At home, in RAF Germany and Cyprus, the Gloster Javelin was the UK’s first line of night/all-weather air defence from the mid-1950s until the advent of the Lightning in the early 1960s, its primary role being as a high-level bomber interceptor. Its swansong, however, came in Singapore, from where the delta-winged jet came closest to seeing actual combat action
JAVELINS ON OPS
Until the early 1960s, no Javelin squadrons had been permanently stationed outside Europe. At that time the air defence of Singapore and Malaysia rested with Meteor NF14s of No 60 Squadron at Tengah. On 13 July 1961 it began receiving Javelin FAW9s, being the last unit to re-equip with the type, with a full establishment of 16 Mk9s and a single T3.
The Indonesian Confrontation began in September 1963 when Malaysia called for Commonwealth support in response to Indonesian aggression. The Javelins were kept very busy protecting a large amount of airspace against intrusions by both sea and air, requiring deployments to Butterworth plus the forward airfields at Kuching and Labuan in Borneo. To relieve the pressure, a second Javelin unit moved to Tengah when No 64 Squadron arrived from Binbrook in April 1965.
Eric Marsh was posted to N…
