Part 3 – The
Army Air Corps
In making my way from In those days, we fledgling Aircraft
Technicians had to have a working knowledge of Fabric Bashing, Instruments,
Electrics and so forth as well as the Airframe and Engine component of our
trade. All of the instructors were RAF and were the most blasé and laid-back
types we had ever come across. Although I did see the Engine Fitter lose his
aplomb one day. He was about to demonstrate "sucking in", which was
done by swinging the propeller while the master switch was ‘off’,
the fuel line ‘on’ and the brakes ‘hard on’. He said:
"Never assume that the engine is safe, always do this with extreme
caution." As he spoke, he swung the prop on the Auster 7 which was provided
for the purpose. This machine had been used only for this for years and had
the contact points in the twin magnetos bent back so that the spark would not
activate. As he flipped the prop over, the engine suddenly roared into life
and with a shriek of sheer terror the RAF Sergeant back-pedalled some twenty
feet at warp speed. The engine ran for about seven seconds before cutting out
and a quick shufti at the mags showed that the contacts had been
straightened, we also found the pilot’s master switch in the cockpit was
‘on’. Obviously quite deliberate and aimed at our worthy instructor and his
underwear. The instructor that always sticks in my mind is RAF Corporal
Nottage. He selected me as the recipient of the question. "What is an
air speed indicator calibrated in"? I responded swiftly: “Knottages!” We had a good social life in
the billet, played a lot of cards and then there was the excellent Other
Ranks NAAFI Canteen with its magnificent billiard table. Whilst While at Wallop I was detailed to report
to the ‘Q’ (Quartermaster) Stores, some twenty of us had been selected
at random to be measured up for setting standard sizes for the new uniforms (Service
Dress) that were supposedly going to be issued in lieu of battledress. I
must have made them scratch their heads, as I had the biggest chest and the
shortest legs of all of us in the group. The twelve weeks flew by; I got myself
seven days Jankers for turning up on morning muster (parade) in
plimsolls. The Adjutant had assured us that we would be issued with
rubber-soled boots at the commencement of week 2; these had not been
forthcoming and the steel-shod boots we had were manifestly not ideal for
aircraft work as they had a marked propensity for producing sparks on the
type of concrete at Wallop. When I was charged with being improperly dressed
on Parade and was asked if I had anything to say, I told the Adjutant that I
was concerned about the safety of myself, my colleagues and the equipment we
were working on, the steel-shod boots were lethal I told him. He went
ape and accused me of being a ‘barrackroom lawyer’ and a ‘bolshy’; when he had
calmed down I reminded him of his promise and the reasons he had outlined for
their necessity at the time. He glared at me, gave me seven days and had me
marched out. Coincidence or not but we had our rubber-soled boots the
following Wednesday! Once we had completed the Conversion
Course, we had to go once again to Poperinghe Barracks (REME Depot,
Arborfield) for our drafts to be sorted out, although at least we knew
where we were to go to this time. I had drawn BAOR again along with Jim Wyng,
Ron Smith, Peter Hamlet and Ron Corker, a quiet and very likeable bloke from 652 Light Aircraft Squadron, My 652 AOP Squadron, which was to be our home for the next few
weeks, was housed in a typical former German Barracks. The blocks had three
main floors with a dormer-style attic for extra accommodation as and when
needed. We draftees were plonked in one of these attics, in a block just a
few metres away from the camp swimming pool. In the Hangar, we became used as
the -Mr fixits’ for the regular staff, some of whom were RAF. We had to do
the jobs required under strict supervision, this was just the ticket, as we
acquired expertise very rapidly while having someone to hand at all times for
guidance. The bods supervising us had a good time too, as they could enjoy
the luxury of having someone else to do the work for them. They had to be on
the ball though as it was their signature going into the F700 (Aircraft log
book) and not ours! There was a very nice Gasthaus just down the road from the main
gate but this was too popular with the standing members of the Flight and the
Tanky mob (3rd Royal Tank Regiment) that shared the camp with
652 Squadron. We could not see the point in drinking amongst the same blokes
that we rubbed shoulders with in the NAAFI canteen, so we looked further
afield. After a bit of trial and error we settled on a Gasthaus called the
