CHAPTER 7

ACHTUNG – ENGLANDER’S BOOTS!

Exchange postings are marvellous things. Intended as a way of improving understanding between NATO’s and other allied air forces, they undoubtedly fulfil that remit. But there are additional benefits. Ideas may be poached and brought back to the parent air force; different and exciting aircraft may be flown; and of course there are opportunities for aircrew, plus their wives and families, to enjoy living abroad and to soak up a different culture. Some would say that an exchange tour gets in the way of a high-flying RAF career, and for those who are intent on ascending the slippery promotion ladder as quickly as possible that might be true. But I’ve known plenty who have still done very well after also having enjoyed an exchange, while in any case one always has the opportunity to say ‘no thank you’.

The Tornado programme has evolved over the years. Initially, exchanges were limited by the nuclear role; the UK’s national weapon sensitivities hindered inbound exchanges to its strike squadrons. But the strike role disappeared, and now the situation is easier. The term ‘wives and families’ could need adjusting, too, for at least one RAF Tornado squadron has recently hosted a USAF lady WSO as its exchange officer.

I personally have no regrets about my own tour with the Norwegians, flying the little F-5 Freedom Fighter. I’d better not say that it was a three-year holiday – but it wasn’t far off! On return to a Jaguar squadron as a flight commander I met Steve Randles, who was one of a host of extremely lively first tourists who already had their feet well under the table. They were having a lot of fun, were extremely sharp, and we all enjoyed ourselves. Several years later, on taking over my Tornado squadron, I found to my delight that Steve would be my deputy. He had, by then, three tours on the ‘Fin’ under his belt, as well as experience in the Gulf, so as a new boy on the jet I picked his brains a lot. It is a pleasure for me to renew his friendship by way of this story of his own exchange tour in Bavaria – which certainly sounds enticing.

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WING COMMANDER STEVE RANDLES (RETD)

I thought it was the end of my exchange tour before I was even a week into it. I even had a fleeting thought that it might be the end of any RAF career I might have. I was leading four German air force Tornados from Lechfeld on a low-level training mission in southern Germany. The visibility in Bavaria is usually very good, but that day it was a little hazy and forward visibility into the afternoon sun was not great. At the limit of vision I began to discern an airfield – a very big airfield. A quick look at the map display showed nothing. A glance left and behind showed me that the other three aircraft had closed up from tactical formation into what could only be described as a loose gaggle behind me. I asked the WSO if he was happy with the navigation kit and with where we were. He was, and any slight chuckle there might have been in his voice was lost on me as panic started to rise. Another glance forward confirmed that we were closing at 450 knots with something that was starting to look like Heathrow. Two very long, parallel runways, huge parking aprons and a multitude of modern buildings; it was a large international airport. We were now so close that we were inevitably going to overfly at least some part of it. But my WSO, far from being concerned, was encouraging me to go faster and get lower, and the other aircraft weren’t holding back either. I was convinced that we were all for the high jump and that I, as the leader, was surely for the highest jump of all.

The runway and approach lights were not illuminated and, as far as I could see, there were no aircraft to be seen either on the ground or in the air – and the moment passed. There were no calls on the emergency radio frequency, the other three moved back into tactical formation, and we continued on our way. When pressed, my WSO admitted that he and the others in the formation had planned my little shock. They had correctly guessed that I was unaware of the construction of Munich’s new international airport. Although nearing completion it was not yet marked on any charts. It opened a few months later and I henceforth always gave it a wide berth. This was not to be the last time on my tour that I encountered German humour.

My interest in an exchange had been sparked during my first tour on Jaguars. On 6 Squadron we had had two exchange pilots: a Dutchman and a Frenchman. I struck up a particular friendship with the Frenchman (Bernard Molard, who contributed beautifully to Jaguar Boys). From that moment, an exchange tour always featured on my list of preferences for next posting.

