RAF In Camera: 1970s

Introduction

While many look back to the 1970s with fond memories of package holidays, space hoppers, Saturday Night Fever and disco music, others see it as something of a hangover from the swinging sixties. Fashion was dominated by very wide shirt collars and high-waisted baggy trousers known as ‘Birmingham Bags’ or ‘Oxford Bags’. For many, the 1970s is seen as the decade that taste forgot; perhaps rightly as fashion was a sea of brown and yellow polyester. That said, the cultural texture of British life probably changed more quickly between 1970 and 1980 than during any other post-war decade.

As late as 1971, women were banned from going into Wimpy bars on their own after midnight. This was on the grounds that the only women out on their own at that hour must be prostitutes! Yet only eight years after that rule was lifted, Margaret Thatcher was walking into Downing Street as Britain’s first woman Prime Minister. There could hardly be a greater symbol of change.

A serious economic crisis in the early years of the decade meant mass unemployment for young people and those working in public services. This triggered an enormous number of strikes – postal workers, miners and dustmen – which ended with the ‘Winter of Discontent’ in 1979, when ITV went off the air for five months. Protest marches were commonplace as trade unions struggled to reach agreement with a succession of weak governments. On top of that, a three-day working week was implemented in the early 1970s to conserve the supply of electricity due to the industrial action by coal miners. This unrest caused considerable confrontation with the police attempting to protect and control the picket lines.

The golden age of terrorism

The 1970s became the golden age of terrorism – hostage-taking was de rigueur. The 1970s alone witnessed forty-four aircraft hijackings around the world. The most famous of which is probably the hijacking of Air France flight 139 on 27 June 1976. The Airbus A300B4-203, registration F-BVGG, departed from Tel Aviv, carrying 246 mainly Jewish and Israeli passengers and a crew of twelve. The plane flew to Athens where it picked up an additional fifty-eight passengers, including four hijackers. Just after take-off, the flight was hijacked by two Palestinians from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and by two Germans, Wilfried Böse and Brigitte Kuhlmann, from the German Revolutionary Cells. The hijackers diverted the flight to Benghazi, Libya, where it was held on the ground for 7 hours for refuelling. The plane left Benghazi, and at 3.15pm on 28 June – more than 24 hours after the flight’s original departure – it arrived at Entebbe Airport in Uganda.

Unfortunately, the hijackers were supported by Uganda’s government and were personally welcomed by its dictator, Idi Amin. Over the following two days, 148 non-Israeli hostages were released and flown out to Paris. Ninety-four mainly Israeli passengers, along with the twelve-member Air France crew, remained as hostages and were threatened with death. The hijackers had the stated objective to free forty Palestinian and affiliated militants imprisoned in Israel and thirteen prisoners in four other countries in exchange for the hostages.

The hijackers threatened to kill the hostages if their prisoner release demands were not met. The Israeli Defence Force (IDF), acting on information provided by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, prepared a rescue operation – codenamed Operation Entebbe. These plans included preparation for armed resistance from Ugandan military troops.

The operation took place at night. Israeli transport planes carried 100 commandos over 2,500 miles to Uganda for the rescue operation. The operation, which took a week of planning, lasted just 90 minutes. 102 hostages were rescued; five Israeli commandos were wounded and one, the unit commander – Lieutenant-Colonel Yonatan Netanyahu – was killed. All the hijackers, three hostages and forty-five Ugandan soldiers were killed; with around thirty Soviet-built MiG-17s and MiG-21s of Uganda’s air force destroyed. Kenyan forces supported Israel, and in the aftermath of the operation Idi Amin issued orders to retaliate and slaughter several hundred Kenyans present in Uganda.

A period of polarised politics

The 1970s was a period which polarised politics and also saw a large number of extreme protests, such as the bombing campaign carried out by the ‘Angry Brigade’ between 1970 and 1972. However, this has largely faded from our collective memory and when we think about terrorism in the 1970s, just one group readily comes to mind– the IRA. The Official IRA split with the Provisional IRA when the two sides differed over the increasing violence in Northern Ireland. The IRA was linked to over forty bombings and a number of fatal incidents throughout the 1970s, culminating in the death of Lord Mountbatten in 1979. Perhaps, because the IRA continued their campaign of violence throughout the next decades, the bombing and arson that the Angry Brigade took responsibility for seems almost forgotten. The Angry Brigade’s brand of disenchanted politics and abstract ideals makes more sense with knowledge of the harsh socio-economic climate of the 1970s, but the atmosphere of austerity and violent protest has interesting parallels with our own, modern society.

