Royal Navy to rescue, Graham Hamilton's journey to Bristow

Royal Navy to rescue, Graham Hamilton's journey to Bristow

Life's an adventure. You don't always pick the path, but you take each turn as it comes and make the most of it.

There are many ways to describe the life and career of Bristow's Graham Hamilton, the UKSAR Director based in Aberdeen, Scotland, but it's unlikely anyone who knows Hamilton would argue with that opening statement.

Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Hamilton grew up with a passion for mathematics and engineering, which led to his fascination with aircraft, a precursor of what was to come with life in the military, where he'd spend the next 32 years.

Before leaving school, the Royal Air Force offered him a job as an ariel erector (rigger) supporting communication infrastructure. The role, however, was definitely not for Hamilton.

"I wanted to work on aircraft, so I walked straight out of the Royal Air Force office and into the Royal Navy's recruitment office next door as I knew they operated aircraft and helicopters from the aircraft carriers and surface vessels," Hamilton said. "It was the early 1980s, and the economy was so bad at the time that the joke was going around, 'you could join the prison service - or go to prison.' The Navy was a better alternative."

After successful completion of the aptitude test and interviews the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm (specialist aviation wing), they offered him a place, training him to work with aircraft. Hamilton spent 18 months going through mechanic-trade and Navy training. The early '80s were turbulent times in global politics, so upon completion of his training he was deployed straight to Beirut in the midst of the Lebanese Civil War.

Serving on RFA Reliant, a Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessel that had been converted into a helicopter support vessel, Hamilton's first major deployment took him through the infamous Bay of Biscay's rough waters.

"My first ever ship, and we sailed into a hurricane," he recalls with a laugh. "It took us four days to transit the Bay of Biscay. I was trapped in the hangar for the four days with one other person and we couldn't get back into the ship as there was no internal access from the ship to the hangar. When we finally pulled into Gibraltar, both of us looked rough and green."

He was sent to shore as a Naval Gunnery Spotter, where he witnessed and directed naval gunfire on land targets.

"I was calling in naval gunfire support without knowing that I was calling up the mighty USS New Jersey (an American vessel), the largest battleship in the world at the time," he remembers. "The ground shook, and I saw the entire skyline light up. I was 18 years old and felt invincible. But, of course, around you friends are being shot and going home in body bags. It was sobering."

Hamilton had entered the Royal Navy as a junior air engineering mechanic, specifically within aircraft weapons and electrical systems. He said he was fortunate to be selected for an apprenticeship that was a rigorous, three-and-a-half-year program designed to elevate skilled mechanics into specialized aviation engineers within the Royal Navy. The apprenticeship combined classroom study with hands-on experience. He spent this period alternating between intensive academic courses and practical rotations with various naval squadrons.

It was during this time Hamilton recalls being deployed on a ship in the Atlantic close to where Air India Flight 182 crashed on June 23, 1985, as a result of an explosion from a bomb. "We were literally beneath it and debris was coming down on top of us."

By the 1990s, Hamilton was in the Balkans during the Bosnian War to assist United Nations' forces. Assigned to the 845 Naval Air Squadron, he worked as part of the United Nations Protection Force, helping to execute complex logistics and provide essential aerial support in the conflict, often under intense conditions. He describes his experience as "constant rotations," three months in Bosnia followed by three months at home.

"I was in Sarajevo at the forward operating base when my son James was born," he says, "and I was flown home from the warzone arriving that night to meet him for the first time."

But Hamilton's military service wasn't just centered in warzones. One such instance brought him into close proximity with the Royal Family during the Hong Kong handover in 1997, where he transferred to the Royal Yacht Britannia. In a realm where etiquette ruled the day, he dined with the King Charles (Prince at the time), learning the protocol for eating, drinking, and even walking in the Royals' presence.

"You could only eat while the Royals were eating," he said. "On another occasion I had the privilege of serving onboard the Royal Yacht when the late Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip were onboard. Prince Philip would come down into the mess and chat with us, a dry sense of humor - a real war hero. Everyone was friendly and pleasant."

