North American B-72D Storm

[comrade harps]

North American B-72D Storm


Evolved at the same time as the A-5 Vigilante, the B-70 Valkyrie and the cancelled F-108 Rapier. the B-72 Storm shared many features with it's contemporary North American stablemates. Initially developed as a black programe to meet the USAF's TSR-X (Tactical Strike Reconnaissance - Experimental) programme, the type became the B-72 in 1962.



Cynthia IV, 523rd TFS, USAF, Mongo, Chad, 17 February, 1965
Target: Cairo South Power Stations
Crew: Capt. David Johnston (pilot), Maj. Austin Dallas (WSO)

By early 1965 attempts to create a United Arab Federation (UAF)  involving Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Palestine and Syria had reached a crisis point. Since 1957 the interim Arab Community (AC) had been tasked with fostering closer economic, political and military ties between its member nations, including administering a negotiated settlement to the West Bank issue. Occupied by Jordan during the 1948 Arab liberation of Palestine, it was annexed in 1950.

By 1965 Egypt had become the prime mover in the AC's Mutual Defence Agreement, supplying equipment and training to the other AC states. Egypt's Helwan military-industrial complex was vital to this status, building and exporting a wide range of weapons including T-54 and T55 tanks, the Helwan Ha-100 advanced jet trainer and its single-seat fighter derivative the Ha-200 and the licence-produced MiG-21F-13 Fishbed fighter. However, with these exports came Egyptian advisors, many of whom had been trained in the Socialist Union.

With Egypt supporting Palestine's claimed over the West Bank and Jordan increasingly concerned about the political activities of its Egyptian military advisors, a political crisis that threatened to derail the AC loomed. The spark for the conflict of February 1965 was the inevitable Jordanian crackdown against Palestinian protesters in the West Bank. Communal tensions had escalated throughout 1964 resulting in growing death toll and ultimately the shooting of 28 unarmed Palestinian civilians by the Jordanian Army. When a Jordanian Army unit (with embedded Egyptian Army advisors) based near Jerusalem mutinied and was attacked by loyalist units, the governments of Egypt, Palestine and Syria moved to liberate the West Bank by force.

The war for the West Bank quickly spread as opposing air forces struck at airfields and other targets well beyond the disputed region. Concerned that the conflict would embolden the Socialist Union into intervening and that the advancing Egyptian, Palestinian and Syrian armies might not stop at the eastern border of the West Bank, the UN launched Operation Desert Peace, a large-scale bombing campaign against Egypt,  Palestine and Syria ntended to force them into a negotiated settlement. After six weeks of bombing, and with the Jordanian's forced out of the West Bank, an agreement was signed that brought an end to the West Bank War. In the process, the Arab Community was dissolved and the United Arab Federation was formed with just Egypt, Palestine and Syria.

Tonight, Johnston and Dallas will be credited with the destruction of an Egyptian Fishbed, a rare night air-to-air kill by a Storm crew.

[Rafael]

Superb!!! Comrade Harps, that is a business looking aircraft!!!

[GeorgeC]

Very nice - would look good flying out of Upper Heyford and Lakenheath.  

[Archibald]

Fascinating stuff!