Over the past few day’s I’ve been looking for information relating to 200 Sqn, a Hovercraft Squadron that was part of the RCT in the mid 60’s early 70’s, reason being that my father was part of this Squadron, in fact he was one of the first members of 200 Sqn and I’m curious to learn more about this period in my fathers life.

Now that’s were the problems arise, trying to find out information relating to 200 Squadron on the net is a near impossibility, only reference’s I can find relating to 200 Sqn are a piece in one of the newsletters the Hovercraft Museum has on-line and all that really tells you is about the example of the craft they have on show, I have been lucky enough though to get in contact with the daughter of another member of the Squadron, though it looks like her father may have been in the 2nd batch of RCT members to be trained on the Hovercraft, so he may not have known my father, I’ve also been in contact with the RCT/RASC Association who have kindly put me in touch with a James Hutchinson, who it seems may have known my father. I’ve now managed to get some photo’s from my mum showing the hovercraft on exercise’s in the far east possibly Singapore and Hong Kong, anyway my investigations continue.

FootNote :

I’ve now got a copy of my fathers Citation/Record which details that on his return to the UK from Aden in 1966 he was selected for the first Hovercraft Navigator Course and joined 200 Hovercraft Sqn in Singapore in 1968 as Master Navigator,  he worked on local Hovercraft Operations, the Japanese Expo, and when the unit withdrew to the UK, did Hovercraft Ops in Turkey, Denmark and Norway.

On completion of his Hovercraft tour he joined 17 Port Regt where he was employed as Ops WO 51 Fort Sqn.

Hopefully this might job a few memories amongst those of you who may have served with Harold.

Click on the Above image for a full-size version

Update 25.01.2017

Every so often I do a search on the internet to see if any other information or documents turn up on the IHTU or 200 Squadron RCT surface and today I came across a copy of the “Journal of Naval Science” which included in it a 12 page artical on the IHTU/200 Squadron RCT

If you clink the link below this will open it as a pdf document which you can then either read here or download and print off

IHTUv1

Hope its of interest to you Hovernauts

Update 02.03.2017

I’ve recently had access to the RCT Archive in relation to the Waggoners magazine and was able to locate and download a number of articles/reviews which mention the InterService Hovercraft Trials and 200 Squadron specifically included are articles on delpoyments, postings, exercises etc.

I’m hoping that this might bring back a few memories for you and also may jog ones’ you’d totally forgotten about.

Please click on the following link to download all the articles combined into one PDF file Wagonners Posts