What do you mean we're going?
"You're going; we've got a day low-level sortie."
What do you mean "a day low-level sortie?"
We had already determined, the decision had been,
there will never be a day low-level attack by a Tornado
against an airfield; it was deemed too dangerous.
And we had came in at midnight, said, "Right,
"you're going to take off at six o'clock in the morning."
And we go no, no; and we argued literally, for hours.
I mean people say you just say yes sir, no sir;
we argued for hours going this is ridiculous.
You know, it's too risky and this that and the other.
But it got to a stage where usually
the people who are telling you are,
you know, they're people you respect,
they're not just faceless blimps.
Because part of aircrew job is,
if a planning cell sent you something
that you think is impossible, you send it back
and the system accepts that.
But this was a bit different in some reality
because it was quite a change.
But the people who were saying you have to go
were people you respect and after a couple of hours
you go, well almost, the cliche,
if you can't take a joke you shouldn't have joined;
you are in the military, your job is to effect war.
And this is a decision that's been made.
And they said well we've mitigated the risks;
you're part of a big package.
You're going to loft the bombs, which is throw them
from a number of miles onto the airfield.
So we've done all this mitigation.
So we went; we got shot down.
It was the only day low-level sortie by a Tornado
against a target, because obviously someone went
well that was a bloody stupid idea then, wasn't it?
So, I sat around for seven weeks
getting the shit kicked out of me
because somebody made a crap decision.