Perhaps interestingly, the Bomb Squad was established at Scotland Yard in 1971 to target the Angry Brigade who carried out twenty-five attacks on the UK. While the group was eventually apprehended and imprisoned in the following August, the Bomb Squad continues to this day.

In the world of music and entertainment, April 1970 saw the Beatles split. On 1 January 1971, cigarette advertisements were banned on television; leading to sponsored sporting events becoming much higherprofile – think motor racing with black and gold John Player Special-sponsored Lotus racing cars. I even had a Ford Capri painted in the classic black and gold colours for a few years during the decade.

Decimalisation, cinema and technology

On Monday 15 February 1971 we said goodbye to the pound, shilling and penny, and took on decimal currency – an event I remember particularly well as I worked in accountancy at the time and recall the detailed process of having to convert all of the company’s ‘books’ over a very long working weekend – on what was described as ‘Decimal Day’. On 14 February that year, there were twelve pennies to the shilling and twenty shillings to the pound. The following day the pound had 100 new pennies.

Decimal Day itself went smoothly. Criticisms included the small size of the new halfpenny coin and the fact that some traders had taken advantage of the transition to raise prices. Some unscrupulous individuals took to using new pennies as sixpences in vending machines. After 15 February, shops continued to accept payment in old coins, but always issued change in new coins. The old coins were returned to the banks and in this way the bulk of them were quickly removed from circulation.

In July 1971, eighteen-year-olds were given the vote. On 1 April 1975 Apple Inc. was launched, while on 4 April 1975, Bill Gates created Microsoft.

For cinemagoers, the top films of the decade included A Clockwork Orange (1971), The French Connection (1971), Dirty Harry (1971), The Godfather (1972), The Exorcist (1973), Jaws (1975), Rocky (1976), Star Wars (1977), Grease (1978) and Alien (1979).

On the technology front 1970 saw the introduction of the Stylophone, the video cassette recorder (VCR) and the floppy disc. In 1971 the first electronic calculator was introduced to the public by Sharp Corporation. In the same year, the first personal computer was sold – John Blankenbaker’s Kenbak-1, which used small and medium-scale integrated circuits, had switches and lights for input/output, and came with a staggering 256 bytes of memory. It was a short-lived success as the Kenbak Corporation folded in 1973 after selling only forty computers.

In April 1973, the bar code was invented, while in 1974, the first domestic microwave ovens were reaching the shelves. In the same year the first cellular mobile telephone was invented by Bell Labs and licensed by AT&T in 1977. Where would most of us be today without the latter?

1974 was also the year of the Rubik’s Cube; the great professor of architecture from Hungary, Ernő Rubik, won the German Game of the Year in the Best Puzzle category for this mind-boggling toy. In the same year, a gynaecologist from Rome invented liposuction – the practice that has become very popular among middle-aged women today.

1975 saw the very first digital camera, created in December 1975 by an engineer at Eastman Kodak named Steve Sasson. The camera weighed 8lb, recorded 0.01 megapixel black and white images to a cassette tape and the first photograph took 23 seconds to create. To play back images, data was read from the tape and then displayed on a television set. Digital photography has come a long way since then!

In April 1976, the inkjet printer was invented, while in December 1976 it was the turn of the MRI scanner. In March 1978, the Jarvik-7 artificial heart was invented although the first recipient lived for just 112 days after surgery to fit it. 1979 saw the introduction of the board game Trivial Pursuit.

Births, deaths and a heatwave

Following a long struggle with substance abuse, Janis Joplin died from an accidental heroin overdose on 4 October 1970 at Hollywood’s Landmark Hotel. On 18 September 1970, the American musician Jimi Hendrix died in London, aged twenty-seven. One of the most influential guitarists of the 1960s, he was described by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as ‘arguably the greatest instrumentalist in the history of rock music’. Elvis Presley died on 16 August 1977, at the age of forty-two. The cause of death was covered up by his family, but it is believed that an overdose of prescription drugs caused his heart to stop.

