Can anyone remember Flt Lt John F Malloy?
I had the pleasure of serving with this Officer at 303SU Khormaksar in 1967 and also RAF Buchan from where I believe he finally retired.
My question, does anyone know if John flew as a pilot in his early career.

Sorry can't remember about wings. John was posted to Saxa Vord in '61 and became the  Sen Ops Off. His wife was a qualified GP and did locums for the local GP. The locums occurred at intervals after his tourex - allowing John to return to Unst frequently for the trout fishing. John was my neighbour at Buchan in '69 and must have left soon after that. On retirement he became Adj at the Aberdeen Univ Air Sqn (Dyce) and continued his association with the Mess at Buchan. He was a very forthright character who had lots of time for his subordinates and associates, perhaps not so much respect for his seniors. I had a lot of respect for him. He & his wife had a house between Ellon & Aberdeen on the A90 (which they were allowed to share by their alsatian!)
Gordon

Thanks everyone for the pieces of info.
I was john's driver whilst in Aden as part of my duties and he was certainly a very large character on the Unit.
He was billited with another name you may all remember, Flt lt Bill Wing. Nicknamed the 'Odd couple' they would always appear bickering over some point or another.
John was very keen on me gaining flying experience as we had numerous Sqdrns based at Khormaksa during the 60's and through his contacts I had many an interesting trip all over the South Arabian Peninsula.
One of which springs to mind which occured just after the Arab/Israeli 6 day war had ended.
Suez had been blocked and the Brits needed Aviation fuel so the immediate answer was to fly a variety of aircraft across to Djoubuti where the french had a foreign Legion Base and from where we could buy fuel and ship it back.
37 Sqdrn (shackletons) was deligated for such a run and I had the pleasure of joining the crew. flight transit time 4hrs.
Flying at about 1500' the side port holes were left open after take off to allow for the air conditioning.
I have some photo's of this flight which I will attempt to share with you all

Yes, I can imagine John & Bill 'bickering'. Bill also retired at Buchan and remained an honorary member of the mess and was still around when I left there for the last time in 1998. Bill was one of those select personnel who had served on 'boats' (Sunderlands). I did quite a few shifts with him in the '70s when he was an Evaluation Officer (a now defunct post - in fact I 'terminated' the Link 3 while at SHAPE after Buchan). He would spend hours whispering down the phone to his counterpart in North Norway.....presumably it was OK for the Russians to intercept the conversation but not his colleagues!

Richard

I remember John very well as the Training Officer at Buchan when I arrived there in 1973. Very much a larger than life character and did not need to use a radio to communicate with aircraft as he was somewhat loud! He had a habit of walking into the Ops Room with his latest brood of trainees, shoving a hand down the front of his trousers while staring at the tote then marching up to the CC and telling him "We will take that, that and that" and then marching out with his brood hot on his heels.

That brood included myself, Dave Taylor and Jem Bateman and in the Training Section along with John were Tony Pleasant and Bob Williams.

John was a man of strong character who drove us all to excell and he also had a heart of gold. In addition to loving fishing he was also an excellent squash player as I quickly found out to my cost.

I do not recall any wings being worn on his uniform but it is a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away........