But following that tour I was sent to Tornados, joining the newly-formed 16 Squadron at Laarbruch in Germany. Four years later, after continual requests for an exchange, my flight commander, Bob Hudson, told me that the posters were offering a tour with the West German air force flying Tornados at Lechfeld. I should like to say I jumped at the opportunity, but that was not the case. The exchange I really wanted was with the Canadians flying the F-18 or with the USAF on the F-16, both of which were coming up around the time I would finish my tour. Despite having lived in Germany for four years, I couldn’t speak much German beyond ordering a meal, some beers and the bill. I also had my wife and two young children to consider. This message was relayed back to my posting officer, who replied that policy was now that only pilots currently flying single-seat aircraft would be considered for single-seat exchanges. It was the Luftwaffe or nothing.

Prior to 16 Squadron, Bob had been on exchange with the Germans at the navigator training school at Fürstenfeldbruck. Another navigator at Laarbruch, Al Sawyer, had flown Luftwaffe F-4Fs at Wittmundhafen. Between them, Bob, Al and their wives provided valuable insights to what would lie ahead. And after a great deal of discussion with my wife, I accepted the posting. Four weeks later, the F-18 and F-16 exchanges were offered to friends of mine on other Tornado squadrons, one of whom had never flown single-seat aircraft. Such is life.

I spent the next six months at the RAF’s German language school at Rheindahlen. The assumption was that course members, all destined for posts in Germany, had no German to start with – not far from reality – and instruction was designed to get us to linguist standard. It was hard work; seven hours a day, five days a week for six months. By the end I could speak the language to a very high standard, while my wife received 100 hours of tuition to give her a grounding before being cast adrift in Bavaria. The children received no language instruction at all.

Luftwaffe bases do not have service-provided quarters for personnel; everybody, single or married, lives in private accommodation in a widespread area around the base. Years earlier there had been an RAF exchange pilot at Lechfeld flying the F-104, but during the Luftwaffe’s conversion to the Tornado the position had been vacant – so I had no predecessor to help me. I had been allocated a squadron liaison officer, but he resided far from where we wanted to live and couldn’t really help with finding accommodation. So my first serious use of my new language skills was in legal discussions about renting houses. Tricky! Especially as the RAF had taught me Hochdeutsch – the equivalent of Queen’s English – whereas Bavarian seemed to be completely different with a vocabulary all its own. Nevertheless, we found a very nice house in the small town of Kaufering, about twelve miles from Lechfeld.

Being current on the Tornado I went straight to my operational German squadron. The first thing that struck me was the lack of history on display in the headquarters; quite different to an RAF squadron. In fact there was little in the way of ‘military’ decoration at all. However, there was an old pair of what looked like RAF flying boots nailed to one of the beams. Odd, I thought, but didn’t ask. For obvious reasons, there was no reference to events prior to the reinstatement of the Luftwaffe in 1956. Even the squadrons themselves were newly numbered, with only historical air defence units remaining active – for example the Richthofen Wing and the Mölders Wing survived. I was to fly with the 2nd Squadron of Jagdbombergeschwader 32 (JaBoG32 – Fighter-Bomber Wing 32 in English).

In the RAF the basic unit of air strength is the squadron, which has its own aircraft, aircrew and ground crew. In the Luftwaffe, the basic unit was the Wing, and it was the Wing that ‘owned’ the aircraft and ground crew. Each Wing comprised two squadrons of aircrew, which ‘borrowed’ aircraft from the Wing on a daily basis. Insignia and emblems on the aircraft were those of the Wing. I was quite thankful for this, as Lechfeld’s Wing emblem was quite distinguished, whereas at some point during the formation of the new Luftwaffe, the 2nd Squadron had decided to call themselves the ‘flying monsters’ and had a badge to match. It’s possible this may have been a surreptitious reference to the old Luftwaffe, as I’ve seen similar insignia in photographs of WWII Messerschmitts.

A major difference to my working life was that the two Lechfeld squadrons, as indeed at all GAF bases, operated a shift system. With insufficient aircraft for two full units, each operated either the Frühschicht – early shift – or the Spätschicht – late shift. The early squadron came in very early, breakfasted together in the crewroom, flew the aircraft in the morning, had lunch together and then went home. The late squadron came in for lunch, flew in the afternoon and again at night, and then went home. The squadrons alternated on a weekly basis.

Another major difference to come to terms with was the flying order book. In the RAF, the FOB lays down comprehensive boundaries within which one may operate the aircraft. In the GAF, the FOB laid down precisely how most things were to be done with little room or freedom to deviate. There was no opportunity to ‘freestyle’.

The pilots and WSOs were all very welcoming and curious at the arrival of their new exchange officer. They had all trained in the USA and spoke excellent English, which was both helpful and a hindrance. Helpful because, if I got stuck with the language, someone would always rescue me. But a hindrance for the same reason; had I not had so much help my language ability would have progressed far more quickly. I was also fortunate in knowing one of the pilots already. ‘Ossi’ Reinert had been one of my instructors at the TTTE so, having completed the arrival formalities, I was handed over to him for my first Luftwaffe flight.

Steve Randles’ first flight with his German squadron is officially marked.

I had flown German Tornados before, the TTTE having aircraft from all three participating nations. There were minor differences: the take-off flap angle differed slightly, giving different take-off speeds, but as Lechfeld is 1,800 feet above sea-level the speeds were different anyway. And, while the E-scope in the front cockpit of RAF aircraft was purely a TFR display, the German one also repeated the GMR display. That, however, compromised the quality of the TFR picture. Moreover, given that the WSO in the boot was adept at working the radar and was the only one to have the controls to do so, I preferred to concentrate on flying and looking out of the window. This was appreciated by the WSOs I flew with; it seemed that some of the German ex-F-104 pilots got too involved in the WSO’s task, irritating them with ‘helpful’ advice.

It was hard to come to terms with the difference in ethos between the two air forces. In the RAF at that time the squadron was effectively your way of life. You also lived on a married patch, with social life revolving around squadron or station events. But the crews on Luftwaffe squadrons definitely viewed their service simply as a job. At the end of the day they all went their separate ways, having very little mutual social contact outside work. Fortunately, and quite by chance, the road where I had found a house was known locally as the ‘uniformed street’. There were perhaps only a dozen houses, but all except one of us went to work in a uniform. We had a policeman one side of us and a Luftwaffe staff sergeant engineer, who worked in a large maintenance bunker in Landsberg, the other side. Opposite was a Luftwaffe helicopter pilot from Penzing and the deputy boss of a Hawk missile battery. We made very good friends with our neighbours, and remain in contact with most of them even now.

I really liked the routine of the early shift, the communal breakfast at the start of the day before getting on with the job of flying, and the lunch together. Most of the aircrew would then go home, but a small core would stay behind and play cards for an hour or so. I watched with great interest their games of Schafkopf. It is a very confusing game, and the suits are different, too; but I gradually got to grips with the basics and was, after a time, invited to join in. This cost me a fair amount of money to start with, the game being played for a pfennig a point. A newcomer in a card school of Bavarian sharks is easy prey, but by the time I left I was adept, invariably coming away a little in credit.

Daily flying, just as in the RAF, usually comprised two and four aircraft formations carrying out low-level simulated attacks against a variety of targets. But, while the RAF would often assign one aircraft in the formation to act as an aggressor, enabling bombers to practise tactics against air defence fighters, the Luftwaffe didn’t do this. When I suggested it might be useful training, the response was that it was not in the FOB. I pointed out that FOB didn’t say that we couldn’t do it – but that argument didn’t prevail; there was nothing in the FOB to say that we could, therefore we couldn’t! Another thing we didn’t do in the Luftwaffe was air combat training. On days when the weather was unsuitable for low-level training, an RAF squadron would often carry out medium-level combat. Not so at Lechfeld. We were a fighter-bomber wing and air combat was not in our remit. Consequently, on those days when we couldn’t fly at low level we would fly navigation exercises on top of the cloud and carry out simulated attacks using the radar.

One interesting aspect to my German flying was AAR. (At the time I flew Tornados at Laarbruch, only UK-based RAF squadrons practised AAR; it wasn’t until the year before the Gulf Conflict that the role was introduced to RAF Germany.) The Luftwaffe did not have any large refuellers such as the Victor or VC10. They would occasionally practise with the USAF using a specially adapted KC-135. This was always exciting, as to convert the aircraft’s rigid boom into the probe and drogue system used by the Tornado they simply added a short length of flexible hose and a basket onto the end of their boom. In order to get the fuel to flow following a successful contact you had to position your aircraft to achieve two 90° bends in the hose. With even the slightest twitch whilst in contact, the hose with its double bend would start snaking around and doing double back flips. Under these circumstances, it was easy to wipe off the probe and sensors on the right side of the fuselage. Thankfully, I got away with it on the couple of times I tried it.

But I also became a tanker pilot. For tactical use, the Luftwaffe had a specially adapted fuel tank which could be fitted to one of the shoulder pylons under the Tornado’s fuselage. This tank had a hose and drogue unit within it almost identical to those fitted to RAF tankers, allowing the aircraft to act as a small refueller. I was assigned to fly this one day and expected a thorough brief, but none was forthcoming until I asked. Then, it was quite concise: “Not below 1,000 feet, straight and level if you can, but no more than forty-five degrees of bank if you have to.” Not enough information really, as the unwary could certainly embarrass themselves; the special tank equipment was an integral part of the Tornado’s own fuel system, so there was potential for the ‘tanker’ to be sucked dry. Anyway, I became a tanker pilot. I also experienced it from the other end of the hose, and I must admit that tanking behind a Tornado at 1,000 feet overland was quite exciting.

I soon found my feet with the squadron, and after about a year I was again leading a four-ship on a simulated attack. One of the older hands, Wolfgang Leuthner, had selected the simulated target, a substantial dam on the fringe of the Alps south of Lechfeld. I expressed my opinion that it was not a very suitable target for the American 500 lb bombs, which were the largest that we had available. This was accepted, but everyone was eager for the plan to go ahead. We had no photograph, so I only had the 1:50,000 scale map to go by. From the map I could see that the dam, with its large lake behind, was in the foothills of the mountains, posing a bit of a problem for the escape route. Nevertheless, I planned what I thought to be a suitable and workable attack and briefed accordingly. I clearly hadn’t learned from my earlier experience at Munich airport that the Germans can be quite mischievous. Nor did I pick up the mounting mirth in the planning room.

As we approached the start of the simulated attack run against the dam the terrain did not really look as I expected it to be. For a start, the mountains were a lot higher and a lot closer than I anticipated. The planned attack from my initial point for the start of the attack was about a minute and a half long; about twelve nautical miles at the speed we were flying. As we set off, all looked good. Features came and went as depicted on my map. But about halfway to the target I started to get very twitchy. First, there was a huge mountain in front of me, getting rapidly closer; and second, I couldn’t see the large lake and dam at all. We were at 500 feet above the ground and the visibility was limited only by the curvature of the earth, but I still couldn’t see it. I gave it a few seconds longer and then gave up. The rapidly rising terrain behind where the dam and lake should have been was now very close and I had to turn away hard to avoid it. I was really annoyed with myself; I very seldom missed a target, especially one that I’d planned personally. There was little sympathy from the back-seater, who did his best to wind me up about missing such a large and obvious target.

Back at base, the other three crews all claimed hits on this easy target, which made me even more grumpy. It was only during the debrief that Wolfgang explained the problem. What I had taken to be a single contour line on the map just in front of the dam was in fact a dozen or more contour lines all superimposed on top of one another – because the dam and lake were actually on top of an 800-foot, near-vertical cliff. At 500 feet above the ground, the dam had actually been 300 feet above me on the attack run rather than well below me as I expected. I’d never even thought to look up in my vain efforts to find the dam. This target fooled other pilots new to the squadron, too. I don’t know whether the team tried to catch me out again during the time that I had left at Lechfeld, but if they did I never fell for it.

There were not many air weapons ranges in southern Germany so I didn’t drop as many practice bombs as I would have on an RAF squadron. However, we did enjoy the same armaments practice camps at the NATO base at Decimomannu, Sardinia. Now, the Germans take their health and well-being very seriously. In the hot Mediterranean summer we were all issued on arrival in Deci with tubes of what they called ‘Afrika Korps cream’ (!) – a very effective sun block. The German way of operating in Deci was a pleasant contrast from RAF methods, as they always flew about a forty-minute low-level route to the range at Capo Frasca. It was always the same track, as the Italians only authorised one route, but it was a pleasant change from the RAF’s high-intensity dash direct to the range.

Another aspect was that the Luftwaffe carried out night flying at Deci, whereas the RAF would usually be out sampling the delights of the local hostelries as soon as it got dark. Night flying again comprised one authorised route around the island, flown at 1,000 feet using TFR and culminating with a single practice bomb on the range.

It was on one of these night flights that I again fell foul of the dreaded FOB. There had been some discussion about the wind that evening. Because of the lack of full approach lighting on runway one-seven at Deci, night flying was only authorised if runway three-five was to be used and could be guaranteed to be in use for the duration of the night-flying period. On this particular night the wind was forecast to freshen and turn to favour runway one-seven at some point during the evening. The desire to achieve the monthly quota of flying hours got the better of those in charge, and a stream of about twelve aircraft was launched into a very dark night. I was towards the end of the sequence. Just before arriving at Capo Frasca my aircraft developed a problem and we lost the use of one of our hydraulic systems. We consulted the flight reference cards and took appropriate actions to mitigate the failure. However, the problem required us to land into the approach-end cable, which the hook at the rear of the aircraft would catch; we would be decelerated to a gentle, but firm halt.

The Mediterranean sea breeze had set in by now, and there was a good fifteen to twenty knots of tailwind on runway three-five. We hung around waiting for the last of the aircraft to land before making our approach, as the runway would be closed for a time after we took the cable. Everyone landed happily, albeit with a strengthening tailwind. By the time we were allowed to land, the tailwind had put us above the limit to take the cable on runway three-five, so I elected to land on runway one-seven. My WSO said, “Steve, we are not allowed to land on runway one-seven at night”. I acknowledged his concern but told him we were going to do it anyway as we would probably rip off the back of the aircraft if we landed at the other end. He went very quiet and said no more.

I don’t know what the concern about approach lighting on runway one-seven was all about, as the lights turned out to be far better than on most RAF runways I had flown from at night. We landed quite happily at the right spot on runway one-seven, took the cable and came to a smooth halt. As I shut down the engines I noticed that the reception committee was rather larger than you would normally expect in such circumstances.

I was met by every German officer with anything to do with flight operations, supervision and flight safety. All of them were keen to know why I had landed on runway one-seven when it was specifically forbidden by the FOB. All acknowledged the fact that the tailwind on runway three-five was too great to take the RHAG, but still none seemed to understand my decision. I felt a bit grumpy about the whole thing until I was taken aside by the officer whose decision it had been to continue with night flying despite the forecast. He thanked me for landing on runway one-seven; he would have been held responsible if I’d landed on runway three-five and the aircraft had suffered damage to the back end. This cheered me up no end.

The following year the Wing deployed instead to Beja in Portugal for four weeks in the summer, a new and pleasant experience to me. I had never been to Portugal before, and using the air weapons range just south of Lisbon, having flown a low-level route around the Algarve to get there, was interesting. Only one thing marred it; football’s World Cup ‘Italia 90’ was being played at the time. So each evening’s entertainment usually involved watching a football match and drinking a few beers. All was going really well until England met West Germany in the semi-final. I’m not really a football fan, but the squadron felt that I ought to be there to support ‘my’ team. The score was drawn at full time, and at the end of extra time was still one-all. Then it was on to penalties – and I ended up having to buy a lot of beer!

Towards the end of my tour at Lechfeld the base was to undergo a NATO Taceval. In the RAF this is a big event, invariably involving a number of smaller, internally generated exercises leading up the big one. This was not the case at Lechfeld; it all seemed a little low-key and I was seriously worried about whether the station would be ready for the visit. My concerns were unfounded, though, as the station took all that was thrown at them and performed to a high standard.

The three Taceval days were the busiest period of flying I experienced on the exchange – for an unexpected reason. Non-native English speakers are assessed by NATO on their language skills during the evaluation. The squadron’s answer to achieving a high score in this area was to get me to do all the briefings. So from the off I presented the met brief for the day, then planned and briefed the first task we were allocated. After flying that mission I naturally debriefed the crews, before being handed another mission that had been planned by different crew. This I then briefed, flew and debriefed. The same happened again for a third time. Three flights in one day, all under evaluation conditions. They were not particularly long flights, which helped me, but they really should have been; the Germans had not discovered that the longer they could stay airborne during Taceval, the fewer simulated air raids and chemical attacks they would have to endure.

The same happened on each of the remaining days of the evaluation, with the squadron scoring very highly on its language ability. Before the evaluators left, a Canadian praised me for my English. I was wearing a German flying suit and he clearly hadn’t noticed my RAF badges of rank, so I thanked him without feeling the need to enlighten him.

Following the Taceval was a flight designed to test our ability to bomb accurately. Crews took off individually, flew a specified route, attacked a simulated target at a specific time, and then dropped a practice bomb at Siegenburg range. Timing at the simulated target was critical and the bomb had to be within 100 feet of the target. As we were taxiiing out, my WSO told me he wasn’t happy with the way the navigation system was performing. I assured him that we would cope. Shortly after take-off the system degraded to a tertiary mode, leaving us very little by way of navigation information. I knew where we were and I had confidence that Wolfgang could give me everything we required to get to the target and then to Siegenburg range. It was early morning, and the visibility was not great, with a kind of milky opaqueness about the sky. After ten minutes I wasn’t so confident, and asked Wolfgang what he thought our heading was. He replied that it was something like 040 degrees, which agreed with what my HUD was showing. Why, then, was the sun showing dimly through the haze straight ahead? A number of rather quaint German expletives issued forth from the back seat as Wolfgang slewed the heading reference around to the correct datum. By now we were unsure of our position and heading towards the Czech border. I knew we hadn’t crossed the Danube, so I suggested that we stay on our current course until we came to the river and then make a decision whether to turn left or right depending on what we saw. The Danube came up and Wolfgang recognised a feature on it from which he could update the remnants of our navigation kit. Satisfied that all was now well, we went in search of our target.

It soon became apparent that, even if we flew direct, we would arrive too late and would earn a black mark for the squadron. He began to lament his lack of attention to the heading reference; however, I had flown with enough wily RAF navigators to know that all was not lost. One of the navigator/WSO’s tasks on sparking the nav kit into life was to enter the current time into the computer. So now it was a simple task to work out how long it was going to take us to get to the simulated target and make a small ‘adjustment’ to the input such that the recording of our time over target would show us to have arrived bang on. Another adjustment post-target, together with a short cut, would see us over Siegenburg on time, too! No black marks for the squadron and two ticks in the well-done column. Wolfgang was in awe of my guile, and spread his new-found wisdom around his colleagues.

I have a great interest in military history and would often try to engage my colleagues in conversation about Luftwaffe history. Most were reluctant, although the local Bavarian Weissbier helped a lot in loosening tongues. I took four aircraft and crews to RAF Coltishall one day and we went to the officers’ mess for lunch. Afterwards, in the ante-room, I found my boss, Major Unterstaller, looking pensively at one of the paintings on the wall. “Steve,” he said, “I have looked at all the paintings in the mess. Why are the Messerschmitts always in front of the Spitfires?” I smiled; it didn’t need a reply.

The person I had most response from about Luftwaffe history was Wolfgang Leuthner, he of the tricky dam. After about eighteen months on the squadron Wolfgang took me to a small, almost disused building on the far side of the airfield. Inside was a very interesting display of Lechfeld’s history during both world wars. It was sad that such artefacts were not allowed to be on open display. But as a result of my interest in their history, I became known as ‘der lezter Kriegsgefangener’ – the ‘last prisoner of war’, and I was always introduced to visiting German crews as such.