Lippe Klause, near the road that led through to Herman’s Denkmal. This
consisted of a huge Cupola-covered statue atop a hill that commemorated the
victory of Arminius the German over the Legions of Rome. This had effectively
limited the Romans advance into northern Europe to the western bank of the A big German bloke who spoke good English befriended us and took
Smudger and I on a pub crawl one night, as we were making our way to another
pub, we found ourselves in dire need of a tiddle, as it was a quiet street,
with nobody about, we decided to utilise a handy grating for our needs. What
we didn't know was that it was a cellar window outlet for yet another Pub,
with a window that was open but concealed by blackout type drapes, this
window opened into the kitchen of the pub. We had wandered a few metres
up the street and were just about to make our way through an alley when this
German suddenly came charging up the road and had a go at us. He shoved me
and that was it, WW3 was on! I chased him down the street and he ran up a
short flight of steps, I caught him, swung him round and had just stared
thumping him when a woman appeared behind him and dropped something in his
hand. Meantime Smudger was trying to climb over me so he could have a piece
of the bloke. Suddenly I saw stars, the thing he had been handed turned out
to be a braided-leather, lead-weighted cosh. I copped one on the scone and I
was dazed. I fell back and Smudge leapt into the breach. He was dealt the
same cavalier treatment and staggered into the street, where he was chased
along by the German bloke, by this time I was recovered enough to pursue the
belligerent Kraut. Whereat he swung around and I became the hare, with
Smudger in third position. We swept up and down the street like this half a
dozen times before the sound of a siren caused us to break off and dive down
the alleyway. The lad who was with us had been watching our ‘Keystone Cops’
antics open-mouthed; we left him standing there and legged it. We met him in the Lippe Klause
the following night and he said that he had persuaded the bloke with the
cosh, the head barman of the Kellarhaus, that it was not us that had peed on
his curtains. He said that by way of apology a beer would be ready for us
anytime we wanted to go there, so off we went to collect it. We made our way
up the four steps over which we had fought and bled and down a long corridor,
down a flight of steps and into a very nice boozer. True to his word, the
bloke came over and shouted us a beer, smiled and pointed to the toilet signs
on the sidewall doors. We were spotted by a couple of inebriated Yanks that
we knew and they challenged us to a game of skittles on this machine. Two
Germans wished to make up a third team and it was agreed that bottom scorers
would get the ale in. Smith was in very good fettle and we cleaned up, the
Germans were a very distant third. The two big Yanks informed the Germans that the beer was to be in
a stiefel (boot), a very large glass shaped exactly like a
Jackboot. When this came out I was told that I had to set the ball rolling
and have first swig, for some reason the whole pub was paying attention and I
had to stand on a chair where all could see me drink from it. As I held it up
to take my swig the crowd started to count: “Ein... zwei...drei..” I was
going like a champion when suddenly I noticed a sort of turbulence make its
way down the sloping glass towards the upwards-pointing foot part. As it came
to the instep I realised that this was a large bubble, just as realisation
dawned, the whole world seemed to disappear in an amber coloured tidal wave.
The bubble displaced about two litres of beer, all of which tried very hard
to drown me on its way past my face. The cheers from the appreciative
audience were deafening, I was miffed about the spilt beer but we never had
to buy another round after that performance, the beers just kept coming! Taffy Hamlet was a mad Welshman who had swapped his National
Service for a three-year stint, mainly for the extra money. He had a thing
about making Bowie knives out of 14-inch dreadnought files, lethal looking
things they were. One Sunday morning he got a bit too stroppy, so Smudger and
I pounced on him and hung him by his ankles out of the dormer window, his
head just projected out over the drop from the tiles. When he had promised to
behave we let him back in. As soon as he got to his feet he let fly with a
mouthful of ‘Dai Bach’ gibberish and ran to his locker, Smudger and I ran for
the door, just as we swung it open and dashed through the doorway there was a
thump that nearly took the door off of it's hinges and there was about 3
inches of knife blade poking through the wood! There were a couple of Loonies on the staff of the Squadron too.
One was a real hoot of a RAF ‘Erk’ (Aircraftsman) called Egerton. He
was able to mimic one of the officer pilots so effectively that he nearly
drove the man’s dog crazy. Whenever this Rupert (officer) came
strolling past the hangar doors with his big mutt Eggy would start calling
the dog, not loud enough to alert the Rupert but certainly the dog heard him.
That poor mutt would be racing back and forth between the two of them until
he was darn near cross-eyed; we used to have hysterics. The other bloke, ‘Tich’ Backum’, was a small but hyperactive
little fellow who was a Nasho; he was from a circus family so I heard.
For a packet of fags, he would leap out of his third floor window and into a
large bush in the lawns beneath. The first time we saw him do this we thought
he was a suicide, we heard a loud cry of "GERMOLINO"! Next thing,
this bloke comes hurtling out of a window high on the block and smashes into
this big bush, a second or so later and he comes trotting past on his way
back in to collect his fags. We could not believe what we had just seen, he
was wasted there, he should have been a I have very fond memories of Detmold but like all good things it
came to an end and we were off to RAF Wildenrath as fully fledged Aircraft
Technicians all of us now armed with the right to sign for our own work on
the kites (aircraft). 12
Independent Flight, Wildenrath
Another member of our little group of wannabes
that passed through We had a short time with the outgoing
RAF mechanics prior to being left holding the baby at 12 Flight and Jim Wyng
gravitated to this group; he was good at blending in with any clique that
took his fancy. These lads were into Jazz for some reason and Jim soon picked
up the jargon. Already attached to the Flight were some other odds and sods,
hereinafter referred to as ‘Gash Hands’, a couple of National Service RAOC
blokes who were Photographic Interpreters by trade and worked with the RAF; a
Storeman, Corporal Andy Grierson; an Electrician; a Clerk and so forth.
All-up the Flight consisted of about 24 bodies of all ranks with Staff
Sergeant Kennett in charge of the technical side, a Staff Sergeant in charge
of the Stores with Andy Grearson and another two blokes under him. We were
supposed to call this other Staffy ‘Q’ according to him; he was quite a
corpulent bloke with spindly arms and legs, leading to him being referred to
as ‘Q’uasimodo, the hunch-front of Notre Dame - we gave him such a
hard time, truly! Our pilots were a good bunch really and
worked some awful hours due to our being a Liaison Flight, a virtual taxi
service for the ‘brass’ at NORTHAG (Northern Army Group) HQ situated a
few kilometres away at Wegberg. Major Nicholls was the leader of the pack and
his 2 i/c was Captain Ralph; three Sergeant pilots completed the complement
of intrepid aviators. We were situated in half of a hangar at
the end of a long line of such stretching along the periphery of the main
runway of Wildenrath RAF Base. The other half of the hangar, separated from
our bit by some huge Canberra Bomber tailplane crates laid end to end, was
utilised for stores unloaded from the big RAF Beverley aircraft that flew in
to Wildenrath at frequent intervals. Other regular visitors were Vulcan and
Victor ‘Nuclear Deterrent’ bombers, obviously armed with the ‘Blue Steel’
stand-off nuclear bomb from the numbers of patrolling ‘Snowdrops’ (RAF
Police) who guarded the approaches to these aircraft whenever they landed. The two permanent RAF Squadrons
stationed in Wildenrath flew The nearest town of any size was
Mönchengladbach (Northrhine Westfalia), some twenty-five kilometres
away, although there were a couple of smaller towns close to the Dutch
border, such as Wassenberg. The border was about 12 kilometres from the camp
and the nearest Dutch town of any consequence – Roermond - about 10 kilometres into These pubs were cherished by all ranks
at Wildenrath and zero-tolerance was accorded anyone who got stroppy and
caused trouble in any of them. The usual order of battle of a Saturday night,
when spent locally was thus - a feed of mixed grill washed down by Amstel or
Carlsberg in the NAAFI; a slow amble the km or so to the main gate and then
along to the village; a couple of beers and a bowl of soup in pub No1; a few
beers and a couple of frigadellas in No 2; then on to Arnold’s place
for the main course and a half dozen or so beers. Our favourite practical joke was to
convince a new chum that the word Herren was the German word for
‘Ladies’ and that Damen was ‘Men’, thus when these inebriated sprogs
trotted off to the Loo they entered the wrong one and the ensuing shrieks of
outrage and such were music to our ears! Our best result by far was the
occasion when our hapless victim sidled into the ladies Loo to find that the
bulb had blown; being a tall chap he assumed that the porcelain bowl he found
on the wall was one of those German ‘individual-type’ urinals so common over
there. He was in mid-flow when a rather strapping Sheila came out of one of
the traps and found him tiddling in the hand basin. She went troppo at him
and he ended up sprinting for dear life through the boozer, trying to tuck
himself away and stop the flow as this mad ‘bird’ hammered away at his back.
