Phoenix 809, Part I Trivia Quiz

Answer: Kotlin

The 'Kotlin'-class was a destroyer type designed by the Soviet Union in the early 1950s. Initially built without guided missiles, in the 1960s, the Soviet Navy began retrofitting a number of Kotlin-class vessels to carry the SA-N-1 'Goa' surface-to-air missile; a total of seven of the 27 ships of the class were so-fitted.

In November 1970, one of the retrofitted ships, Bravyy, was shadowing HMS Ark Royal in the Eastern Mediterranean. On 9 November, while Ark Royal was conducting flying operations, the Soviet ship cut across the carrier's bow, with the British vessel hitting the destroyer amidships.

The event is described in the opening of "Phoenix Squadron", during which Lt Commander Nick Kerr, the commanding officer of 892 Naval Air Squadron, is about to be launched in his F-4 Phantom and sees the aftermath of the collision.

Answer: Buccaneer

The Blackburn Buccaneer was originally designed as a response to the new Sverdlov-class cruisers introduced by the Soviet Union in the 1950s. Instead of attempting to match the new ships with a cruiser design of its own, the Royal Navy instead elected to introduce a new, carrier-borne low-level strike aircraft with the primary purpose of being able to attack and destroy the Sverdlovs.

The Buccaneer entered service in the Royal Navy in 1962. In its original S.1 version, it was fitted with the underpowered de Havilland Gyron turbojet engine, which meant it was unable to be launched from a carrier with full fuel tanks and a full weapon load. By 1966, these problems had been solved through the introduction of the S.2, which used the more powerful Rolls-Royce Spey turbofan.

The Buccaneer was operated by the Royal Navy until 1978, when HMS Ark Royal was decommissioned and 809 Naval Air Squadron disbanded. The type was also introduced into the Royal Air Force in 1969, with the RAF receiving the Royal Navy's surplus aircraft in 1979.

Answer: Germany

In 1958, the newly formed German Naval Air Arm (Marineflieger) formed two new units intended to form the core of their fixed-wing capability - MFG-1 and MFG-2. By 1963, the two units had evolved into pure fast-jet squadrons undertaking the low-level anti-shipping role, and had been equipped for this purpose with the F-104 Starfighter, which they operated until the 1980s.

In 1971, while the runway at its home base of Eggebek in Schleswig-Holstein was being resurfaced, MFG-2 transferred temporarily to RNAS Lossiemouth in Scotland, where it shared facilities with 809 Naval Air Squadron.

As recounted in Chapter 19 of "Phoenix Squadron", during the six-week period that the German unit was resident at Lossiemouth, it took advantage of the opportunity to practice the low flying skills required for its role alongside the British aircraft. One joint flight, between a Buccaneer flown by Lt Commander Carl Davis, the commanding officer of 809 Naval Air Squadron, and one of the German aircraft, is described to show the strengths of the Buccaneer in its high-speed, low-level role, and the weakness of the Starfighter in performing the same task.

Answer: USS Independence

USS Independence was the last of four Forrestal-class aircraft carriers to enter service in the US Navy. Commissioned in 1959, she spent the first years of her service in the Atlantic, where she was part of the American blockade during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and undertook a number of deployments to the Mediterranean.

In 1965, she was deployed for seven months to Vietnam, before returning to her regular duties as part of the US Navy's Atlantic based carrier force. As part of the ship's duties, she formed the centrepiece of one of the two primary carrier groups of the NATO Atlantic Striking Fleet. "Phoenix Squadron" describes this formation, and how it is used in Exercise ROYAL KNIGHT in 1971, with Independence operating alongside HMS Ark Royal, which is serving as the main element of the other carrier group, and the anti-submarine carrier USS Intrepid. Following the conclusion of the exercise, as described in Chapter 18, Ark Royal leads the other two carriers in a high-speed transit of the Strait of Dover, one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, an action that is seemingly enough to unnerve even the captain of the Independence.

Answer: HMS Eagle

HMS Eagle was the first of two ships of the Audacious-class to enter service with the Royal Navy, the second being HMS Ark Royal. Unlike her sister, Eagle as built did not feature the major technological advances in carrier design, such as steam catapults and an angled flight deck, that had been developed in the late 1940s.

These features were added during the ship's 1954-55 refit. Eagle served throughout the 1950s and 1960s as one of four fleet carriers in the Royal Navy. In the late 1960s, following the purchase of the F-4 Phantom, both Eagle and Ark Royal were earmarked for major modifications to allow them to operate the new aircraft.

However, although Ark Royal underwent a major refit from 1967-1970, the intended work on Eagle was cancelled. Eagle's final deployment is described in "Phoenix Squadron", with her final entry into Portsmouth detailed in Chapter 31.