On 25 July 1978, the world’s first test-tube baby – Louise Brown – was born at Oldham General Hospital after her parents Lesley and John became the first people to successfully undergo pioneering in vitro fertilisation (IVF). Later in life, Louise Brown revealed the ‘sick’ blood-splattered hate mail her parents received after her ground-breaking birth.

The summer of 1976 was remembered for a spectacular heatwave, as well as a period of severe water shortage, causing some extreme suggestions of bathing with a friend and throwing your washing and washing-up water onto the garden rather than down the sink.

Changing UK governments

Changing UK governments during the decade also added to the ongoing confusion. At the beginning of the 1970s, Harold Wilson who had led the Labour Party in government from 1965, was defeated by the Edward Heath-led Conservative Party in the 1970 General Election.

Heath succeeded in taking Britain into the European Economic Community (EEC), the precursor to the European Union, in 1973; despite two previous failed attempts by Britain to gain entry in 1961 and 1967. But his government was dogged by torrid industrial relations and recurrent economic crises. Things came to a head in January 1974, when industry was put on a three-day week to conserve fuel. Fuel was in dangerously short supply following a combination of domestic industrial action – including coal miners on a ‘work-to-rule’– and a quadrupling of prices by Middle Eastern oil-exporting nations in the wake of Israel’s victory in the Yom Kippur War. In March 1974, Heath called a General Election on the question of ‘Who governs Britain– the unions, or the elected representatives of the people?’ To his surprise the result was a hung parliament and he was ousted.

In March 1974, Wilson became prime minister for the third time, this time at the head of a minority government, following the first hung parliament for forty-five years. Often described as a wily fixer and negotiator, it took all of his skills to hold on to power in the face of economic and industrial turmoil. His party was also sharply divided, with many Labour MPs bitter about Wilson’s manoeuvring against his colleagues. He called another General Election in October 1974, thereby ending the shortest parliament since 1681, and was returned to office with a majority of just three seats. He presided over a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Economic Community (EEC), and a collapse in the value of the pound which prompted a humiliating rescue operation by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Exhausted, Wilson resigned saying ‘politicians should not go on and on’.

James Callaghan inherited the office of prime minister following the surprise resignation of Harold Wilson. With only a tiny parliamentary majority to support him, he faced an increasingly one-sided confrontation with the unions in the form of rampant strike action. Things came to a head in the so-called ‘Winter of Discontent’, a phrase from Shakespeare borrowed by Callaghan himself to describe the events leading up to February 1979. Britain was strikebound, with public servants staging mass walkouts, leaving food and fuel supplies undelivered, rubbish uncollected and – most notoriously – bodies unburied. Things became so bad in Hull it was dubbed ‘the second Stalingrad’. The tabloid press has since been accused of overstating the severity of the situation (and wrongly quoting Callaghan as saying ‘Crisis? What crisis?’), but it was enough at the time to sound the death knell for Callaghan’s government later in the same year.

In 1979, Britain’s first female Prime Minister – Margaret Thatcher – came to power with the country descending into industrial and economic chaos. A relatively inexperienced politician, she nonetheless adopted a personal style of indomitable self-confidence and brooked no weakness in herself or her colleagues. Derisively dubbed the ‘Iron Lady’ by the Soviet press, she wore the moniker with pride. Her government’s free-market policies included trade liberalisation, deregulation, sweeping privatisation, breaking the power of the unions, focus on the individual and the creation of an ‘enterprise culture’. Thatcherism has had a profound and lasting economic and social impact on Britain, and still sharply divides opinion to this day. The first PM to serve three consecutive terms – including two landslide victories– she was eventually toppled by her own party following the disastrous imposition of the poll tax. Nonetheless, she is considered to be one of the most effective peacetime prime ministers of the twentieth century.

The RAF in the 1970s and the Cold War

In terms of the Royal Air Force, what had the 1970s inherited from the 1960s? Well, no new strategic bomber to replace the cancelled TSR-2 and F-111 for a start! That task would eventually fall to the Hawker Siddeley Buccaneer S.2 which was ordered for the Royal Air Force in 1968. Eventually, around 100 Buccaneers entered RAF service; forty-six were new-build aircraft specifically for the RAF, while the remainder were taken over from the Fleet Air Arm when the last of the aircraft carriers were withdrawn from service.