Trust me, he wasn't the only one pissing himself! Bad Boy! One
of our gash hands was an Irishman called Leo Kearney, a bodybuilder and
weightlifter who proudly boasted that he could equal the European record lift
for his bodyweight, which was considerable. He was a good looking bloke and
utilised his assets to the full when women were available for him to get at.
When a rumour reached him that his wife back in Blighty was doing much the
same he tried to work his ticket. As he was a Nasho with about ten weeks to
go, the logic of this escaped me! He threw a couple of ‘wobblies’ and did a
little bit of damage in the storeroom where he worked; he then threw one in
the billet and proceeded to trash the room. As he made his way around the
room overturning lockers, beds and everything not nailed down, I spoke to him
from where I lay on my bed reading. I said to him that if he bothered me I
would lay my boot alongside his head and that when I was done his own mother
wouldn't recognise him, let alone his missus. He left my bedspace alone and
just wrecked everyone else’s. I should mention that I had been in several scraps downtown by this time and none of them had gone past the customary two punches - one to stop, and one to stow. I was like one of those rats in the social experiments, I had reached the point where I was getting high on violence, in all honesty, I was not a bullyboy (at my size?), nor did I ever seek fights. I simply would not permit anyone to browbeat, intimidate or bully me. They either backed off when I warned them or I cleaned them up without another word being spoken. Most people need to talk themselves into a fighting mood; I was ready in an instant. One example of that was at a Gasthaus in
Mönchengladbach - the pub was not far from the Hauptbahnhof (Main Railway
Station); it was Rosen Montag Fest (Rose Monday Festival) which
the Germans celebrate by wearing masks, in some parts of the country masks
and costumes, and it is also ‘ladies choice’ all night! Three of us had
braved the elements of this cold night and had made our way into town. The
pub was shaped inside like half a Swastika, with a dance floor at the
furthest end from the front doors - this was where we ended up, just
looking at the dancers and waiting for some Sheila to fancy us. Jock was soon
whipped away and Smudger and I stood there in high hopes. Suddenly I copped
an elbow in the side of my face as this big Kraut swung past with his dance
partner. Smudger immediately said that he had done it deliberately; I said I
would give him the benefit of the doubt. I watched the bloke as he came round
again and sure enough up comes the elbow and he really swung into it as he
tried to connect again! I said to him: "Passen auf mensch!” (Look
out, man = Be careful mate). He immediately let go of his Sheila and
swaggered up to me, looked me up and down and in perfect German said:
"What will you do about it, little Englishman?” I thought: “'kin 'ell,
he's seen through my disguise!” He then reached forward and flipped my mask
up, this exposed my face of course and he saw that I was a trifle miffed.
Quite unimpressed, he thrust his big mush (face) forward and down to
smirk in my face; I thoughtfully shredded his lips for him and as he landed
on his 'arris on the floor I sank my shoe, toecap-deep, up his old Kazoo
- he didn't seem to feel that at all. Meanwhile, with a whoop of joy, Smith
had leapt into the midst of this group of watching Krauts and lashed out,
quite literally, in all directions! We ended up making our way the length of
the pub, pausing briefly to deal prejudicially with anyone trying to block
our egress. We discovered it was very foggy outside
and as we legged it around a couple of corners we heard sirens coming. A taxi
stand soon loomed up and we gratefully piled in to a waiting cab. When the
driver heard our destination he refused to take us there because of the
conditions being so bad. He offered instead to drop us off at an Army Camp a
couple of kilometres away; we accepted this with alacrity. When we arrived at
our destination we introduced ourselves to the Guard Commander as being from
RAF Wildenrath and stranded because of the weather, any chance of a bed for
the night? No problem! He plonked us in an unoccupied cell, fixed us up with
a mug of cocoa and blankets and that was almost that. Just as we were about to nod off, the
Orderly Officer trotted in and introduced himself to his ‘RAF’ guests.