After 9/11, Hamilton supported the UK's contributions during the Second Gulf War, leading logistics efforts to deploy personnel and equipment to Iraq and Afghanistan. Working for Royal Airforce Strike Command, he coordinated movement of critical assets, overseeing the transportation of supplies, aircraft parts, and more. His responsibilities included the delivery of aircraft missiles and the complex management of aircraft spares in high-stakes environments.

"It was about making sure everything was ready - if one part didn't show up, it could put lives at risk," he says of his role in coordinating resources to be delivered to support those on the ground in these volatile regions.

Hamilton then worked with the Royal Navy's Sea Harrier squadrons, switching from helicopters to the technically complex Sea Harrier jets, capable of taking off vertically. He called it "a leap into a new world of fixed-wing aviation."

For Hamilton, the aircraft he supported were like friends, each with unique engineering demands. The Sea King helicopter, with which he spent much of his career, remains a favorite, though he also relished his work on the Sea Harrier. His mastery of the helicopter led to the nickname "Dr. Sea King" among his peers, a testament to his technical expertise. The name still brings a smile to his face.

"I stripped and rebuilt them so many times that I could almost do it blindfolded," he says with a laugh. "The Sea King was like a tractor: reliable, tough, and functional. The Harrier, from the same 1960s technology, used chains and levers to move the nozzles, incredibly complex but brilliantly designed."

Near the end of his military career, Hamilton joined the Military Air Accidents Investigation Branch, leveraging his engineering skills built up over decades to analyze and investigate military aircraft accidents in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other remote locations worldwide.

"I'd arrive at crash sites with only aircraft debris and remains to go on and slowly piece the order of events that lead to the accident back together.

"There were occasions with no flight recorder so I had to rely on physics and maths, calculating the friction coefficient of the soil and aircraft structure to work out the speed and angle of impact from the length of ground markings, or using the distance between propeller ground marks to calculate engine speed to understand the sequence of events."

After leaving the military in 2014 as an officer with the rank of Lieutenant Commander, he successfully pivoted to civilian life, moving to Aberdeen to work offshore in what he calls "doing something different." His first position was with Bureau Veritas, heading up a team of 12 and doing quality checks and verification of offshore oil rigs. He spent almost a year in Norway for a company called Songa, who wanted to bring a rig into U.K. waters.

Around 2015, the oil market dropped precipitously, and Hamilton found himself wanting to go back to working in an area he knew all about, the U.K. Ministry of Defence. He had a job lined up working on Chinook helicopters for Boeing, that is until Bristow called.

"They rang me up and said, would you like to come to Bristow as a Safety Manager in Aberdeen? So I did, working for Sam Willenbacher who's our current Vice President of Key Accounts."

From there, Hamilton went on to become Deputy Director, and eventually to his current role in SAR as Director.

"I feel a lot of pride today working in search and rescue with our teams at Bristow. They all have the mindset, no matter how bad a day you're having, someone else's is worse, and we are there to serve and deliver for the people in the U.K., together, saving lives."

With all the experience Hamilton has had in his life, he considers himself a Safety Engineer by trade. He said it all stems from where he started, his fascination with mathematics and working with predicative models, to his time as an accident investigator, assessing evidence to understand how something happened to making things more reliable to prevent a future event.

Hamilton says he enjoys the blend of his colleagues at Bristow, those who served and those who haven't. "It takes all of us. We keep each other in check and compliment one another since our experiences are different. As a leader, I'm keen to get the best from people, and having a diverse group allows for innovation and keeps us delivering the best SAR service in the world. And we do."

As we pass yet another Veterans Day, Hamilton says he'd do it all again if he could.

"I met incredible people in the worst conditions - people who had nothing and would still give you their last piece of food. It's a time to remember those who didn't come home and to hope that maybe we've learned something from their sacrifice."

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