ROYAL AIR FORCE HISTORICAL SOCIETY JOURNAL 44 2 The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the contributors concerned and are not necessarily those held by the Royal Air Force Historical Society. First published in the UK in 2009 by the Royal Air Force Historical Society All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing. ISSN 1361 4231 Printed by Advance Book Printing Unit 9 Northmoor Park Church Road Northmoor OX29 5UH 3 ROYAL AIR FORCE HISTORICAL SOCIETY President Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Michael Beetham GCB CBE DFC AFC Vice-President Air Marshal Sir Frederick Sowrey KCB CBE AFC Committee Chairman Air Vice-Marshal N B Baldwin CB CBE FRAeS Vice-Chairman Group Captain J D Heron OBE Secretary Group Captain K J Dearman FRAeS Membership Secretary Dr Jack Dunham PhD CPsychol AMRAeS Treasurer J Boyes TD CA Members Air Commodore G R Pitchfork MBE BA FRAes Wing Commander C Cummings *J S Cox Esq BA MA *Dr M A Fopp MA FMA FIMgt *Group Captain A J Byford MA MA RAF *Wing Commander J M Dixon AFC MA BSc RAF Editor & Publications Wing Commander C G Jefford MBE BA Manager *Ex Officio 4 CONTENTS REFLECTIONS ON HIS TIME AS CHIEF OF THE AIR 5 STAFF, 1992-97 by Air Chf Mshl Sir Michael Graydon GCB CBE FRAeS SUMMARY OF THE MINUTES OF THE TWENTY-FIRST 20 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING HELD IN THE ROYAL AIR FORCE CLUB ON 25 JUNE 2008 FROM CONINGHAM TO PROJECT CONINGHAM- 23 KEYES: DID BRITISH FORCES RELEARN HISTORICAL AIR-LAND CO-OPERATION LESSONS DURING OPERATION TELIC? by Wg Cdr H Smyth A LETTER FROM ‘BOMBER’ HARRIS 64 TIGER FORCE AND FLIGHT REFUELLING by Brian 68 Gardner BOOK REVIEWS 99 5 OUR GUEST SPEAKER AT THE RAF CLUB, FOLLOWING THE SOCIETY’S AGM ON 25 JUNE 2008, WAS Air Chief Marshal Sir Michael Graydon GCB CBE FRAeS WHO WAS INVITED TO REFLECT ON HIS TIME AS CHIEF OF THE AIR STAFF, 1992-97. I sat down to put pen to paper for this talk on the balcony of my cottage in Cyprus looking out towards Mt Hilarion, Kyrenia, the Mediterranean and Turkey. It is some view, and I confess that concentrating on the job at hand was a struggle. It seems that written revelations, accounts of events past, are in vogue: Cherie Blair, John Prescott, not long ago Alastair Campbell; Tony Blair is at it and, of course, Mike Jackson. I have never kept a diary. I have considered it, and indeed at one period of my tenure as CAS, I did consign to paper a record of certain events. I put it away safely, and when I came to leave Kingston House a year or two later, it was not to be found. Either MI5 had got it, or my splendidly efficient House Manager had found the jottings in a drawer and consigned them to the bin in the spirit of ‘out with the old’. So much for my literary ambitions. As they contained some fairly forthright comments on certain personalities, subsequent discovery might be interesting. But that is some way from writing one’s story and I have long thought that many who do run the risk of seeking to justify their actions or even rewriting history – emphasise the good; economise on the bad. Some perhaps end up diminished in the eyes of the public and, more dangerously, in the eyes of those whom they have led. So, if my dates are hazy, my memory faulty and I, too, fall into the trap of self justification, I apologise, but remember you asked for it. What I will try to do is take a broad sweep through my 4½ years in post; set the scene as I found it on taking over as CAS in early November 1992; outline my aims and objectives at that time; recount the events which inevitably affected those objectives. Harold Macmillan’s famous reply to the query as to what had influenced his time as PM most – ‘Events dear boy, events’ – was in my case prophetically apt. And finally, I will describe the equipment programme and its 6 vicissitudes because, of the various legacies a CAS can leave to the Service, the equipment programme is most likely to have the greatest affect on its long term health. The long lead times and lengthy in- service period of modern equipment means that the sins of the past will be visited on the future for good or bad. I came to the post as an ex-CinC of both Support Command and Strike. Of the two, Support was the most revealing. Unsurprising, because my background had been in Fighter and Strike and I knew, or thought I knew, a fair bit about that organisation. Support was new. An integrated HQ with Training, Maintenance, Administration