On 1 May 1965, the renowned World War II SAAF Squadron, No. 24, was re-formed at the Lossiemouth Royal Naval Air Station in Scotland, and there the Squadron commander (Commandant Bob Rogers, later Chief of the SAAF) and his senior officers started converting to Mark I Buccaneers. At the same time a technical team was sent to Britain for training. At first the South Africans trained on British aircraft; but on May 26 that year the first SAAF Buccaneer arrived at Lossiemouth from the Hawker-Siddeley factory, and was soon followed by another seven.

On October 27, 1965, two formations of Buccaneers each left Britain, one led by Commandant Rogers (later Chief of the SAAF) and the other by Major A. M. Muller (later Chief of the SAAF). Commandant Rogers had an uneventful trip, and led his formation onto the Waterkloof tarmac just after 15h00 on November 3. Major Muller, however, ran into serious trouble. One of his Buccaneers suffered a double flame-out after a high-altitude stall in the mid-Atlantic, somewhere between the Cape Verde Islands and Ascension Island. Major Muller sent the other aircraft on to Ascension Island while he and two accompanying SAAF C-130B Hercules (which were carrying the Buccaneers' ground-support equipment) mounted an area search. Soon Major Muller's fuel began to run low and he had to turn back to Las Palmas, leaving the two Hercules to continue the search. It found nothing, and two Avro Shackletons were sent from Cape Town by No. 35 Squadron SAAF to join the search for the missing aircraft's two crew members. Hampered by bad weather and a low cloud base, they searched fruitlessly, till 22h30 that night, when Shackleton 1722 spotted the downed flyers bobbing in their dinghy. It dropped them a 10-man dinghy and supplies before returning to base, and the SAAF men were picked up by the Dutch freighter Randfontein after spending 13 hours in the water.

Although one aircraft was lost, it is a miracle any of the aircraft reached South Africa at all. In 1964 the Labour Party had come to power in Britain, and the new Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, was determined to enforce the optional United Nations arms embargo against South Africa. Wilson believed the Buccaneers might be used to suppress internal insurgency - somewhat illogical reasoning since there were many SAAF aircraft better suited for counter-insurgency roles than the Buccaneer. The SAAF's Buccaneers almost went to India, but following severe pressure from the Republic,  Britain eventually agreed to let South Africa have its Buccaneers, but summarily cancelled the next 20, the Republic had ordered. The lost aircraft was not replaced and the rest of the Buccaneers were sent by sea in 1966, the first arriving at Cape Town on August 5 and the others on October 17. In the end S.A. shot itself in the foot, with the rocket engines - the time to developed the system and the modifications to the wings resulted in a new Government, that disliked S.A. The rocket engines was not needed in the end and were only fired four times for air show purposes. Later they were removed from all operational aircraft. If the deliveries of the Buccaneer started sooner - the SAAF would've received more numbers.

Anti-ship

The last of the long series of Anglo-South African `Capex' exercises was held off the South African coast in November 1973, a few months before the Simonstown Agreement was cancelled. However, they have twice been called in to sink tankers threatening the coast with disastrous oil-spills. In February 1971 the huge Liberian tanker Wafra ran aground on a sandbank off the Cape coast with 60 000 tonnes of Persian Gulf oil on board. After a tough struggle the Wafra was pulled clear, but it was decided to sink her because there was a danger she would break up in the heavy seas and pollute a huge stretch of  coastline. The SAAF was called in and plans were laid to open up the Wafra's ballast tank, which was filled with compressed air, and  also her bow, so that she would sink in one piece rather than catch fire and explode. Amid a glare of publicity (the Minister of Defence and a number of high officials were circling the area near by in the SAAF Viscount, not to mention two Shackletons loaded with journalists), two Buccaneers dived on the Wafra and fired four Nord AS3O missiles. The result was not impressive. A total of 12 missiles were fired, but the Wafra remained afloat.  In the end, two series of depth-charges dropped by Shackletons from No. 35 Squadron set the tanker on fire and then sank her. To the public this was rather less than satisfactory. What the armchair aviators did not realise, was that the Buccaneers had been operating with one hand tied behind their backs, thanks to the restrictions laid on them. The Buccaneers had to aim for the ballast tank an extremely small target only about 3 - 4,5 m high above-water and a specific point on the bow. Throughout the operation, rain hampered visibility and the wind gusted up to 40 knots.

In May 1972, the SAAF's Buccaneers really showed what they could do when the Liberian tanker Silver Castle collided with a South African freighter, the SA Pioneer, off the Cape coast a month earlier. The tanker's stern section was badly damaged and she was towed out to sea, where her cargo of 10000 tonnes of oil was transferred to another tanker. She had suffered so much damage by this time,  that it was decided to scuttle her. After several conventional attempts had failed the SAAF was called in to help. At 09h07 on May 15 five Buccaneers closed in on the Silver Castle with another standing by for air-to-air refuelling, and this time they were not hamstrung by instructions. They dropped several 1 000 lb bombs on her and she broke in two and sank almost immediately.