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Bill served on IV(AC) Sqn at Jever and Sylt from 1954 to 1957 when the Squadron operated Sabres and Hunters.
Living here in Australia I don’t get much news and mostly depend on my occasional visits back to the UK. At 73 years of age the 50 hours travelling takes it out of me now. I would love to be there for the next anniversary. Probably, it will be the last time I can make the journey and will be something to look forward to.
By the way, I am not that feeble. I still fly a couple of hours each week. Ultralight aircraft now but it is still aviation. Just had Airshows Down Under here in Melbourne. Pity we were not represented. This is only held every 2 years and normally coincides with the change from Summer to an awful windy and wet Autumn. Still warmer than UK.
I am grateful and pleased you have kept me on your mailing list. There cannot be many of us shiny 4 blokes left from the Jever days now. Quite a few of my former colleagues are now wearing permanent wings, well, we hope so.
Anyway, thanks again, keep it safe,
Bill (Styx) White
From Al Pinner, OC Battle of Britain Memorial Flight:
Please forgive the circular, but I wanted to make you aware of a Banquet BBMF are hosting on 3rd July in support of the Bomber Command Memorial Appeal. The Banquet will be held in the Petwood Hotel, Woodhall Spa, perhaps better known as the Officers’ Mess of the Dambusters in 1944/45, and David Shepherd will be the guest speaker. We have secured the services of Michelin starred chefs – the Executive Chefs de Cuisine of the Lanesborough, Sheraton Park Lane and Jumeirah Carlton Tower Hotel – Paul Gaymer, Andrew Bennett and Simon Young – all of whom will prepare a course, so it promises to be a fine meal.
The evening will start with a champagne reception at 7:15pm (champagne by Tattinger) followed by a flypast by the Lancaster at 7:45pm. Dinner at 8 with several Bomber Command Veterans and David Shepherd will speak after dinner on his life in art. Following David’s speech, a swing band will play until we have all swung!
This will be a wonderful evening in great company and will raise significant funds for the Bomber Command Memorial – however, there will be no auction! I hope that as many of you as possible are able to come, sadly no ?mates rates?, and would be especially grateful to those who will take a table.
As you will see on the other attachment, we will be hosting the first ever exhibition of David’s private collection in our hangar from 29th June – 3rd July and a hosted tour on the Friday afternoon is included for all those that come to the Banquet.
Yours aye
Al Pinner
Squadron Leader
Officer Commanding BBMF
Please click on the links below to see/download/print the flyers and booking form:
raf-exhib-tours-flyer-advert
bomber-banquet2009-invite-covers
bomber-banquet2009-invite-inside
From Guy Warner:
I am an aviation historian living near Carrickfergus in Northern Ireland. I wonder if you have any more information regarding the Squadron’s brief depoyment to Ulster in 1920-21. Do the relevant 540s or any other material still exist in the Squadron archive? Any help you may be able to give would be much appreciated. What I know is noted below.
?A? Flight of Bristol Fighters from No. 4 Squadron Royal Air Force was stationed at Aldergrove from November 1920 to May 1921. Duties included the delivery of mails, message dropping, reconnaissance and the escort of motor transport convoys. No offensive operations were carried out but aircrew always carried sidearms and in the event of a forced landing were instructed to use these, if necessary, to dissuade anyone with hostile intent, preferably by warning shots. In the event it never came to this and after a few months the situation in the north was deemed stable enough to permit the re-deployment of the aircraft from Aldergrove to Baldonnel. After the departure of ?A? Flight, Aldergrove was returned to care and maintenance status.
Thank you
Guy Warner
If anyone can help with this, please let me know!
From the Home of the Harrier website:
2009 marks the 40th Anniversary of the Harrier. Beginning with the formation of the Harrier Conversion Team in April 1969 (which later became the OCU). No 1(F) Sqn stood up to become operational in October that same year.
Flown by numerous Air Forces around the World, this truly unique aircraft has operated, with distinction, in many operational theatres; indeed, its success in contemporary operations highlights the Harrier?s continuing contribution to Air Power.