and many DAUs (Directly Administered Units). Some 200 or so units scattered over the UK and abroad; 40,000 plus personnel – military, civilian and contractors – and the RAF lead for the New Management Strategy (NMS). To remind you, NMS was delegated budgets; a good strategy which offered incentives to commanders at all levels. Moreover, Support Command was beginning the major changes post-Cold War: the closure of many bases; the focus on centres of excellence and the introduction of further civilianisation and contractorisation. It raised issues. Our small bases were becoming blue-suit wastelands. Sports and activities were badly affected. Was this the environment in which to cultivate a Service ethos? In parallel, Ken Macdonald, the 2nd PUS and David Omand, the rising star of the MOD, were conducting the study into decentralising from MOD in London – the Prospect Study. In it the PPOs (Principal Personnel Officers) and PSOs (Principal Supply Officers), AMP and AMSO for the RAF, were to be relocated as CinCs outside London as Personnel and Training, and Logistics, Commands. Support would disband; Strike would assume a number of MOD roles; RAFG was to disband too, with residual units coming under Strike Command, and so on. Whatever its merits, it was the Roman General’s cry writ large: ‘Every time we were organised we were re-organised … and so on’. And this obsession with re-organisation would go on, and on, and on. Strike Command was largely immune from this at the time I took over. Its operational tasks were to recover from the Gulf War – to disband the squadrons that had performed so well in that war, but were now considered unnecessary under the Options for Change study; this of course had been initiated post-Cold War but pre-Gulf War; and 7 then, within four months, Strike Command squadrons would be back out to the Gulf for the No Fly Zones, North and South, over Iraq. We fought and gained, too, the formation of AFNORTHWEST (a NATO Regional Command collocated with Strike at High Wycombe and the successor to the previous HQUKAIR. Ed) under a 4-star airman in the face of strong challenges from the Navy at Northwood. But the budget challenges meant some further big changes. Absorb the tasks from MOD; we devised and proposed massive changes to the Air Defence (AD) posture of the UK and we debated at length the best Command/Group structure for the new era. Centralise, or decentralise as NMS would dictate? We can come back to this, but I mention it now because these experiences, and my NATO pedigree, were the foundations for my views, or possibly prejudices, when I took over the RAF in November 1992. What did I find? A Service grappling with all these issues certainly; one which, despite the ongoing one-third reduction in the front line, was still some 90,000 strong and had avoided a redundancy programme which might have arisen under Options for Change. In one sense this was good; in another, the view was widely held, by the other Services in particular, that the RAF had had got away with Options. Add to this, the wide recognition, that Air Power had been the key to success in the Gulf War, which I confess we were not slow to exploit – in retrospect too much – then the knives were out for us if the chance arose. There were other agendas being peddled. My first meeting as a COS was with the FCO whose mandarins were advancing the view that post-Cold War and now Gulf, future conflicts would more likely be small scale and peacekeeping with soft power as important as hard power and the Services could be re-structured accordingly; the blue beret syndrome. We told them forcefully that retaining the spectrum of war fighting capabilities would allow us to carry out all these functions, being a militia would not. But the thought was there and I have no doubt it was transmitted widely, not least to the Treasury. Then there was NATO. To adapt a saying, ‘An organisation that had lost an Empire and not yet found a role.’ But it was reinventing itself steadily towards Out of Area (OOA) and Expeditionary structures; the question was, would nations pay the premium in the unseemly rush to disband their armed forces and take the peace 8 dividend? And finally, the political landscape. The Major Government, with a narrow majority, not having really won an election but rather able to capitalise on the public perception that Labour was still led by unelectable personalities.