The Cod War

Excellent work there Paul, I especially like the Phantom and Lightning Bear intercepts – fantastic.

Theres always room for a decent Nimrod painting, especially in the white and grey scheme;)

I’ll add it to the “to do” list

PaulC

Excellent work there Paul, I especially like the Phantom and Lightning Bear intercepts – fantastic.

Theres always room for a decent Nimrod painting, especially in the white and grey scheme;)

Thanks glad you liked it, not disrupted just moved in another direction

Cheers
PaulC

www.paulcouper.co.uk

Paul, I had a quick look at your website – some nice material there.

Sorry if the information provided disrupted your plans too much!

Thanks guys
for the speedy response, thats cleared up a number of questions and shot down one or two ideas but best to get these things right

Cheers
PaulC

www.paulcouper.co.uk

They didn’t, MR shacks were retired in Sept 1971.
The ‘Cod’ war kicked of during late 1973, firmly in the Nimrod period, 42 Sqn at St Mawgan being the first unit involved, followed by the Kinloss wing.
This action led to the peace time fishery protection and ‘Tapestry’ roles of the Nimrod before that was mostly passed on to MAFF in the mid ’80s.

Paul,

Just looked at your profile and I noted the aviation artist connection.

If I remember things correctly Tim O’Brien did four paintings for Newark in the 1990s, which were used to produce prints.

TG517 featured in one of those paintings dropping mail to a Royal Navy ship on one of the Operation Heliotrope sorties, the original painting is currently displayed in Newark’s café.

The second Hastings painting showed TG517 in its Berlin Airlift Days – Operation Plainfare.

The Shackleton print featured WR977 over Grand Harbour Malta.

The Vulcan print featured XM594 over Lincoln Cathedral.

Like with the Shackleton Association there is a link to Tim O’Brien’s website on Newark’s Associates page.

I hope this further information helps.

Paul,

Not sure how many Shackletons saw service in the “Cod Wars” – indeed which one, as I believe that the dispute lasted several years?

Up until early 1970s some Squadrons were still using Mk.3s, before transferring onto Nimrods – a couple of books here http://www.newarkairmuseum.org/shop.htm feature many stories from WR977 that is displayed at Newark.

I remember the local MP for Newark Ted Bishop advising my school’s aviation society in 1976/77 that he had just retuned from a Nimrod sortie over Iceland.

The AEW.2s obviously also continued until the early 1990s, until replaced with the Sentry, but not sure whether they were involved.

Have you tried the Shackleton Association? There’s a link on the Associates page of Newark’s website.

As an aside Newark’s Hastings TG517 flew 4 Icelandic “Cod War” patrols – Operation Heliotrope; and it still carries the 4 fish on its nose to denote those sorties.