Library Reference Number: 244
OP ELLAMY - The UK's Contribution to Freeing Libya
Throughout the year 2011 the UK had deployed 4,000 personnel, 37 aircraft and four ships committed to the operation of supporting Libyan civilians under threat from Colonel Gaddaffi’s regime. NATO’s Operation ‘Unified Protector’ officially ended in October 2011 when most of the UK Service personnel who played their part in helping the Libyan people remove Gaddaffi’s regime returned home to UK.
At RAF Waddington, the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, welcomed home the servicemen and women who were the UK’s air component. He said they had played a vital role in the mission. “There can be no doubt that without your efforts thousands would have been killed. Because of you, the guardians of freedom, the Libyan people have hope for their future. I am here to pay tribute to you. My thanks, the nation’s thanks and thanks of the people of Libya go with you.”
The UK’s participation in NATO’s ‘Unified Protector’ became known as ‘Op ELLAMY’ and the following account of that Libyan Operation has been contributed by a member of 8 Squadron RAF who had played an active role.
I was actually on a course at RAF Boulmer in February 2011 when I got a call last thing on a Friday afternoon to get to the med centre ASAP. Due to medical confidence, my chain of command didn't know why I needed to go, just that I did. It had been a vague message left on my answer phone, so there had been no reason why I had to get this done. Of course, last thing on a Friday, med centre open, you have to be joking! I did manage to get through to the RAF Waddington one however, and it transpired that I had to update an inoculation that was just about to go out of date. The nearest hospital facility to provide a jab instead of the closed med centre at Boulmer was miles away, so I questioned the knee-jerk nature of trying to do this Friday evening- the whole point of having crews available back home to free people up to do courses like the one I was on was to cover any contingent liability should it be required. Anyway, over the course of the weekend I was told to stand down and get the jab at Boulmer during the next week, and that I wasn't needed to deploy until I got back. I still didn't know where the Sqn had been deployed to, but reading the headlines first thing Monday it was pretty clear- 'Hercs pickup oilmen in Libya', or words to that effect. So, things were turning ugly in North Africa. That little jaunt became known as Op DEFERRENCE, and involved several missions to provide over-watch (both radar & radio coverage) of the C130s as they penetrated Libyan airspace, and to facilitate that the E-3D Sentry had deployed to RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus.
We had 2 crews deployed with one aircraft, and were shortly to bolster that to a 3rd crew with a 2nd ac. One of the planning constraints with flying long missions is that you need 12 hours crew rest before being available to fly again (how different is that rule compared to those of you that flew under Bomber Command?). To have a crew available to fly for 12hrs or so 24hrs a day requires multiple crews, hence the need for the 3 crews, even though they weren't necessarily flying every day. Once crews do start flying regularly however, there is then a total hour’s limitation flown in a fortnight, a month and 90 days that must be catered for. The impact of this is that crew roulements need to be started from quite early on; it was under this auspice that I was then subsequently deployed to Cyprus.
There were no more Herc flights required by the time I deployed, but everybody wanted to know what was going on in-country, and whether Al-Gaddafi was using his Air Force to persecute his people. The E-3D was then utilised for this role; however, the French and NATO also used their E-3s to find out what was going on simultaneously. Due to surface to air missile threats that were being honoured, it meant that there was just a relatively small triangle of airspace in the Maltese FIR available for all the E-3s to orbit in. As there was no official coordinated mission as yet, it was very much a free for all as to who got which orbit height and radar frequency, which was less than ideal. Events soon moved on politically, and it is said that it was due to the Cabinet seeing our air picture of Regime jets raiding Benghazi that swayed opinion amongst them such that action should be taken.
That action took the form of a US-led mission known as Op ODYSSEY DAWN, which was run from the CAOC at Ramstein AFB in Germany. We were still based in Cyprus, and it was about a 2 hour transit from there to our working location. Sometimes we tanked to extend our on-station period, but more importantly, the E-3s had been coordinated to extend coverage over the whole 24-hr period. We had been allocated to the main daytime period due to our larger engines allowing for a larger fuel uplift compared to the other jets, thus longer on-station, and also due to having a new communication facility on board that allowed the use of internet-like chat facilities between us and higher command that then reduces reliance on voice radios. Our sortie lengths were then to average 12-14hrs for the duration.
Having been deployed to RAF Akrotiri many times before whilst on the Tornado F3 fleet, it soon became a 2nd home. It was slightly unreal in that we were flying operational sorties to North Africa, yet had to put up with the Red Arrows as they did their pre-season work-up in our off-duty time!
Soon NATO had organised itself and a new operation was created, Op UNIFIED PROTECTOR, of which the UK participation was known under Op ELLAMY. To cut down on our wasted transit time, thus extending our on-station period even further, there was a smart idea of co-locating us with our NATO brethren at Trapani AFB in Sicily, which was less than an hour away from our working location. There is an E-3 FOB at Trapani so it was actually geared to AWACS operations, all it lacked was enough accommodation to fit everyone in. Thus started our experience of staying downtown Trapani! The Canadians also deployed their forces here, plus the UK VC-10 contingent was also there, not forgetting the fact that the airport is a Ryanair hub as it is a lovely holiday location!
