The 1980s - A Pulsating Decade

Another peaceful phase followed as 208 settled down to a programme of routine training, trophy winning and the odd detachment to Gibraltar and Decimommanu. In 1982, No 12 Squadron, 208's neighbour at Honington, moved to RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland to take up the task of Maritime Support. By 1983, it was decided that 208 would join 12 and make way for Tornado squadrons at RAF Honington. So, in July 1983, 208 moved up to Scotland to make its new home at Lossiemouth and become another Maritime Support squadron. September, however, saw more strife in Lebanon, where civil war in one form or another had raged for many years. Now Operation Pulsator called for the deployment of 6 Buccaneers to Cyprus, where they would provide support for the British contingent of the International Peacekeeping Force in the Lebanon. In true 28 tradition, the Squadron made the headlines, as a newspaper reporter sent back this dispatch under the bye line: 'Buccaneers flew the Flag at 50 feet:'

'To the second, the planes, 2 each time, screamed in from the sea at 500 knots to pass directly over the British base at Hadith before turning on their wing tips to head north for a sweep over the Lebanese capital.

Then, as we waited on the rooftop for the aircraft to complete their steep turns and come back over the hills in contour-hugging formation, the desultory shelling in the hills above the British position was joined by bursts of machine gun fire. After their second run, the planes passed no more than 50 feet above a pylon in front of the British base, then dipped down to fly out to sea at minimum altitude. The 2 did a great deal for the morale of the British troops.'

At the end of their detachment to old haunts, all of the 208 Squadron aircraft and their crews returned safely to Lossiemouth in March 1984. Now the Squadron could settle down to some peaceable flying for a while, though another event of major note was to take place in 1984, when Air Marshal Sir Humphrey Edwardes Jones presented Wing Commander Ben Laite, then the Squadron's Commanding Officer, with a new Standard to replace that presented by Air Vice-Marshal Sir Geoffrey Bromet nearly 30 years before.

During 1985, 208 Squadron took possession of its new Hardened Aircraft Shelters (or HAS) and continued training with all sorts of weapons, including the Sea Eagle missile. It was said at the time that 208 was familiar with every oil rig in the North Sea. One thing was certain, the Northern Approaches were certainly secure. As history now tells us, the Naval 8 / 208 Squadron reunion dinner of 1990 was a notable one, for its Guest of Honour was Air Chief Marshal Sir Patrick Hine, who happened also to be Commander-in-Chief of British Forces in the Gulf whilst Saddam Hussein was staking yet another of Iraq's claims to possession of Kuwait. A few comments were made about the Gulf, over which there was much natural curiosity, but little more.