Will Laidlaw - Apache over Libya

All teams end, all good things pass. We all have new tasks, new projects and challenges. In early 2014 I took command of one of our Apache Regiments and set about readying the new team for Afghanistan and everything else.

I wrote the last lines of this small piece of aviation history sitting in the late afternoon sun just a few miles north of the Barry M. Goldwater ranges in Arizona, USA. With the USAF F-16s roaring out north and flying low over Gila Bend Auxiliary Airfield, I contemplated our missions racing hard into and out of Libya, and where our story began. We train in Arizona, grateful guests of the United States, and we learn to fight and survive in the world’s best attack helicopter. On this visit JB was in charge of teaching a new cohort of aircrew. Their first Hellfire down range, the new graduates of CTR 16 were already settling into their squadrons and getting ready for Afghanistan and whatever comes next. Jay Lewis was also teaching – his speciality being weapons – and 656 showed up too, refined, agile and setting the pace for everyone else to try and keep up with. Mark Hall was their resident instructor. On that same day, over in Afghanistan, Charlie Tollbrooke was flying as usual and Doug Reid was there too, both of them putting their shoulders to the task. Back in the UK, Little Shippers had taken on a civilian instructional role and was teaching our fledgling Apache pilots, soldiers whom John Blackwell had taught the basics of helicopter flight. John had stopped just short of retirement and was allowed to train as an instructor after all. The careers people recognized that although contributing to another cycle in Afghanistan was what they had demanded, his activities in Libya qualified just as well!

Of the ten who flew Apache strike missions into Libya, six are now instructors, four of them on the Apache. All teams end, but their skills have been reinvested. Meanwhile, in Devonport, the mighty O is about to slip and proceed after a long refit. In Portsmouth, HMS Illustrious has come alongside for the last time. And up in Rosyth the tremendous 65,000-tonne HMS Queen Elizabeth has launched, an exclusive bottle of 25-year-old Bowmore tapped on her hull. All ready for whatever comes next.

It has been three years since the summer of 2011. Enough time has passed for those who lived it to settle into other projects, reflect and lend their memories. I wrote to Nick Stevens when thanking him for organizing our first reunion in 2013:

Sir,

You are an excellent operations man. Civilian life suits you, but I declare that you are wasted upon it. An outstanding evening, very much enjoyed.

On other news – we should write…

And so we gathered the team, described the project and resolved to tell our story, from our memories, just as it happened that extraordinary summer.

All guntape stills are taken from defenceheadquarters on YouTube. As such, the following twelve images are Crown Copyright