Kinda late, I know.
The following was posted on another forum I frequent:-
People often ask (though not in these words) how maritime reconnaissance can have any impact on their lives, about what enemy those aircraft protect us from; about what the point is now the Cold War's ancient history, and whenever I hear that I shake my head as I look back to a sunny day in 1996, to a sea as still as death, and to the words I'll never forget, said by my father as he gazed towards the stern of our boat, the UL251 Chalice II, and his face went pale;
"Calum, we're going down."
To this day I swear the blood froze in my veins.
"Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. This is the Chalice II, we are sinking off the east coast of Rhona..."
One radio transmission was enough; the cry for aid was out, and the well-oiled machine that is Search And Rescue went to work.
We were lucky, for all that neither of us could swim a stroke; we were only a hundred or so yards offshore when Dad realised she was about to go, and we leaped from the bows with a rope as she dropped away from beneath us; we couldn't have picked a better place or day to be shipwrecked if we'd tried, and two hours later we were onshore in a warm pub with hot food and cold beer in our bellies.
I can only just begin to imagine what it must be like to hear those words with no land in sight, but I do share one thing in common with the many, many ordinary people who've been in that situation over the years; there was a friendly eye in the sky watching me on that day, an eye with a hotline to the everyday heroes in a yellow helicopter who came to lift my father and I from that rocky shore; an eye called the Hawker Siddeley Nimrod.
When the wind gets up and the surf turns white, as you haul the helm over with a cry of, 'Fuck this, we're going home', that eye is always on the edge of a fisherman's mind; knowing that it isn't just gods watching over you is a comforting thing indeed, and when the boat begins to heel over and you hear the skipper call 'Mayday', you're truly glad to know that the people aboard that old plane know where you are and that a Westland Sea King helicopter is only one radio call away, ready and waiting to lift you from the surf.
I now live in the Findhorn Foundation, firmly on dry land, and all too often I hear people speak of the aircraft coming and going from nearby RAF Kinloss as a nuisance, a source of unwanted noise. Those people don't understand what I'm listening to when I hear that old bird revving her engines up; they have no idea that the Nimrod represents a friendly eye in the sky making the ocean a safer place for ordinary seamen just like me. They don't know about sinking boats, about ships caught in storms or about burning oil rigs, until some other, better-informed person comes along to explain to them about how no boat is unsinkable, about how much of the clothes on their backs and the food on their tables and the fuel in their cars travelled by sea, about how that noise is coming from an ever-watchful eye in the sky that'll be among the first to know when a ship is in trouble out there.
Now, on March 31st 2010, that eye will be closed as the Nimrod MR2 is withdrawn from service.
I know new aircraft will replace them, just as I know a good number of people who owe their lives to those old planes and the people who flew them; I am one of the many, many people who have over the years found themselves praying to any God (or airman, I'm not fussy) who might be listening to get them off this sinking ship alive.
To me, the enemy those aircraft protect us from is know as Davy Jones; those aircraft stand, ever vigilant, between guys like me and the deep blue sea. Search And Rescue may not mean much to most, but it means a lot to those of us who work or have worked on the ocean, and Maritime Reconnaissance is a term that might as well be joined at the hip to it.
It's the men in the yellow helicopters who'll haul you out the water when the shit hits the fan and the bows aim themselves for the depths. First, they must find you, and that's where the boys in the Nimrod are the best friends a sailor could wish for.
So, from the bottom of my heart, to everyone from 201, 120 and 42(R) Squadrons RAF, and to everyone who's ever had a part in keeping our eye in the sky aloft and the seas around us friendly – thankyou.
Your work has touched every coastal community in Scotland; the people along these coasts who do not have friends and family you helped lift from the ocean's relentless grip must be few and far between.
Health and long life to you all.
Cheers,
Cal.
Calum Wallace, the original poster, was talking from experience. AFAIK, he was planning on sending this as a message to the relevant squadron commanders and the local press.
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