McDonnell Douglas F-4E Phantom II, American users

The McDonnell Douglas F-4E featured many improvements from the previous version, the F-4D. Among them there were upgraded leading edge slats on the wings that improved greatly the high angle of attack and maneouvrability in expense of a lower top speed.
It was powered by a pair of General Electrics J79-GE-17A axial compressor turbojets that could deliver 11905lbf (52.9Kn) of thrust on dry and 17845lbf (79.4Kn) in afterburner. Those engines, however, produced a noticeable black smoke which made the aircraft really easy to spot being this way a sever disadvantage when hiding from the enemy. It wasn't solved until the F-4S was produced which introduced smokeless combustor.
It served as the main United States Air Force fighter from its introduction in 1967 until late 1970s when the F-16 was introduced as the replacement. Many of the F-4Es were upgraded to the F-4G and continued serving in the SEAD role during the 1980s.

Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-4_Phantom_II#United_States_Air_Force
2. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters

McDonnell Douglas F-4E, Turkish users

The Turkish Air Force received 40 F-4Es in 1974 with a further 32 F-4Es and RF-4Es in 1977 under the Peace Diamond III programme. They were followed by 40 more ex-USAF aircrafts in the Peace Diamond IV programme in 1987.
Another 40 ex-Air National Guard were delivered in 1991 and 32 RF-4E more of them ex-Luftwaffe ones were delivered between 1992 and 1994.
In 1995 an agreement was reached with Israel Aerospace Industries to modernize the Turkish F-4Es which were dubbed as Terminator 2020.
They have been used to strike Kurdish positions in Northern Iraq and they have suffered some losses, for instance, on 22nd June 2012 an RF-4E was shot down by Syrian anti-air when patrolling the Turkish-Syrian border.
After some accidents, where two RF-4Es and a single F-4E were lost, the RF-4E were withdrawn from active service in 2015. Since then, Turkey has used their remaining F-4Es to attack Kurdish and ISIS positions specially in the Northern part of Iraq.

Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-4_Phantom_II#Turkey
2. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters

McDonnell Douglas F-4E Phantom II, Iranian users

The Imperial Iranian Air Force first and the Islamic Republic of Iran later employed the F-4D (which we already covered in a previous post) and the F-4E, 225 of them in total.
They were extensively used in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, and nowadays they are still operational thanks to Iran's Aerospace Industries.
They made some notable actions like the Operation Scorch Sword, where two F-4E bombed the Iraqi Osirak nuclear reactor site, close to Baghdad on 30th September 1980, or the H-3 air strike, when 8 Iranian F-4Es striked the H-3 complex of air bases in the westernmost part of Iraq, resulting in the destruction or damage of many Iraqi aircrafts, for no Iranian losses.
On 5th June 1985 two Saudi Arabian F-15 shot down two Iranian F-4E fighters using air-to-air missiles and they had KC-135 aerial tankers and Boeing E-3 Sentry AWACS surveillance to assist them. It happened in Saudi airspace, over the gulf near the island of Al-Arabiyah, approximately 60 miles northeast of Jubail.
Iran still uses the F-4E as they still are employed to strike ISIS positions in the eastern Iraqi province of Diyala from time to time. The last known one was made in 2014.

Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-4_Phantom_II#Iran
2. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters

McDonnell Douglas F-4E - Israeli Users

The Israeli Air Force has been the biggest foreign user of the Phantom II, as they employed both new and second-hand ex-USAF ones as well as some RF-4E.
The first F-4E were denominated Kurnass (Ram) and the RF-4E as Oref (Crow). They were sold in 1969 under the programme Peace Echo I and the rest of them were delivered in the subsequent Peace Echo II to Peace Echo V and Nickel Grass operations.
The Israeli Phantoms saw combat during the Arab-Israeli Conflict. The first Israeli aerial victory of an F-4E was on 11th November 1969 against an Egyptian MiG-21 and the first lost, against a MiG-21 too, happened on 2nd April 1970. During Yom Kippur War of 1973 some F-4E were lost in air-strikes over Syria and the Sinai Peninsula. Later they were used in Lebanon, in the 1982 invasion. According to the Israeli authorities, the F-4E in their service scored 116 victories against 56 losses, most of them against anti-air fire.

Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-4_Phantom_II#Israel
2. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters

McDonnell Douglas F-4E Phantom II - Greek users

In 1971 the Hellenic Air Force bought some F-4E and RF-4E which were complemented by ex-Luftwaffe Phantoms and some more coming from the Air National Guard of the United States at the beginning of the 1990s. Various of the F-4E were upgraded to the F-4G wild weasel standard and were equipped with the air-to-ground missile AGM-88 Harm.
After the success of the German KWS program, on 11th August 1997 the German DASA company got the contract of updating 39 aircrafts for the Peace Icarus 2000 programme. The actualization included an AN/APG-65GY radar a honeywell H-764G navigation system combined with a laser inertial navigation system, global positioning system, a multitask modular Elbit System computer, LITENING targets pod and the capacity of firing AIM-120 AMRAAM and AGM-130 missiles.
They served with the Hellenic Air Force until 4th May 2017.

Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-4_Phantom_II#Greece
2. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters

McDonnell F-4E Phantom II, Egyptian users

Despite Egyptian Air Force's interest for the Northrop F-5 Freedom Fighter, after Yom Kippur war and Egypt shifted allegiances. They decided to buy 35 F-4E Phantom in 1979 as the F-5 was already being dated and it was too expensive. They were bought together with some Sparrow, Sidewinder and Maverick in exchange of 594 million dollars as part of the Peace Pharaoh program. They were assigned to the 222nd TFB.
As most of the Egyptian pilots were used to the MiG fighters, they found the F-4E too complicated to fly, making it that only 9 of them were in flying conditions by the beginning of the 1980s, that's why an intensive training program took place in 1985 in order to solve those problems. An additional surplus of eight aircrafts were bought in 1988 together with three of them to replace aircrafts lost in accidents.

Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-4_Phantom_II#Egypt
2. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters

McDonnell Douglas F-4E Phantom II - Australian Users

Twenty-four F-4E Phantom II were operated by the Royal Australian Air Force in the ground attack role from 1970 until 1973 and were leased from the United States Air Force as an interim fighter due to the delays in the delivery of the other 24 General Dynamics F-111C bombers. Although they were successful in that role, the Australian government didn't agree to retain them after the F-111C entered into service.
Initially, it was going to be the F-4C the variant that was going to be evaluated in 1963, in order to replace the English Electric Canberra, but the F-111C was selected as a replacement. However, the project was delayed in the late 1960s due to technical problems with the aircraft, the RAAF decided that the F-4E would be the best alternative, so, the Australian and American government negotiated the lease of 24 F-4E in 1970.
They entered service with the RAAF in september 1970 and turned to be highly effective. They were assigned in the air-to-ground role, prepared the crews for the use of the F-111C and the intensive training program, improved vastly RAAF's professional standards. Only one of them was destroyed in a flying accident in 1971 and another one had to be heavily repaired after a crash landing. The other 23 aircrafts were given back to the USAF in two batches from October 1972 until June 1973.

Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-4_Phantom_II_in_Australian_service
2. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters