Fury at RAF Kamikaze plan
By JOHN KAY
APRIL 03, 2007
RAF Top Guns were stunned last night after being asked to think of being Kamikaze pilots in the war on terror.
Elite fliers were shocked into silence when a senior RAF chief said they should consider suicide missions as a last resort against terrorist targets.
Air Vice Marshal David Walker put forward the attacks — like those flown by desperate Japanese pilots in World War Two — as a “worst case scenario” should they run out of ammo or their weapons failed.
He asked aircrews at a conference: “Would you think it unreasonable if I ordered you to fly your aircraft into the ground in order to destroy a vehicle carrying a Taliban or al-Qaeda commander?”
Such an order would mean certain death for a pilot who cost £6million to train — and the loss of a £50million jet.
Last night pilots slammed the suggestion as “utter madness”. One — summing up a flabbergasted “After you, Sir” reaction — said: “I’m prepared to give it a go but only if the Air Vice Marshal shows me how to do it first.”
Another added: “The idea of officers ordering personnel to commit suicide is disgusting.”
Air Vice Marshal Walker is head of the RAF’s elite One Group and in operational control of all our Typhoon, Tornado, Jaguar, and Harrier fighters and bombers.
The crews he was addressing included newly-qualified pilots of the Typhoon, Britain’s latest state-of-the-art fighter.
The officer, based in the Air Command bunker at High Wycombe, Bucks, gave an example of the sacrifice to be expected from a wartime Spitfire pilot if his guns had jammed and Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was in a car below.
Air Vice Marshal Walker — himself a former Top Gun Harrier pilot who had his cockpit canopy shot out in action over Iraq — told crews they knew when they joined up they would have to risk their lives.
But one Top Gun stormed: “His idea of leadership is to suggest that it is within his power to authorise the first example of an ordered Kamikaze attack in the RAF’s 89-year history.
“He is subtly suggesting that if he wished he could order anyone in his command to die.”
Another said: “Imagine, as you are floating skyward towards the pearly gates having parked your jet in the desert at 500 knots, that intelligence had it wrong and that the bloke driving the car was actually a plumber taking his children to school?
“Imagine trying to fly your fast pointy thing at an evading car. The bloke driving only has to swerve at the last minute and it’s Goodnight Vienna, mission failed.”
A third said: “The politicians tell us that we have the right troops and equipment for the job. Surely such tactics, not to mention the loss of expensive equipment and manpower, are not required.”
A Top Gun who was at the conference likened it to a scene from Rowan Atkinson’s madcap historical comedy, saying: “It was a true Blackadder moment — a huge shock.”
Modern jets carry smart kit which ensure that missiles and bombs are so accurate that they can be put through the window of a house.
A military source said: “The need to do a kamikaze attack would probably only arise if a very high-value target was to suddenly appear and the jet was out of ammo.
“There would be no way for a pilot to survive if he wanted to hit a vehicle.”
A senior MoD source said: “Air Vice Marshal Walker was not saying that he would order his crews to sacrifice their lives in order to kill a high-value al-Qaeda target or stop a suicide airliner. He was trying to be provocative and make them ‘think the unthinkable’, the worst-case scenario.
“He was making clear that all Service personnel can be asked to sacrifice themselves. Indeed, there have been occasions when soldiers, sailors and airmen have done just that.
“He wanted crews to understand that he, too, could be faced with terrible decisions.”
In an official statement to The Sun, the MoD said: “Air Vice Marshal Walker did not say he would order his crews on suicide missions.
“He wanted them to think about how they would react faced with an extreme life or death decision — for example terrorists trying to fly an aircraft into a British city, being followed by an RAF fighter which suffers weapons failure.”
Ex-RAF hero John Nichol — shot down and captured in the first Gulf War in 1991 — said: “Being asked to commit suicide is ridiculous. I find it difficult to believe he meant it.”
