Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Kennedy AFC & Bar, GCB, KCB, CB

"Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Kennedy , who has died aged 85, spent much of his flying career with the RAF’s transport force before filling some of the Service’s most senior operational command appointments.


Soon after graduating from the RAF College, Cranwell, Kennedy was flying Hastings aircraft on the Berlin Air Lift, transporting urgently needed supplies into the RAF’s airfield at Gatow in the beleaguered city. Fifteen years later he was deeply involved in another airlift, this time into Zambia following Prime Minister Ian Smith’s Unilateral Declaration if Independence in Southern Rhodesia.


Kennedy was commanding No 99 Squadron at RAF Brize Norton when the call came at the end of 1965 for his Britannia aircraft to fly to Tanzania and Kenya. Land-locked Zambia relied on all its fuel imports coming overland from Mozambique, but a UN embargo had closed the port of Beira to oil tankers. The RAF was tasked with organising an airlift of oil into Ndola and Lusaka, and over the next few months Kennedy spent much time in Nairobi commanding the RAF detachment.


Thomas Lawrie Kennedy (always known as Jock) was born at Hawick on May 19 1928 and educated at Hawick High School. He enlisted as an airman for National Service in April 1946 and served for six months before being selected for the second post-war entry to Cranwell, where he was awarded the Philip Sassoon Memorial Trophy for best all-round cadet.


On completing his pilot training, Kennedy joined No 297 Squadron, flying the Hastings. After taking part in the Berlin Air Lift he was selected as a captain in the VIP Flight of No 24 Squadron.


In October 1952 he flew a Hastings in support of four of the RAF’s new jet bombers, the Canberra, on a 24,000-mile goodwill tour of South America. Led by Air Vice-Marshal Dermot Boyle (later Marshal of the RAF, Sir Dermot Boyle), the detachment visited 20 destinations in 46 days.


Boyle was loud in his praise of Kennedy: “I must mention the captain of the Hastings, who coaxed his aircraft, cruising at half the speed of the Canberras, around the course so that his load of men and material always arrived when and where it was required.” A few months later Kennedy was awarded an AFC.
Following an exchange tour with the Royal Australian Air Force, which included flying supplies to Korea, Kennedy converted to the Canberra and joined No 27 Squadron. During the Suez crisis the squadron operated from Cyprus, and Kennedy flew bombing operations over Egypt."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/military-obituaries/air-force-obituaries/10466490/Air-Chief-Marshal-Sir-Jock-Kennedy-obituary.html