and the AWACS Command and Control aircraft, also and very importantly, the Electronic Countermeasures onboard the Tornado that protect, warn and defend the jet from being seen and targeted by the enemy.

The dayshift would then hand over to the oncoming ‘night’ shift. All previous jesting aside, it was a relatively informal process, done at different levels, management had their handover, the Trade Managers handed over any of the ongoing work required to maintain the jets and repair any of them that needed it, the guys like me who handled the jets out on the ‘flight line’ would hand over the jet and anything ‘unofficial’ that we were keeping an eye on, but we didn’t want to let the management know about as they would probably get exited and overreact about, to our opposite number on the oncoming shift. This was our bread and butter, we dealt with it day to day in peacetime, so why make a fuss now? The flight line (where the jets are parked) at Dhahran was a kilometre or so long and consisted of giant sun shelters in a straight line, similar to the covered forecourts at motorway filling stations we also had another dispersed operating area that was about a 15-20 minute drive from our main flight line and engineering headquarters.

As the off going day shift we would then all jump on a coach and be taken back to our accommodation in downtown Al Khobar, this much to the disgruntlement of many of my ex army friends, just happened to be a hotel. It wasn’t a 5 star hotel, but it was comfortable enough and we were grateful for this. I’d already spent 3 months in the Gulf based at Muharraq in Bahrain by the time I went to Dhahran on Boxing Day 1990, I’d volunteered along with another half dozen or so from my squadron to fill some holes that one of the other squadrons had with their manning levels due to an element of manpower on every squadron that can’t or won’t go away from base! This is a minority, some are genuine cases, some less so. I can recall one particular guy who was in the RAF Rowing Team, but had some medical excuse about a ‘bad back’ and was excused from deployments! In World War 1 these people were called ‘malingerers’ I don’t think they were shot at dawn, unlike the poor souls who had PTSD and were murdered under the blanket term of cowardice. I actually know a story about a SEngO who threatened to have some of his groundcrew shot during the Gulf War in 1991! It wasn’t ours, I don’t think anybody had told him that he could shoot people and get away with it? The SEngO concerned was with another multi squadron deployment this time with the Support Helicopter Force, way forward of the Iraq border and after the beginning of the war’s ground offensive. They had serious morale problems on the unit and the word ‘mutiny’ was being banded around, but anyway, this is not my story to tell.

So, back to my mention of Bahrain, all I’ll say is that the hotel accommodation in Bahrain was in a whole league ahead of us in Saudi Arabia, also they had alcohol! Beer and the ability to sit and have a few beers, talk shit and generally get things off your chest is how the majority of the RAF deal with situations on either end of the spectrum, from the highs of your squadron winning a bombing competition or passing a tactical evaluation exercise (Taceval) or being told that you’re being promoted, to the lows of being told that you’ve just been posted to a Hydraulic Bay on some godforsaken pimple on the arsehole of humanity in East Anglia or worse of all, the news that an aeroplane has been lost and that the crew have not survived. So Bahrain had hotel bars and beers, we didn’t, but another detachment of RAF Tornados was based out at a place in Saudi called Tabuk, this is in an area of Saudi Arabia officially known as the ‘Empty Quarter’ so, I guess I don’t have to elaborate much on the conditions and amenities that they had in 1991! So we were lucky in our little hotel in downtown Al Khobar. The hotel even had a swimming pool on the roof! It wasn’t very big, but it was ideal for relaxing when you were supposed to be sleeping off a nightshift. The hotel roof was also an awesome viewing platform to watch the American Patriot Missiles shoot down inbound Iraqi Scud Missiles during the many air attacks that we had at Dhahran. Unfortunately the squadron management frowned upon us watching the firework displays from the rooftop and had the hotel owner lock the door to it!
Maybe I’ll get back to the storyline tomorrow?
To be continued.......