Having passed selection, I was now a newly ‘badged’ SAS trooper and had managed to come full circle in my career. After reaching the rank of warrant officer I was once again a private soldier, as I had been almost eighteen years earlier. But I was happy – very happy, and I was happier still as I left the commanding officer’s office after my welcoming interview.
The C.O. had outlined the details of my new appointment as a badged member and I was hugely relieved to learn that I would not be required to sneak through jungles with an enormous Bergen on my back. Nor would I be expected to abseil down the side of a building and leap through a window, in an attempt to rescue some helpless hostages. At my stage of life, it seemed highly likely that any hostages would just have sympathy with me, and feel it be more appropriate for them to lead me out of the besieged building, to save me from tripping over and doing myself an injury. I don’t think I was ever the type of person who was cut out to deal with a real, close-quarter terrorist threat. The mere thought of confronting someone armed to the teeth, and intent on killing me filled me with dread. I just instinctively knew that there would come a time, in any confrontation, when I would simply throw down my weapon, turn on my heels and run away screaming for help. (Not the sort of image the public at that time expected of a heroic, swashbuckling SAS trooper.) I was a married man with three children and a mortgage for goodness sake! The last thing I wanted to do was to get involved with slapping anyone around – let alone pumping bullets into someone.
It, therefore, came as a great relief, when I was told that I would not be joining one of the regiment’s four Sabre Squadrons but, was instead to be posted to the Operational Research Department – better known to everyone as Ops Research. My new role would be to look at improving methods of dealing with the ever-present threat of aircraft hijacks.
The remit I was given was to liaise with the officer commanding Counter Revolutionary Warfare (CRW) wing and the operations officer, and produce proposals to improve the regiment’s capabilities to deal with any hijack situation, on any type of aircraft, anywhere in the world. The hijacking of passenger jets was popular at that time. It was generally considered to be only a matter of time before the UK antiterrorist team would be called upon to deal with a life-threatening hostage situation.
The SP team trained regularly to improve the techniques required to storm an aircraft, with the use of a mock-up version of a standard modern-day passenger jet. Which was on the grounds of the Pontrilas Army Training Area just outside Hereford. The Ops Officer and I decided that it would, more than likely, be beneficial if the team were given access to real aircraft to practice with, and we would, therefore, need the cooperation of British Airways which was then a nationalised company. In due course a request was put forward through Group Headquarters and the Ministry of Defence, for a meeting with BA, a short while later a meeting was arranged to be held at their Headquarters in Queens Building, by Terminal 2, at London’s Heathrow Airport.
Chairing the meeting was, the then, General Manager Operations BA – Douglas Newham. Douglas had been a Royal Air Force pilot with Bomber Command during the Second World War, and for his many exploits he had been awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross. We got along well together, and we would later become good friends. He made it clear to us that the prime minister of the day, Margaret Thatcher, had instructed him to provide us with whatever resources the company had to hand.
Before the meeting closed, and we all retired to the boardroom for lunch with the chairman, Sir John King, it was agreed that British Airways would make two things available to the regiment.
The first was access to any of the wide range of aircraft, then operated by them, for the unrestricted use of the UK antiterrorist team. Provided the company received reasonable notice, then an aircraft would be positioned onto an RAF airfield, normally Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, and left entirely at the regiment’s disposal. The SP team would then be able to practice assault techniques in a much more realistic environment, than a prefabricated mock-up shell.
The second thing that was agreed, was that they would provide me with anything that I may need, in order for me to build up my cover to become a convincing airline pilot. We came up with the suggestion that if I received sufficient training, then I was likely to be able to get on board a hijacked aircraft, provided the negotiators could reassure the hijackers that a change of crew was necessary.
I managed to convince everyone around the table that to become a credible airline pilot, experienced on just about any type of airliner, would take much more than simply donning an appropriate uniform. Apart from learning to fly a wide range of aircraft, from the small turboprop boneshakers used for island-hopping around the UK, to the very latest 747 transcontinental jets and the supersonic Concorde, I would also need to become totally familiar with the everyday routines of an airline pilot. The only way to do that was to, effectively, become a British Airways Senior First Officer. And so, the stall was set for my next three years of employment as a private soldier, more often referred to as a ‘Jundi’, in the Special Air Service.