Page 13 - Demo

13THE ALERT MEASURES COMMITTEEAir Vice-Marshal John PriceGraduating from Cranwell in 1950, John Price fewFGA aircraft in Germany, Korea and Australialater converting to helicopters and commandingsquadrons in the Far East and the UK, and latterlythe Buccaneer Wing at Laarbruch. Ground toursincluded stints at the Ministry in every rank fromsquadron leader to air vice-marshal. His finalappointment prior to retirement in 1985 was asACAS(Ops) since when he has been employedwithin the oil and gas exploration and production industry.In the sad absence of Ken Hayr, Henry Probert has given us the bestavailable overview of MOD(AIR)%u2019s involvement in the Falklands war of1982. Moving down a rung, my task is to recall something of the days atthe coalface in Whitehall. I have not consulted the records and musttherefore give a health warning that these are my personal recollections,but from a time seared into my memory.As soon as war seemed likely the Air Force Operations Room(AFOR), for which I was responsible as DofOps(Strike), was brought upto full strength with the addition of officers from all the operationaldirectorates. Experience with many WINTEX exercises had given usfamiliarity with the process of going to war and for this the RAF%u2019sTransition to War (TTW) manual gave us a structured, well thoughtthrough, and I think, even with hindsight, logical procedure. So we werenot entirely in uncharted territory; although I had to remove %u2018Exercise,Exercise%u2019 from some early signals drafted by people who had not yet gotthe message. This peacetime syndrome arose on several other occasionsand I will give more examples later.The manual gave a series of Alert Measures covering actions such asdeclaring states of readiness, enhancing the serviceability and capabilityof aircraft, preparing weapons and deploying forces. It also included thecall up of reserves, but while this was often considered it was not, as Irecall, widely implemented in the Royal Air Force. To monitor theprogress of implementing these measures the Alert Measures Committeewas formed under my chairmanship. We met twice each day, morningand evening, and reported at least once each day through ACAS(Ops) to