Her arrival on 26 January 1972 was the same day as Ark Royal was ordered to prepare for possible use in British Honduras.

Answer: Guatemala

Guatemala is a country in Central America, bordered by Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and Belize (formerly British Honduras), and with coastlines on both the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. Guatemala gained independence from Spain in 1821, and became an independent republic in 1847.

In 1859, the United Kingdom and Guatemala signed a treaty in which Guatemala agreed to recognise British Honduras, in return for which a road from Guatemala to the town of Punta Gorda in British Honduras would be constructed.

The road was not constructed, which led to Guatemalan claiming British Honduras on the grounds that the 1859 treaty was invalid. In 1945, Guatemala ratified a new constitution claiming British Honduras as Guatemalan territory, and which led to several instances of attempts to invade. One of these came in 1972, and which was only called off following the overflight of Belize City by a pair of Buccaneers launched from HMS Ark Royal, as detailed in Section Four of "Phoenix Squadron".

Answer: Bermuda

Bermuda is a British Overseas Territory in the North Atlantic. One of the oldest continuously held of Britain's overseas possessions, having been controlled by the British since 1612, Bermuda was also one of the major British military facilities serving North America and the Caribbean, with the Royal Dockyard being the Royal Navy's principle base in the Western Atlantic from 1818 until the Cold War.

The Royal Navy closed most of the dockyard facilities in 1958, but retained its presence in Bermuda with it being the headquarters of the Senior Naval Officer, West Indies (SNOWI), who commanded a number of Royal Navy frigates stationed in Bermuda for use throughout the Caribbean.

It was to Bermuda that a Royal Air Force VC10 aircraft delivered the intelligence packet necessary to help plan the Buccaneer mission over British Honduras. Chapter 38 of "Phoenix Squadron" details how one of HMS Ark Royal's Gannet Airborne Early Warning aircraft was launched while the ship passed Bermuda to collect the packet and return it to the ship.

Answer: HMS Phoebe

HMS Phoebe was a Leander-class frigate, commissioned into the Royal Navy in 1966. Soon after she entered service, Phoebe was involved in the final British withdrawal from Aden in 1967, while in 1970 she was deployed overseas for ten months, which included three tours on the Beira Patrol, blockading the Mozambique port of Beira to prevent the import of oil to Rhodesia.

In 1971, she was deployed to the West Indies as one of two ships assigned to SNOWI alongside HMS Berwick. As detailed in Chapter 44 of "Phoenix Squadron", Phoebe was assigned to transit to British Honduras to provide a presence following the mission flown by 809 Naval Air Squadron, while at the same time provide search and rescue cover for the two Buccaneers while they were flying over the Gulf of Mexico.

However, the ship was not able to make either radar or radio contact with the two Buccaneers on their outbound leg, only picking them up as they returned to HMS Ark Royal.

Answer: F-102 Delta Dagger

The F-102 Delta Dagger was part of the so-called "Century Series" of US fighters and fighter-bombers developed in the 1950s. Entering service with the US Air Force in 1956, it formed the backbone of US air defences throughout the 1960s, until it came to be replaced by more modern aircraft types.

However, even after it had been replaced in the regular Air Force, it remained a staple of interceptor squadrons in the Air National Guard that provide air defence cover for the continental United States.

In 1960, the 159th Fighter Intercept Squadron (FIS), a unit of the Florida Air National Guard based in Jacksonville, received its first F-102s. This unit operated detachments throughout Florida, including one at Homestead Air Force Base on the southern tip of Florida, which had responsibility for any incursions from Cuban airspace.

Despite the 809 Naval Air Squadron mission having filed a flight plan with the US authorities, there was seemingly no record of the mission, and so, while the Buccaneers were on the return leg of their mission, they registered as unidentified and, as detailed in Chapter 49 of "Phoenix Squadron", were intercepted by a pair of F-102s from the 159th FIS.

Answer: Cairnryan

Cairnryan is a village in Dumfries and Galloway, six miles north of the town of Stranraer. thanks to its sheltered location in the West of Scotland, Cairnryan was a major military port during the Second World War, a role that continued into the 1960s.

After the end of its use as a military facility, ship breaking became the major industry in the area. This saw a number of major British warships end their last journey at Cairnryan to await the cutting torch. This included HMS Eagle, which was towed from her berth in the Hamoaze on the River Tamar near Plymouth on 13 October 1978. HMS Ark Royal entered her home port of Devonport for the last time on 4 December 1978, and was finally decommissioned in February 1979, having been in service for 24 years.

After her decommissioning, Ark Royal was stored in Eagle's old mooring place in the Hamoaze until September 1980, when she too was towed to Cairnryan for scrapping.