That said, the UK did enter the 1970s as the third strongest nuclear power (in terms of the number of warheads), not limited to a single Polaris submarine on patrol at a particular time, but possessing the largest stock of nuclear bombs and missiles outside of the United States and the Soviet Union. The UK also possessed around 200 aircraft capable of delivering them, if the need ever arose. It is worth mentioning here that one aircraft could deliver, in a single attack, destructive power fifty times greater than all of the bombs dropped by RAF Bomber Command on Germany in six years of war.

A Russian Naval Air Force Tupolev Tu-95 Bear is escorted by Phantom FG.1, XV574/B, of 43 Squadron, from RAF Leuchars during a QRA interception made on 8 February 1973. (Crown Copyright/Air Historical Branch image TN-1-6716-35)

The defence dilemma which faced Britain at the start of the decade was how much effort should be devoted to Europe and how much to the east of Suez. The Labour government, prompted by the 1970 economic crisis and devaluation of the pound, made the defence of Europe Britain’s primary commitment – after all, we were close to the height of the Cold War. The Labour government also decided on the withdrawal of virtually all forces east of Suez by the end of 1971, but left British forces with a capacity for strategic mobility which, in the Western world, was only outmatched by our US Allies. This volume reflects that political decision and the numerous base closures are reported in the following chapters.

During the decade, Britain’s forces were not often seen in conflict – although that did not mean that they weren’t active. In particular, the UK military involvement in Dhofar (see page 189) which had started in 1965 continued into December 1971, although SAS activities in support of the Sultan of Oman’s forces continued until formally withdrawn in March 1976. Some apparently remained beyond that date for ‘training’ purposes – largely under the radar.

Out with the old

During the 1970s only a limited number of aircraft types were completely withdrawn from RAF service and these include the venerable Dakota – the last aircraft, KN645, being retired on 1 April 1970 – along with the Armstrong Whitworth/Hawker Siddeley Argosy C.1. The defence cutbacks ended the Argosy’s service life somewhat prematurely in 1974, although two E.2 radar calibration aircraft did continue in service with 115 Squadron until 1977 when they were replaced with the Andover E.3.

The Hawker Siddeley Andover C.1 had entered RAF service in December 1966 and served at home with 46 Squadron at Abingdon, as well as overseas with the Far East Air Force (FEAF) at 52 Squadron at Seletar, Singapore, and in the Gulf with 84 Squadron – initially at Khormaksar, Aden, but later at Muharraq, Bahrain. The FEAF aircraft were withdrawn in December 1969 with the Gulf aircraft following in October 1971. The Andover C.1 continued in service in the UK until being withdrawn in August 1975, with the disbandment of 46 Squadron. Other variants of the Andover – the specialist CC.2 and E.3 – did continue in service beyond the end of the decade.

On 30 June 1975, the Comet C.4 was retired from service with the disbandment of 216 Squadron at Lyneham. The Britannia C.1, in service with both 99 and 511 Squadrons since 1959, was withdrawn from use when both squadrons were disbanded in January 1976. The last four Handley Page Hastings aircraft in service with 230 OCU – the Bomber Command Radar Flight – were retired on 30 June 1977.

In with the new

Aircraft that arrived in RAF service during the decade included the BAe 125 CC.1 (April 1971), Westland/ Aérospatiale Puma HC.1 (June 1971), Scottish Aviation Bulldog T.1 (April 1973), Scottish Aviation Jetstream T.1 (June 1973), Westland/Aérospatiale Gazelle HT.3 (July 1973), Sepecat Jaguar GR.1 (September 1973), Hawker Siddeley Nimrod R.1 (May 1974), British Aerospace Hawk T.1 (November 1976) and Westland Sea King HAR.3 (December 1977); as well as the upgraded variants of the Nimrod MR.2 (August 1979), the Harrier GR.3 and Buccaneer S.2B.

At the turn of the decade both MR.2 and MR.3 versions of the venerable Shackleton were reaching the end of their maritime reconnaissance lives, although it was not to be the end of the type in RAF service. In April 1971, the Shackleton AEW.2 was evolved to provide the RAF with an airborne early warning aircraft to counter low-level intruders – replacing the Royal Navy’s Gannets in the role. Eventually, twelve Shackleton MR.2 aircraft were converted and the variant entered service with 8 Squadron at Kinloss in January 1972, before moving to nearby Lossiemouth. Despite being just a ‘stop-gap’ solution to the problem, the Shackleton AEW.2 remained in service until withdrawn on 1 July 1991 when replaced with the Sentry AEW.1.

