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20A VIEW FROM THE HQ AT NORTHWOOD IIAir Vice-Marshal George ChesworthGeorge Chesworth joined the RAF as a NationalServiceman in 1948, his first tour being onSunderlands in the Far East after which he becamea QFI and flew Shackletons before ushering in theNimrod era as OC No 201 Sqn in 1970. Hesubsequently commanded Kinloss and CTTO; hislast appointment was as Chief of Staff at HQ 18 Gp.He was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Moray in1994.It did not take long for us to realise that Operation CORPORATE wasto be a major undertaking and completely different from anything wehad planned and trained for. But it took a relatively long time for theimplications of this to sink in and for us to appreciate that we could notgo it alone. We would need to reinforce the staff with specialist inputfrom other roles. As there were no contingency plans for large-scale outof area operations %u2013 and at this time there was still a possibility of apolitical settlement %u2013 it was necessary to establish what could be donewith the existing resources. We knew the capabilities of the variousaircraft and of the availability of Ascension, conveniently about halfwayto the distant Falklands, 8000 miles from the UK. But apart from the10,000 ft runway little information was available about other facilities atthe airfield and on the island. Gp Capt Jeremy Price will describe theselater.Another difficulty was the absence of any real intelligence on theperformance and location of the Argentine fleet, particularly the carrierand the five submarines.That AAR would be a vital capability if the RAF was to providesupport for the Task Force in the South Atlantic was an earlyappreciation. At Northwood we understood that the installation of acompletely new system in the Nimrod, resurrection of the Vulcan systemand providing longer legs for the Hercules was a mammoth task. Butsuch was our confidence in the ability of MOD, industry, PE and theService to achieve such miracles in this war situation that we took forgranted the improved capability of the air assets. But all this took time