After nearly 50 years in Hellenic service, the F-4 Phantom still remains a potent attack platform within the Mediterranean nation’s order of battle. Wiebe Karsten and Marco Muntz reveal how
Greece’s love affair with McDonnell Douglas’ indomitable F-4E Phantom dates back to 1972 when it signed a contract for 36 jets in a deal named Peace Icarus I (PI I). With the first four jets arriving at Andravida Air Base, located on the nation’s west Peloponnese peninsula, on April 5, 1974, the Hellenic Air Force (HAF) stood up its first Phantom squadron – 339 Mira ‘Aias’(or Ajax, a Greek mythological hero). Two months later a second unit, 338 Mira ‘Ares’ (Ares being the Ancient Greek God of War), started its conversion at Andravida.
