The Queen paid tribute to the courage and devotion to duty of men and women serving as RAF reservists at a reception to mark the 80th anniversary of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force.
The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh met a number of officers who had served in the recent Gulf and Iraq wars as well as former RAAF officers who had served during World War 2 and in subsequent conflicts.
Squadron leader Gavin McCallum was amongst those at the reception. A member of 612 (County of Aberdeen) Air Surgical Support Squadron, based at RAF Leuchars in Fife, he recently received an award after treating wounded troops after he himself had been shot in the leg. Squadron Leader McCallum, 42, who normally works as an anaesthetist at Glasgow's Southern General Hospital, was part of an RAF immediate response team supporting the Parachute Regiment at Al Amarah, Iraq, in June 2003. He was on his way to treat wounded on the ground at Al Ameer when his Chinook helicopter came under fire:
"We came over the town quite low, and we were about 20 metres off the ground when we started taking fire. We took two bursts through my side of the aircraft. The guy beside me was hit and the guy opposite me was badly wounded. I began giving immediate aid to the wounded."
After seeing the wounded troops safely into ambulances, Squadron Leader McCallum allowed himself to be treated and was evacuated to hospital.
He had only been commissioned by the Royal Auxiliary Air Force for 6 months and, although he had received intensive military training, he had not had time to attend his commissioning course at the RAF College, Cranwell, in Lincolnshire, before being deployed.
As a result of his actions, he was awarded the Sir Andrew Humphrey Memorial Medal, an award made to military medics for outstanding performance. He said the experience had not changed his view of being a reservist:
"I joined 612 Squadron to be deployed and for my civilian skills to be used in different environments from those I am used to. This has not put me off being in the Auxiliaries. I have useful skills and I'm glad to be able to utilise them and to see some of the world."
Also attending the reception was The Duke of Gloucester, who is Honorary Air Commodore 501 Squadron.
The Royal Auxiliary Air Force owes its origins to Lord Trenchard's vision of an elite corps of civilians who could serve their country in their spare time. By the outbreak of the Second World War, there were 20 flying squadrons, equipped with a variety of operational aircraft including Hurricanes and Spitfires, and 47 barrage balloon squadrons, tasked with air defence.
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