"We may have to disturb you chaps later" he brayed, "Two of
our chaps appear to have started a riot in (Mönchen)Gladbach, we think
we know who the blighters are and we will arrest them as soon as they show
up". We were out of that cell at the crack of dawn and never bothered to
take up their offer of a cooked breakfast - another mug of cocoa and some
biscuits were all we had time for! What of Jock? He stayed at the Pub, took
his Sheila home and got lucky, if he was to be believed! Corporal Bob Langley had joined us from Enfants TerribleAll of the scraps that I got into at
this period were while in the company of Ron Smith, my constant companion
back in those days, he was fascinated by the way I did it, eventually, he
announced that he had worked out my 'technique'. He said: "You ask them
if they are looking for a fight and if they say yes, you go back three paces
and immediately they start to move forward, you have them"! He was perfectly
correct, the process produces a 'King Hit' and is devastating because a
person moving forward into the path of the punch, doubles the effectiveness
of the blow! He himself was like a wild thing when trouble broke out, if he
ever developed any finesse it was certainly not while I knew him, his arms
flailed like windmills and he had a ferocious energy. This was very
discouraging to anyone directly in his path and for a bloke who started out
afraid of his own shadow, he was soon very effective at clearing a passage
through a crowd. As the number of Air Techs on the flight
expanded to around nine, we inveigled the Flight Clerk, a Lance-jack called
Smith, into getting us a fortnights leave at the same time, we flew back by
BEA and spent the first week at Ron’s Mum’s place up in Skipton. We travelled
in uniform and we had made our way to We got into Skipton about teatime, and
instead of getting a feed and a change of gear, we were dragged immediately
down the hill and into the Town and taken on a four-pub crawl to meet all his
Stepfathers mates. We were famished and kept dropping hints, to be told that
a fish and chip supper was going to be arranged for later, meantime, have
some more crisps! Tetley’s was the ale on tap and on an empty stomach it was
very effective. In the third pub we went to was a very noisy group of six or
so lads about our age who were taking the mickey out of our blue berets, I
persuaded Smudge not to take any notice. We found out later that they were
followers of Keighley RUC who had earlier walloped Skipton in a local We eventually found ourselves by a
chippy (fish and chip shop) in the Knowing
who was to be his target of choice I took him out as he turned to me, one of
his mates was on the way to join him before he had fallen. Smith meantime had
landed amid the rest and was spreading alarm and despondency at a rapid pace.