Enter the MRCA

Known initially as the MRCA (Multi-Role Combat Aircraft) and designed and produced by the European consortium Panavia consisting of British, German and Italian manufacturers, the variable-geometry aircraft was to become one of the most outstanding achievements of modern aeronautical engineering. The first aircraft made its first flight in West Germany on 14 August 1974 and the first British-built prototype (XX946) flew at Warton on 30 October 1974. The first production aircraft – a Tornado GR.1 (ZA319) – flew on 10 July 1979.

The staging post at RAF Gan was officially closed on 1 April 1976 and the base handed over to the Maldivian Government. The very last RAF aircraft to leave was 10 Squadron VC10 C.1 XR808, which received a suitable send-off. (Crown Copyright/Air Historical Branch image TN-1-7477-90)

Production of the GR.1 for the RAF eventually totalled 228 aircraft and the first aircraft would enter service with the TTTE (Tri-national Tornado Training Establishment) at Cottesmore in July 1980. Later, an air defence variant – the Tornado F.2 – was produced and the prototype (ZA254) made its first flight at Warton 27 October 1979. First deliveries would be made to the 229 OCU at RAF Coningsby in November 1984.

Stepping back into Europe

At the beginning of the 1970s, the RAF were a force with many overseas bases, supporting a worldwide capability but, by the end of the decade, was based almost exclusively in the UK and Europe – largely in response to the perceived Cold War threat from the Soviet Union. During the 1970s, the military emphasis changed from global strength to the protection of Europe through NATO, while still possessing limited capabilities as a reactionary, expeditionary force. It should also be noted that many of the changes made were driven by economic rather than strategic influences.

An aerial view of the royal review at RAF Finningley during the morning of 29 July 1977. (Crown Copyright/Air Historical Branch image TN-1-7721-12)

Black and white to colour

Readers who may have purchased the earlier volumes in this series – RAF in Camera: 1950s and RAF in Camera: 1960s – will probably observe the significant shift in this edition from a mixture of colour and black and white images of the earlier editions, to the predominantly colour images that now illustrate this volume.

By the 1970s, colour photographic materials had become readily available and economically priced, while black and white photography was becoming less popular. Machinery to process the colour material – both in negative and positive (transparency) forms was now completely automated, which further reduced the time and cost of shooting in colour. That said, some of the military authorities still favoured black and white film for many tasks – especially images shot in theatre. Thank goodness they did, as many rare images may never have been captured otherwise. Take a look at the material from Dhofar in 1974; shadowing the Soviet naval aircraft carrier Kiev and its escorts during their transit from the Mediterranean to their North Sea base in 1976; the 208 Squadron exchange visit to Bodø, Norway, in 1978; Exercise Maple Flag III at Cold Lake in Canada; and the large quantity of Soviet Naval ‘visitors’ seen by crews operating the QRA activities in 1979.

The keeping qualities (stability) of film improved during the decade, although it was still not at the standard that it would eventually possess in the 1980s and ’90s. That said, there was still little genuine knowledge about how best to store and maintain colour film. Consequently, some of the priceless originals have suffered over the course of time, especially when being transferred from one location to another. Much work, however, has been done by Lee Barton and his colleagues at the Air Historical Branch to try to make the best of deteriorating materials. Thankfully modern digitisation of the original material has offered them a longer life. Furthermore, the original materials are now stored in temperature-controlled conditions that should prolong their life.

The first British-manufactured Panavia MRCA aircraft, XX946, construction number P-02, was photographed on 30 October 1974 during its first flight from BAC Military Aircraft Division’s Warton airfield, near Preston. (Crown Copyright/Air Historical Branch image TN-1-7336-3)

During the digitisation process that has already been carried out by the Air Historical Branch since receiving the original material, much work has also been done to clean and restore some of the damaged, priceless originals. There is, though, only so much that can be achieved with modern photo manipulation software!

The text in this volume is not intended to be an exhaustive history of the RAF year-by-year. Instead, it represents a selection of the highlights (and in some cases, lowlights) that the RAF has endured during the course of the decade. I have included the text to provide additional background information from that already provided in the captions. It is, as the title RAF in Camera suggests, a