Brendan Jackson

He then joined the Royal Air Force on a national service commission in 1956.^[2] As a junior officer, he successfully ejected from a Victor B2 which became uncontrollable during a night training exercise on 20 March 1963 at Barnack.^[3][2] Jackson also became a qualified interpreter.^[2]

He was appointed Officer Commanding No. 13 Squadron in 1966 and went on to be Station Commander at RAF Marham in 1977.^[2] He was made Director of Air Staff Plans at the Ministry of Defence in 1979 and then Assistant Chief of Staff (Policy) at SHAPE in 1984.^[2] He went on to be Chief of Staff and Deputy Commander-in-Chief, Strike Command in 1986 and Air Member for Supply and Organisation in 1988.^[2] He wrote a paper entitled "Nuclear Forces – The Ultimate Umbrella" in 1991, in which he wrote that Third World nuclear proliferation was even "more chimerical" than the threat from Russian nuclear weapons.^[4] He retired in 1993.^[2][5]

In 1959 he married Shirley Norris; they had one son and one daughter.^[2]