RAF Air Movements 1953-1961

Served Air Movements, RAF Lyneham early 1955 to Jan 1958 - saw the Suez crisis - trained, with a Lyneham colleague, as an Air Despatcher (with the Army) 47 Company RASC - dropped personnel, small freight and equipment, large cargoes, jeeps and field guns from Hastings aircraft. - seconded to Christmas Island for the first two Hydrogen Bomb tests 1956 and 1957. Dropped parachute suppies to outlying Islands. Spent 14 days under canvas at ground zero on Malden Island backloading the recording equipment - using the last three Dakotas in RAF Service. Managed to reach full Corporal. As I appear to be the only Army trained RAF Air Despatcher (my colleague never put his training to use) I was invited back to Lyneham in October 2006 to fly on a training sortie on a Hercules with the Army to compare Air Despatching over 50 years.