Air Chief Marshal Air chief marshal (Air Chf Mshl or ACM) is a high-ranking air officer rank used by some air forces, with origins from the Royal Air Force. The rank is used by air forces of many Commonwealth of Nations, countries that have historical British i ...

Sir Brendan James Jackson, (23 August 1935 – 19 November 1998) was a

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...

officer who became Deputy Commander of

RAF Strike Command The Royal Air Force's Strike Command was the military formation which controlled the majority of the United Kingdom's bomber and fighter aircraft from 1968 until 2007 when it merged with Personnel and Training Command to form the single Air ...

RAF career

Born on 23 August 1935, Jackson was educated at Chichester High School For Boys and the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

. He then joined the

on a

national service National service is a system of compulsory or voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act ...

commission in 1956.Obituary: Sir Brendan Jackson
The Independent, 4 December 1998 As a junior officer, he successfully ejected from a Victor B2 which became uncontrollable during a night training exercise on 20 March 1963. Jackson also became a qualified

interpreter Interpreting is translation from a spoken or signed language into another language, usually in real time to facilitate live communication. It is distinguished from the translation of a written text, which can be more deliberative and make use o ...

. He was appointed

Officer Commanding The commanding officer (CO) or commander, or sometimes, if the incumbent is a general officer, commanding general (CG), is the officer in command of a military unit. The commanding officer has ultimate authority over the unit, and is usually giv ...

No. 13 Squadron in 1966 and went on to be Station Commander at RAF Marham in 1977. He was made Director of Air Staff Plans at the

Ministry of Defence A ministry of defence or defense (see American and British English spelling differences#-ce.2C -se, spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is the part of a government responsible for matters of defence and Mi ...

in 1979 and then Assistant Chief of Staff (Policy) at

SHAPE A shape is a graphics, graphical representation of an object's form or its external boundary, outline, or external Surface (mathematics), surface. It is distinct from other object properties, such as color, Surface texture, texture, or material ...

in 1984. 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. 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. He retired in 1993.

Family

In 1959 he married Shirley Norris; they had one son and one daughter.

References

, - {{DEFAULTSORT:Jackson, Brendan 1935 births 1998 deaths Royal Air Force air marshals Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath Military personnel from London