All the usual suspects assembled for the Association’s Annual General Meeting and Reunion Dinner at Stafford on 21st June, preceded by the customary ‘meet and greet’ at the Tillington Hall Hotel on the Friday evening.   As ever, during the afternoon, members enjoyed the hospitality of the Wing at the TSW Families Day followed by a splendid dinner in the Sgts’ Mess that evening, with over 60 members and guests sitting down to dine.  The record of the AGM can be found here.

At the dinner, SAC Luke Cooper was awarded with a framed certificate by Association President AVM Graham Howard; he also received a memento from Neill Eltringham, the Export Controls Compliance Manager at JCB Defence Products UK, the sponsors of the President’s Award.  Luke’s citation for his award is shown below.  Also at the dinner, our Vice President Servicing Commandos (and former Chairman), Duncan Grant, was presented with some rather special Scottish amber liquid in commemoration of his own D-Day on 6th June 70 years ago.  Many congratulations to both!

On the subject of D-Day, the RAF Servicing Commandos were of course involved in the success of the Normandy Campaign and it had been hoped to mark this achievement with a return visit to France by those Servicing Commandos able to make the journey.  Unfortunately, the march of time was out of step with these aspirations; however, we were represented by one of our number attending with the Normandy Veterans Association.  Mr Alan McQuillin laid a wreath on our behalf at the Servicing Commando Memorial at the B3 Airfield, St Croix sur Mer.  To mark the occasion here in the UK, we held a short service of commemoration at the Servicing Commando Memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum at Alrewas on the Sunday morning.  A short Newsletter marking the event is here.