I simply stood to one side and as they reeled away from Ron’s ceaseless
onslaught, laid them out. The lass with the chips had meanwhile gone to help
the first bloke, took one look at the mess his face was in, screamed and ran
off! Just as we were polishing off the last of them, Ron was actually
banging the bloke’s head against a brick wall, I spotted a horde of
bodies leaving a parked coach and heading straight for us. I just had time to
scream a warning to Ron and they were on us! The next couple of minutes were
quite hectic, I landed as many blows as I could and then nutted the bloke to
my immediate front, thereafter using his body as a shield, suddenly they all
disappeared and after a seconds quick look round, I dropped my unwitting ally
and trotted along to the alley mouth that they had all disappeared down. A
few yards down there, a heaving struggling mass of bodies was trying to get at
a single squaddie, blue beret still defiantly bobbing! Using my very best
parade ground voice, I called out. "Righto you lads, that’s enough of
that, break it up and be on your way, NOW"! They stopped, gathered up
their wounded, made their way past me to their Keighley coach, one or two
saying things like, "Eck, that were a bonny scrap" as they went by,
and that was that. Ron and I never had as much as a scratch
to show for the scrimmage we had been in, all the damage consisted of was an
epaulet button torn off of his tunic. There was a crowd of locals stood there
watching as we crossed back to where Ron’s folk were, they seemed very happy
at the way we had spanked the Keighley-ites, we also noticed two uniformed
Bobbies walking away from this group. Apparently they too had stood watching
the show and one had observed to the other: "Like their odds, them
squaddies, don't they"? Very pragmatic, are It came as no surprise to me then a few
weeks after we had returned to see Ron sort out his nemesis, Jim Wyng. Poor
old Jim had not really been a bit of bother to anyone for yonks, he was
really into this jazz nonsense by now and it was that which caused his
downfall! He had put a record on and was raving on about it's qualities,
using all sorts of jazz terms that made him sound like a reffo from What did surprise me, a short while
after that, was the way that Smudge joined in when the lads of 12 Flight sent
me to Some of his gems had been astounding. He
claimed while in the Merchant Marine, that he had been on crows nest watch
one voyage to watch out for Icebergs when he had spotted a lump of
Ambergris. Which is a smelly lump of Sperm Whale sputum valued by
the Perfume industry, claiming his share had been 2,000 quid! The sod was as
poor as a church mouse like the rest of us! Another tale had been about his
brother who was supposedly stationed on a RAF base too and had fitted his car
with two gearboxes, one of which he changed up on and one he changed down on
in order to race Jets down the runway! Words fail me! On this last occasion
he was telling us he had been a boxer, I listened to his tale and it sounded
reasonably plausible, so I asked him what weight he had fought at.
"Paperweight" he responded! Well I just curled up, thinking that
the joke was on me for sure and that he had really sucked me in. He got very nasty,
having had a few, so I asked him the $64,000 question and unusually for me,
never waited for an answer. The lads pulled me off of him and later that
night, back in the billet, made it very plain that I was persona non grata.
This was to continue to be the case for the next three months - I was sent to
Exile While under the ban of silence from my
colleagues, I found myself eating alone in the cookhouse and excluded from
all conversations and extra curricular activities. I naturally resented the
hell out of this but I wasn't going to beg, so I went along with it and even
upped the ante by no longer frequenting the NAAFI, going instead to the Red
Shield Club within the camp and frequenting Wassenberg pubs instead of the
closer ones in Wildenrath. After three months of this I thought I was pretty
well inured to it, and on this particular evening I was at the counter in the
Red Shield Club getting myself a wad and cuppa. On turning around I was
surprised to see four of the 12 Flight lads coming in. I ignored them of
course and sat down to my feast. They came and sat at my table! I looked at
them and said: "OK you blokes, I leave you the NAAFI because you dislike
me so much, now as far as I am concerned you are trespassing on my patch,
piss off"! Smudger said to me: "Look mate, none of us like what has
been happening and we are just here to ask you to Benbow’s Demob
party". "Let's start with a
clean slate, what do you say"? With that said and done I was back in the
fold again. Benbow’s demob party almost saw us get
arrested. On the way back out of Wildenrath he took a fancy to a flag
displayed outside a house on the periphery of the village. These flags are
very ornate, are family heirlooms, have religious significance and they are
displayed on religious occasions. Silly Benbow persuaded three of the lads to
form a pyramid so he could pull this flag down with the intention
of liberating it as a souvenir. When the moron came charging up to
the rest of us waving it I was really jarred off. I read him the riot act and
the consensus was that we had to dispose of it before we got lumbered. Taff
Hamlet rolled it tightly around the tipstaff that had come down with it
and very carefully inserted it into a rather dense bush by the side of the
road. Off we set towards the main gates, and
as we got about two hundred yards from where the flag was secreted a Polizei
VW came up the road, slowing as it passed each group making it's way to the
camp. Sure enough, as we reached the main gates we were collared and made to
go into the guardroom. There were about fifteen or so of us all up and the
immaculate RAF guardroom had a number of felt pads that you were supposed to
place your feet upon and slide across the gleaming floor to your destination.
