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Lt Cdr Tim Gedge, RN, conducts the first trial landing aboard Atlantic Conveyor while she is anchored just off Plymouth before sailing south. Atlantic Conveyor maintained an armed Sea Hamer on alert on the foredeck pad during the voyage from Ascension to the battle zone.
Air War South Atlantic
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Air War Over The South Atlantic
As a Lieutenant Commander, Tim Gedge was the commanding officer of 809 Naval Air Squadron during the Falklands campaign. The squadron was re-formed on the commencement of hostilities and has since been disbanded. Commander Gedge (41 ), married with three children, joined the Royal Navy in 1963. His first carrier-borne-aircraft flying was in Sea Vixens from HMS Victorious in the Far East, after which he went on to fly Hunters as a qualified flying instructor. He moved on to the F-4 Phantom of 892 Squadron in 1969 from HMS Ark Royal before further training to become an air warfare instructor. He returned to Phantoms, becoming senior pilot of 892 Squadron, and then went to the staff of Britannia Royal Naval College at Dartmouth. After that followed two years with the Royal Marines as brigade aviation officer, providing advice and liaison between all arms of the services. It was after his appointment with the Royal Marines that he moved back to full-time flying in 1979, this time to the Sea Harrier, and became Commanding Officer of the first frontline Sea Harrier unit, 800 Naval Air Squadron. He remained CO until early in 1982, when he handed over to Lieutenant Commander Andy Auld. Commander Gedge moved to another Staff appointment, but at the commencement of the Falklands crisis in April 1982 he became heavily involved in the problems of getting the carriers and other ships ready for deployment to the South Atlantic.
Having watched the carriers sail southwards from Portsmouth on April 5, I was contacted by the Flag Officer Naval Air Command’s staff at Yeovilton and asked to form another frontline Sea Harrier squadron. Initially the task was to recommence the training pipeline and also to provide a reserve of pilots and aircraft for the South Atlantic operation.
On April 6 I arrived at Yeovilton and began to set about the complicated task of raising a squadron of ten aircraft-twice the size of the normal peacetime Sea Harrier unit. It posed many problems at first, not the least being the question of where to get the aircraft from and how to ensure that they would be fully equipped and ready for war. In addition there was the major question of who would fly them. Sea Harrier pilots were few in number and also spread far and wide. Those on exchange appointments in the United States and Australia were immediately brought home; others within the United Kingdom were brought back to Yeovilton.
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