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Sorry if I misled you Bruno. The White 'Cold War' livery was very much a thing of the '60s. By the '70s common sense brought the proper cam back, so I doubt that the Buccaneer, Jaguar or Tornado ever wore it, but there definitely were white Javelin, Lightning, early Phantom and of course, all the V-Bombers. I saw them all at RAF Akrotiri (Cyprus), the not so well known RAFG airbase. By the time I moved to Bruggen the cam was back on.
As for the Laarbruch Banana Jets ... I never saw one. I was just aware of their presence, just up the road. Being in the same regiment (21 Sigs), we often fraternized with all the other RAFG based Pongos, but we were quite aloof from the Penguins. The pilots were all Rodnies of course, and lived in a different world.
Translation ... Pongo = Army = Where the Army goes, the pong goes.
. Penguin = RAF Ground crew = All flap and no fly.
. Banana Jet = Buccaneer = Just stand back and look at it.
. Rodney = Officer = Dunno why, but it was a tri-service handle.
Aaaah, happy days indeed. As we half expected a Russian A-bomb at any time (1st strike wins the game), at the end of every day, we spent a lot of time celebrating (Hic) that we were still alive.
Keep on snippin' ... Johnny.
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