Attack Role
Following reunification of Germany, the RAF announced plans to reduce its presence in the country by half. One major part of this was the reduction of Tornado squadrons in Germany from seven to four, No.17, No.IX, No.14 and No.31 squadrons. No.9, No.14 and No.31 squadrons took part in the Gulf War and operated from the base during NATO's air operations in the Kosovo War, supported by VC10 tankers.
The decision to remove all RAF assets from Germany was taken in 1996. As a result of the Strategic Defence Review No. 17 Squadron disbanded on 31 March 1999 and began the gradual drawdown of the base. No. 14 Sqn relocated to RAF Lossiemouth in January 2001. A formal ceremony on 15 June officially ended a continuous Royal Air Force presence in Germany since World War II and all of the remaining Tornados had left for RAF Marham by 4 September 2001.
Read more about this topic: RAF Bruggen, 1998-2001
Famous quotes containing the words attack and/or role:
“If you attack the establishment long enough and hard enough, they will make you a member of it.”
—Art Buchwald (b. 1925)
“The trouble is that the expression ‘material thing’ is functioning already, from the very beginning, simply as a foil for ‘sense-datum’; it is not here given, and is never given, any other role to play, and apart from this consideration it would surely never have occurred to anybody to try to represent as some single kind of things the things which the ordinary man says that he ‘perceives.’”
—J.L. (John Langshaw)