We were initially accommodated in a hotel temporarily whilst a more permanent solution was sought. This turned out to be in the form of an apartment hotel complex, which we near enough dominated. By now our task had settled to require just 2 crews flying day on, day off for 2-3 weeks at a time. Because we were no longer flying from Cyprus, there was also no longer the requirement to take the RAF trooper flight from RAF Brize Norton, and instead we flew by NATO transport aircraft direct from RAF Waddington to Trapani, which was a most pleasant way to make the commute!
With a large RAF presence at Trapani, it wasn't long before the admin tail caught up, and soon there was a deployed HQ plus field caterers and laundry facilities. However, due to the transit time from our accommodation to the base it was deemed inappropriate for us to drive in for meal times on our off days, so instead we ate at restaurants in town. We soon found our favourites that tallied the bill to our liking! So, here we were, staying downtown Trapani, as I said a holiday destination, whilst dining out every other day and making the most of what the town had to offer over the course of a summer season. An afternoon gelato soon became a firm fixture!
What was our task though? As a qualified controller, or air battle manager as the branch has recently renamed themselves, my task was to ensure each and every aircraft operating in support of the Operation were identified and accounted for, each aircraft had sufficient fuel for their task and that each aircraft had the requisite tasking. Working with NATO allies and some others made for a wide variety of nations that we worked with. The geography of the area of operations was also huge such that we were speaking to aircraft entering from Spain, Crete & Cyprus, whilst the majority of fast jets came from Italy, whether it be Trapani, Gioia Del Col, or Aviano, plus then the allocated working area of the Libyan mainland extending far to the south. There were several occasions that when running the tanker plot, over a million pounds of fuel was off-loaded to various receivers. The key was to try and keep as much fuel available as possible to cover extension contingencies for the jets. We would get some departing tankers to off-load their fuel into another arriving tanker, such that there was both boom capable tankers and those with drogue baskets that were as full as possible.
As far as the offensive aircraft were concerned, they would generally all need "in gas" & "out gas", plus then 2 or 3 "mid" to maximise their time on task. Sometimes there were pre-designated targets that were to be struck by some jets, whereas others essentially loitered close to the known rebel front lines whilst reporting what they saw to us, so that we could keep the generals in the CAOC informed and they could approve any kinetic strikes under the extant rules of engagement. This was not always a quick process as knowing who was who was not easy, such that jets would sometimes need additional fuel to extend their playtimes prior to any permission being approved or denied. Any approval would be in the format of a '10-line' targeting message which would have to be passed on verbatim. Of course, not every aircraft was cleared to refuel from every tanker, so that would have to be managed dynamically as well- whilst there was a plan as such given to us by the CAOC in the morning, by the end of the day, the list of receivers may look completely different.
On top of this as the campaign progressed, more and more humanitarian flights became active, all of which needed safe airspace deconfliction from our operational jets. Whilst military pilots and controllers all speak the same 'language' when it comes to code words etc., these airline pilots didn't, and when English wasn't necessarily their first language, it made for some interesting conversations trying to get the message across as to where they could and could not go, and at what levels!
Another element we had to communicate with was the different ships that made up the Task Force for the operation. At times, some of them needed to utilise their own weapon systems, known as naval gunfire support, which all needed to be safely deconflicted from the other airspace users. There were also several aircraft carriers operating, whether they were French or Italian, in addition to our own helicopters on board HMS Ocean.
As time passed and the Operation moved on, so did we- in terms of working location we had to move overland occasionally to extend our coverage for some jets who were flying far to the south of Libya; we also moved onto the night shift for a time to appease the other E-3 operators who wanted to operate during the more demanding daytime period; and also domestically: the RAF had found cheaper accommodation for us in an out-of-town complex. Funny that, as it was now the end of the high-season, and hotels were looking for any trade they could! Whilst the new hotel was definitely quieter as it was in a rural village (Italian drivers seem to use their horns whatever time of day or night it is, which made trying to sleep off a night shift quite difficult!), the nearby restaurants had also closed for the autumn, so we still drove back to our in-town established favourites! The new hotel was also downwind from a tuna canning factory, so it stank!
8 Sqn returned home towards the end of October, having been deployed since the beginning of operations in February. We had moved home several times in the interim, and not always for the better. We had racked up several thousand hours in support of the various missions, and I think the official stat was that we overflew our tasking by approximately 5%, which arose due to on-station extensions caused by unserviceability or delays in those that were replacing us. We had safely controlled thousands of multi-national aircraft and coordinated the off-load of massive amounts of fuel, whilst all the time maintaining what is known as a ‘recognised air picture’ in and around Libya. We were justly proud of our contribution, and we came to know Trapani very well, indeed at times we hark back to it. World geo-politics have meant we’ve had to deploy several times since that summer, but that, as they say, is another story!
Footnote: Operation ELLAMY, the name for the UK mission to enforce the United Nations resolution to protect Libyan citizens, showcased the UK's military capability and the professionalism of all Service personnel working together. For example, to complete the 3,000-mile (4,800km) round trips from the UK, Tornado GR4s needed to be refuelled three or four times in mid-air by TriStars and VC10s. Thanks to surveillance air crews flying thousands of hours in Sentinels, E-3D Sentry aircraft and Nimrods, up-to-the-minute information was provided for mission planning and to make sure that ground attacks struck key targets with clinical precision.