We all lurched in there like a herd of Wildebeests and the Flight Sergeant
Snowdrop went ballistic! He accused us of having this flag away and said that
we had been identified as the culprits, he then asked us to turn out our
pockets. Hardly a good move as Taff Hamlet had a bottle of coke in one of his
and after he pulled it out he casually opened it by way of the gleaming
radiator to his left. I thought the F/Sgt was going to die of apoplexy!
He yelled at us that he would find out which of us were the guilty ones. Ron asked
him how many blokes had done it. "Four or five" screamed the RAF
bod. "There are fifteen or so of us mate" said Smudge, "How
come you only pulled Army blokes"? Quiet little Ron Corker said
that he expected ‘Brylcreem Boys’ were too prissy to do naughty things. The
rest of the more junior Snowdrops all knew us well and they were having a
discreet snigger or two in the background. An attempt was made to interview
us individually but after six of us had given him the run around he
threw us all out of his rather scuffed looking Guardroom as quickly as he
could. Taff Hamlet making noises to suggest he was about to barf may have
influenced him I guess. Normal Service resumed? I was
soon back in the thick of it with the lads, with modified behaviour of course
and life was good again! Soon after Benbow’s demob we had to prepare
for a "Movement" exercise, This was something that all units in
BAOR had to do some three times a year. This doctrine was probably
to prepare us for Dunkirk Mk2 should the Russians decide to go into the Real
Estate business big time! Because we were a Liaison Flight, our major
function in the scheme of things was to provide an aerial taxi Service for
the brass at NORTHAG, just down the road at Wegberg. So that the brass still
had their flights to hand, we camped in a paddock about a kilometre from the
rear entry to NORTHAG. Prior to the big day Smudge and I had been tasked to
furbish a thunderbox for use as field toilets. “Aha!” we thought, “This
is indeed going to be a ‘Movement’ exercise in every sense of the word!” We utilised a largish crate that we
liberated from Quasimodo, carefully cut an appropriately sized and
shaped hole in the lid and then painted the things, on our own initiative,
the two shades of AAC blue. Quasimodo hated parting with that paint
but we lied and said the CO had insisted. The paint was actually necessary to
make the two metal strips either side of the holes less noticeable. Under the
seat these strips were nailed in situ and were penetrated by Tucker pop-rivets
for use as terminals. When we tested these, using a busbar and an HT ignition
tester for the job, we got a reading in excess of 850 volts from the nasty
little ambuscade we had rigged up. Within minutes of our setting the bog up
at the campsite some days hence, one of the new RA gash hands on the flight
went for a dump, so we scooted across to where we had left the end
of the wires and connected the HT Tester up. I watched the Gunner to see if I
could catch him in the process of birthing, as soon as I saw his shoulders
hunch, over the top of the hessian surround, I gave Smudge the nod and he
cranked the handle. I should point out that the crate was of such a size that
ones feet did not touch the ground. So matey’s effort to reach for the sky
was powered entirely by the contraction of his cheeks, he rose but not on a
column of fire as do rockets and such. He was quite twitchy after he landed,
so we strolled across to where he was sat and asked him across the hessian
barrier what was wrong? "Big bliddy horse flies here mate". He
said. We were hoping to get some of the pilots but, although we had to erect
tents for them, they utilised the Officers and Sergeants/ WO's Messes for all
their creature comforts the whole of the week we were there. Only us poor mugs
slept rough and ate compo! While on this truncated
Movement Exercise we all went out one memorable evening to find some action,
ending up in some obscure Gasthaus in an equally obscure German village.
Imagine our delight to discover that we had inadvertently stumbled upon the
NORTHAG WRAC's favourite watering hole. Eyes sticking out like organ stops,
we began fancying some of the talent displayed therein and got a round of
beers in; this was by way of lubrication to ready us for the next step in
getting amongst these sheilas! Alas, for the best laid plans of mice and men,
our hastily convened plans for the evening went agley when three of the
biggest and most ‘Butch’ sheilas we had ever seen stalked over to our table
and spoke to us. They were obviously drivers from their leather vests and
such and they loomed over us like Sumo wrestlers in drag, all quite capable
of kick-starting a Conqueror tank in my opinion - not at all a pretty sight!
