Concluding his two-part look at his career as an Air Electronics Officer, Mike Beer talks about when he and the Victor saw action
The Handley Page Victor finally went to war during Operation Corporate – the campaign in May 1982 to take back the Falkland Islands from Argentinian control. Mike began to prepare for active service in the role he learned from his inception into the RAF 20 years previously.
“As soon as it [the news of the Falklands invasion] broke, I got on my bike and I pedalled down to the crew room like a man possessed. I very much wanted to be a part of it. I thought ‘this is what I’ve been trained to do’.
“At the time, I was part of the flight commander’s crew, but I was then introduced to this guy called Tuxford, and I became part of Bob’s very experienced crew, which he had hand-picked. We began flying some very unusual reconnaissance profiles in Scotland: you’d look out of the window and see the ground very, very close.”
Bob’s crew was in fact trialling the concept of reverting the Victor back to its old job of strategic reconnaissance to spy on the Argentinian positions before a British strike could be launched. For Mike, who flew out to Ascension on April 18, 1982, the new task of …
