More About War Planning in Singapore 1965

.....a personal message from the CinC Transport Command, the fearsome Air Marshal Sir Kenneth Cross, to Air Commander Far East which stated simply: "You have more of my aircraft than I do. Please send some back."

We, the four Victor officers, worked in a large, windowless, air-conditioned office on the top floor of the HQ building - then one of the very few air-conditioned offices. Apart from we four, only two or three very senior officers on the permanent staff of the HQ were on the list of those permitted access to our office. All our classified material was stored in a very large safe in one corner of the room. Incongruously, we also kept our supplies of biscuits, powdered milk, sugar and coffee in the safe. Only the same four officers had the combination to the safe and we changed it first thing every Monday morning without fail. Because each combination was a lengthy sequence of numbers, each week we chose a place on the huge map of south-east Asia that occupied most of one wall and based the new combination on the latitude and longitude of that place. It required two of us at a time to change the combination – not only for security reasons but also in case we made a mess of the procedure! In fact on one occasion two of the officers managed to lock the safe closed partway through the combination changing procedure. It took the safe-breaking experts over 4 hours to get into the safe and reset the mechanism! When they had left, we had, of course, to change the combination again.

A fascinating thing about my job was the circulation file of all the most important signals that had reached the HQ in the previous 24 hours. The file included copies of highly classified signals as well as more mundane ones. It even included copies of the frequent personal messages between the commanders. The very fact that this file was circulated through two or three dozen people down to flight lieutenant level suggested that the need-to-know principle did not apply in Singapore. We signed for it on the front cover when we took it into our hands and obtained a signature when we handed it - but no-one ever checked to see that the contents were unchanged! One day, during a week when a large number of Transport Command aircraft were sitting unserviceable on the ground at Tengah awaiting spares, we were all highly amused by a personal message from the CinC Transport Command, the fearsome Air Marshal Sir Kenneth Cross, to Air Commander Far East which stated simply: "You have more of my aircraft than I do. Please send some back."

A few days after my arrival at the HQ I had become aware of a single well-thumbed copy of an operation order secreted in a corner of our safe under a pile of other stuff. It was classified Top Secret UK Eyes Only. I was told to study it. The name of the order was Operation Icing and its contents were frightening. It had been signed by the Air Commander but where it should have been countersigned for authenticity by the Deputy Commander there was a blank space - the Deputy Commander was an Australian. It had, apparently never been formally issued and our copy was thought to be the only copy extant .

One day the Chief of the Defence Staff, Admiral of the Fleet Lord Mountbatten, came on a visit. He was allowed in, naturally, but his ADC and other hangers-on had to wait outside, to their great chagrin. In spite of his magnificent white uniform with rows of medal ribbons and gold rank rings halfway up each arm, Lord Mountbatten seemed weary and ill-at-ease. Nevertheless he found time to have a friendly chat with each of us individually – as friendly as protocol allowed between junior officers and a 5-star Admiral. Between us we briefed Lord Mountbatten on Operation Spherical. Our Boss also briefed him on 'Operation Icing'. CDS  listened intently, then studied the document in silence and finally asked, of no-one in particular it seemed to me, "Why did I not know about this?" We had no answer to that. I did wonder, frequently, who had conceived the plan and ordered it to be written.

The entrance door to our office was protected by a combination lock to which only the four officers on detachment from the UK had the combination. Because of this we were not obliged at night to lock away working documents classified up to Secret and our huge wall map of Indonesia showings routes and targets was protected by a simple curtain. Surprisingly I thought, there was nothing to stop any one of us letting ourselves in at any time we wished to work alone and such was the mystique which surrounded medium bomber activities that not a single HQ officer would have questioned our right to be in our office alone. On at least two occasions when I was first in I was convinced that someone had been in the office overnight because I recognised that some papers and documents had been moved. I reported this but was told firmly to mind my own business!

No-one seemed to take the idea of using Victors or Vulcans to drop lots of 1,000lb bombs on Indonesia very seriously. The only really noticeable effect of 'confrontation' to most RAF personnel was that the RAF transport aircraft carrying out their regular flights between Gan, Car Nicobar, or Ceylon and Singapore had to make a lengthy diversion around the northern tip of Sumatra before flying down the centre of the Straits of Malacca, taking care to keep out of Indonesian air space. My two-month detachment eventually extended to almost eight months because I was keen to stay and no-one else at Gaydon was in a hurry to replace me.

Some time in late 1964 we learned that Bomber Command had given their approval for Vulcan bombers to take over the Victor's role in Operation Spherical because, following the unexpected demise of the Valiants, many of the Victor 1s were scheduled to be converted into tankers. For several weeks we were kept fully occupied re-writing all the operational plans to take into account the different capabilities of the Vulcan - for example, they could carry only twenty one 1,000lb conventional bombs in their bomb bay. Since I was even less familiar with the Vulcan's ECM equipments than I had been with the Victor's, I felt that I was floundering somewhat, but still no-one ever questioned my competence to write these operational orders. We were told that Vulcan qualified replacements would be arriving to take over when suitable officers had been trained up! Before they arrived we had to organise the deployment of eight Vulcans from UK to Singapore to practice the procedures. For a picture of these Vulcans at Gan, where we met them to give an operational briefing in late January 1965, click here.

By the time I left Changi, without meeting or even hearing from my replacement, all the the RAF's Valiant aircrew were being reassigned to other duties as a result of the withdrawal of Valiants from service. Thus I had no job to go back to at Gaydon and I was posted instead to HQ No 3 Group at Mildenhall as a personnel staff officer – and my RAF career was subsequently changed for ever in a way that I could not possibly have foreseen.

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