Nimrods on Patrol

I hadn't taken any photographs today but I spotted this blip, Good To Be Home | fitzbilly | Blipfoto, by Fitzbilly. It shows a carved seahorse, which happens to be what is on the crest of 203 Squadron Royal Air Force. The squadron has quite a history and is, I believe, still operational as a (R), reserve, squadron on search and rescue duties.
The seahorse has a particular memory for me from my time at RAF Luqa, Malta, 1972-2974.
While in Masirah I had a 13 hour flight on a Shackleton (see extra) and when stationed in Malta I just had to try to get a 'Jolly' in a Nimrod.
They would patrol the Mediterannean hunting down Soviet shipping and submarines, very successfully I might add, and come to the communications centre to hand in their reports for transmission to intelligence for analysis. As they were handing the report through the Operations room hatch I asked if I could get a 'gash flight' (RAF slang for something free) and was told to report to operations early next morning.
We took off, I think, around 0730 to conduct a NATO exercise with a French submarine.
Although I was cleared up to 'Secret' there was some equipment around the centre of the aircraft that was much higher, maybe Cosmic Secret (not something you see even in James Bond stories). Because of this I had to inform the crew if I was moving from aft to for'rard or the reverse, and they would cover the equipment with a very high tech 'hairy' bed blanket HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
The Nimrods were very high tech in their day and the flight lasted for 9, yes NINE, hours and it was excitement from start to finish.
The French submarine had to hide while we flew off to give it time to do so. We were in the region of the Tunisian coast, around an island called Pantalleria.
At the end we were very low, circling the submarine, the captain standing in the conning tower waving at us. He said (I wore a helmet at all times and could hear the crew and some communications) "Zank you RAF for a most valuable exercise. Ve felt rarzer like a clockwork mouse".
On the way back we made a couple of diversions when Soviet shipping was reported in the area. photographs were taken with an aviation maritime reconnaisance camera, lens must have been about 10 inches in diameter.
The film I took this photograph from has suffered from being copied and probably had it's file type changed a number of times over the years.
https://youtu.be/azXqRPdLkfA
This was in 1973 in a Mk1 Nimrod, the Mk2's were even more hi-tech but all were scrapped just as the Mk4 versions were ready to go into service.
Oh happy days, life was very exciting at times.
203 Squadron occupies a page of it's own on my website;
203 Sqdn (Maritime Rec) - RAF LUQA REMEMBERED (weebly.com)