The Celebrations to mark the 40th Anniversary of the Harrier will take place over 2 days. All who have flown or maintained this truly remarkable aircraft or have served on a Harrier Sqn are invited to mark this occasion.
Thursday 23rd July 2009
A Black Tie ?Gala Dinner?, at the ?Home of the Harrier?, RAF Wittering.
For those who have served directly with the Force.
Friday 24th July 2009
A Harrier Force Families? Day and evening Hangar Party at RAF Cottesmore, current home of Joint Force Harrier. Families are welcome at these events.
These events offer both a formal and informal means of catching up with old colleagues and to celebrate the remarkable contribution made by the Harrier and its people over the past four decades.
For more details, and the booking form, please go to the Home of the Harrier website.
I’m hearing rumours of a Harrier Reunion this July. Nothing official yet, but what I have is:
1. Black tie dinner at RAF Wittering Thursday 23 July
2. Open Day at RAF Cottesmore Friday 24 July
More as I find out…
Trev Ford is looking for Keith Dixon (Wildenrath 1972-75). If anyone knows his whereabouts get in touch through the usual channels.
Lots of positive feedback about the new design – thanks for that. Please let me know if there’s a feature that you’d like to see on FourFax and I’ll see if I can implement it.
I can tell it’s a while since the website’s been healthy – I’ve spent most of the last 24 hours reminding people of their logins! (And the rest of it trying to get a replacement hose for my car, but that’s another story!).
The new design is coming on. All the links at the top of each page are working and the gallery is back on line as well. I need to do more work on the sidebar, on the left, but it will do for the time being.
I’ve managed to upgrade the website installation and everything seems to be working again except the Gallery button. Until this is fixed, to get to the Gallery, use this link.
I’m going to take this opportunity to refresh the site. The wordpress theme that we use is pretty but isn’t easy to manage and things usually break when wordpress gets updated. A new theme will make the website and its updates much easier to manage.
Lance Brook, a former GLO with IV Squadron, died very unexpectedly in the very early hours of Saturday morning 23rd August.
Lance will always be remembered as a friend of the RAF in general and IV(AC) Sqn in particular. Our condolences to Virginia.
The funeral will take place at the Moray Crematorium, Broadley, Clochan, by Buckie on Tuesday 2nd September 2008 at 10.00 hrs. No flowers please, but any donations may be made to the Army Benevolent Fund.
A bad person on the internet has hacked our site. The link to the Gallery isn’t working and loads of spams have been sent to the forums.
I’ve sorted out the forums and I’ll get onto the Gallery as soon as I can.
There’s an online petition to Downing Street trying to raise support for a dedicated Military & Veterans Hospital:
Just some background: 2 Para alone have on this tour sent back over 50 casualties to the UK and from one who has been to Selly Oak I know that many cannot be accommodated so when all of the casualties from other battle groups are added to the figure, how is ONE ward in an NHS hospital going to cope? It cannot cope, the individual troops are sent home to recover relying on NHS visiting services which themselves are over committed.
A lot more than 5000 names are needed for this petition and quite cynically, Downing Street has put a time limit of one month for this to be achieved.
Do what you can. Please copy the link below to confirm your signature on the petition at the bottom of this email. The deadline is 19 August 2008.
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Wounded/ the petition was created by Denzil Connick and reads:
‘We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Create a dedicated Military & Veterans Hospital within the UK.’
From Torsten Nienaber:
Maybe it is interesting for you and the users of fourfax.co.uk that we added some videos of IVSqn Harrier operations on our website www.sg-etuo.de. We are also in the process of translating the website into english.
Torsten
I’ve finally cracked the Gallery – please let me know if it doesn’t work properly for you.
 It’s taken a while but the website is up and running (almost) properly again. The photo gallery is not integrated as it should be, but it is working.
I’ll be continuing to make improvements to the site over the next few days. I’ll probably change the appearance completely because the WordPress theme that we use (Scattered2) isn’t compatible with the latest version of WordPress which makes it much harder to keep the underlying software up-to-date.
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