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Crew of a Javelin at RAF Geilenkirchen, Germany, in April 1963. Maintaining a heightened alert state was a major undertaking. John Farley, a Hunter pilot of 4 Squadron at RAF Jever during the late-1950s recalled: ‘it was 21–22 days a month that you were on some sort of formal standby duty on your squadron. It wasn’t always you on the Battle Flight aeroplanes, but there were duty people in the hangar, duty people in the Ops Room, we were at a very high and continuous state of readiness'