Good to hear 788 is going inside for the winter, and very nice to see your continuing hard work.

Excellent work to get those airbrakes working, congratulations.

I did a lot of work at Wethersfield in the early ’60’s.

Now a daft story, I worked on practically all the airfields in Suffolk Essex and Norfolk in that period, and had been issued with a pass at Bentwaters, although it named the base as “81 TAC FTR WG”. The expiration date field on the pass had “Indefinite” because I was a frequent visitor. This held their nuclear reaction force and so was the highest security unit I visited. One day at Wethersfield I was measuring up work on the disused runway used to park aircraft, I had driven into the base unchallenged, and as usual had swanned straight on to the airfield. Naughty, as I should have seen someone before doing so.

So up screams a posse of US police, all official. I showed them the pass, and their attitude changed immediately, on seeing 81 TAC, from very aggressive, to “yes sir, no sir” and I was allowed to carry on unhindered.

That pass was magic for many years until one day I strayed into the Victor Alert area at Bentwaters , by mistake, where armed aircraft stood at readiness. Up screams a couple of big jeeps and I was ordered out of my car at gunpoint, made to lean against it with my hands on the roof, and thoroughly frisked. then I was taken to the local US police guardroom and put in a cell right next to the commanders office. I could hear him on the phone to his boss over on the main site saying they had arrested someone with a strange pass, he was quite excited and said he thought they had caught a NATO spy, who apparently had been sent to test their security. After that I had to get a new pass, the type I had had long been superseded, and all new ones were issued with an expiry date.

Sorry, although I served alongside 13 sqdn I had no knowledge of their sorties it was all kept pretty tight. I was aware that occasional flights took off from Kabrit and landed away, possibly going to UK.

Mike asked if had flown in WS588. Answer is, yes several times, the first was on 11 Oct 54, doing a gun test, which was very shortly after joining the squadron. The last was two trips on 21 May 57, doing night practice interceptions only a few days before my time on the sqdn was up

We lived in an elevated position in the village of Elham, the front of our bungalow faced almost due east and the front lawn gave us a good view of the sky. I certainly remember watching the twisting contrails, and the aircraft wheeling about and hearing the bursts of fire. Also seeing an Me109 zooming across the village and crashing onto the hill a few hundred yards away from us, and another going down almost vertically about half a mile away. I could still take you to the spots where they crashed. Another powerful memory is being in our allotment with my father when there was a dogfight overhead and 4 aircraft wewnt down wothin a mile or two of us. The doctors house was just across the road approached by a flight of steps with a low wall each side. The doctor had been called out when two men were brought in and carried up the steps and one sat on the walls each side at the top, shouting at each other, while between them stood a soldier with a rifle. They were waiting for the doctor to come to attend them. Saw no more as my father took us home.