As a family we found living in Bavaria delightful. We were an hour’s drive from the Alps, which provided wonderful walking in the summer and skiing in the winter. We were also only an hour from Munich. Kaufering, where we lived, was on the Romantische Straße and had the river Lech running through it. Not five miles away was the pretty town of Landsberg, while the Ammersee and Starnbergersee lakes, both offering lovely walks and lively beer gardens, were on the way to Munich, It was hardly surprising, therefore, that almost everyone we knew came to visit. At some points we had the kids doubled up in one room, every other bedroom full, and visitors in the cellar, too. Fortunately, the cellar was warm and dry.

Der lezter Kriegsgefangener’ – the ‘last prisoner of war’. Steve Randles at ‘Stalag Luft Lechfeld’.

It wasn’t just friends, either. In order to gain and maintain an appropriate security clearance, RAF officers have to undergo a vetting procedure at regular intervals. An acquaintance had nominated me as a reference on one such review. I had acted in such a capacity for several people over the years and had never had to do more than complete a form and return it to the authorities. Not this time though; the official carrying out this review contacted me, saying he felt it important that he see me and carry out an interview. I was puzzled, but didn’t know enough about the system to query it. He asked for details of any local hotels that I knew and I offered to put him up as we were ‘vacant’ that week. The penny dropped when he said that he would be accompanied by his wife, and could she please stay too?

The seemingly endless procession of visitors had clearly not escaped the notice of our neighbours, leading to our being surprised one New Year’s eve. A large number of them, all dressed in travelling clothes and carrying suitcases, knocked on the door at midnight and enquired whether we had any vacancies. They placed a large sign by the front gate declaring the property to be ‘Randles Guesthouse’, with ‘vacancies always available’. They also brought several bottles of champagne with which to celebrate the New Year.

I was at Lechfeld throughout the period when things were happening in East Germany, indeed throughout the Soviet Union and the whole Warsaw Pact. The first evidence we saw was the influx of vast numbers of East Germans to our area. Many started moving to the West via Czechoslovakia or through Hungary and Austria into Bavaria. The Berlin Wall came down, but to be quite honest the full impact of that was not immediately apparent. My German colleagues were of mixed opinions on the whole process of reunification. All were excited at the prospect of the two countries becoming one again, but that was offset to a large degree by the realisation that it was going to cost them a great deal in taxes. Bringing the East up to western standards would mean that government spending in the West would be much reduced for many years. After I left, reunification had a great impact on the air force, with opportunities arising to train with and against many Soviet aircraft types. Indeed the Luftwaffe was able to offer training opportunities to the RAF during the run up to Gulf War One. But that would all be for later.

Steve with his German colleagues celebrating his last flight.

My exchange tour finished in 1990. After my final flight with JaBoG32 I was met by the squadron and station hierarchy together with all my new-found friends and colleagues, and we enjoyed a very fine lunch and a few Weissbiers together. Throughout my tour I had worn mainly German flying kit, but I found their flying boots, which were made of hard and durable leather, to be very uncomfortable. Consequently it had not been long before I’d started to wear my RAF boots, which were much more comfortable. Now, as I was about to leave the squadron for the last time, I was jumped on and my boots forcibly removed. Then they were nailed to the beam next to the pair I had seen when I’d first arrived. So now I knew; those were my F-104 predecessor’s boots, and he’d evidently had the same problem.

I returned to the RAF on 31 Squadron at RAF Brüggen as a flight commander. Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait just before I’d left Lechfeld, and a bare few weeks later I found myself leading four crews to Bahrain to join the Brüggen detachment at Muharraq.

My exchange tour was quickly history. It had been completely different to what I imagined it would be. There were sometimes frustrations but, on the whole, I feel very privileged to have been allowed to fly with the Luftwaffe and to experience the way another air force operates. As a family we made very good friends, perhaps not where I expected to find them, but good friends nonetheless. Our lives are richer for our time in Bavaria.