Their spokesperson looked us all over and then made the following utterance:
"This is our pub, it’s for WRAC's only, we don't want you here. Drink
your beer, piss off and never come back or we will fill you in!” We sat there
like stunned mullets! What could you do? There was nothing to be gained by
fighting these manly looking sheilas, although at least two amongst us were
keen enough. I wasn't at all keen on the idea, hitting women is not something
I have ever made a habit of, in fact, apart from one isolated instance when I
returned slap for slap in pure reflex I have never done it. Consensus was
that we quit while we were behind! Thus, some two minutes later, after we had
drained our glasses, we slunk ingloriously out of the pub and found somewhere
else to drown our newly acquired sorrows. For some strange reason that
nobody could satisfactorily explain, 12 Flight numbered two Chipmunk low-wing
monoplane trainers amongst its toys, Pilot, for the use of. This was
occasionally taken up by one of the resident pilots if the demand for our
services waned slightly for any reason. Sometimes a cab-happy RAF type from
one of the two Bomber Squadrons on base would cadge an hour or so in one, the
preferred thing to do was for a Gash Hand or a spare Mechanic to go up with
it as ‘ballast’, failing which, lead weights had to be secured in the rear
seat so as to stabilise the trim of the aircraft. Nobody really trusted these
potentially lethal objects not to break loose under aerobatic manoeuvres, so
a live carcass was the more desirable option. On two occasions I was the
hapless ‘volunteer’, both times I was very glad to hit terra firma at the end
of the jaunt. On the first occasion I was grabbed by this gung-ho RAF Rupert
just as I was exiting the crew room after a cuppa and two big succulent cream
doughnuts. "I say, is your name Peck"? he said to me, and when I
agreed that it was, he informed me that he had permission to ‘borrow’ me for
an hour or so. He was a very good pilot I am sure, and his aerobatics
impressive, but after some forty minutes of this I was struggling hard to hang
on to my tucker, fighting what I was sure would be a losing battle! He
noticed my difficulty in speaking over the intercom and asked me if I was OK,
having been given a negative answer, he decided to call it a day. Meantime I
was in a cold sweat and grimly holding a ‘barf-bag’ (sick bag) in
readiness. I just made it to terra firma and as he coasted to a stop I
lurched out of the cockpit, slithered off of the wing-root and threw up all
over the tarmac. When I had voided all I had to donate, I lurched across to
the grass and lay down on my back. A small crowd had gathered to watch the
show and voice its approbation for the technicolour yawns I had performed.
Staff Kennet told me not to lie on the grass for too long as with the colour
of my skin I would probably get mowed along with the grass! In the second instance I was collared by one of the NCO Pilots,
Sergeant ‘Lofty’ Laverick, to act as his ballast. We took off and after the
first of It came about thus: the base - well the RAF Sections at least -
were being given the RAF equivalent of a General Officer Commanding’s
Inspection. This is like an audit conducted under the auspices of a General
at least and everything has to be immaculate and tickety boo! Due to the fact
that all RAF personnel were thus otherwise engaged we of 12 Flight were asked
if we could provide some manpower to help offload the big Beverly Transport
plane that was due in. Staffy very kindly offered our services so that was us
lumbered, this cloud had a silver lining though! Once we heard the other side get locked up, we started collecting
all the keys from every lock. I was taking the CO's when Murphy's Law kicked
in and he came out, to see me with outstretched hand and clutched key.
"What are you doing young Peck"? quoth he. "Spotted your key
on the floor, Sir" I responded. "Good show, carry on" said the
Major and off he went to the Mess. As soon as we were sure the nebbies were
away, we scaled the crates and bee-lined for the door. Fourth key struck
lucky and we were in like Flynn. Within ten minutes we had what we wanted and
some of the lads were preparing WD stencils and others were helping to
produce a paper trail of indents and receipts to cover the sudden acquisition
of all these goodies. Fortunately Quasimodo was on leave so he was not a
problem. We had everything we needed for our camping trips and then some. We
never heard a peep from the RAF until a month or so later, when one of our
mates from amongst the Snowdrops rang us to say that some of his offsiders
were on their way to check us out, because someone had ripped the bars out of
one of the storerooms opposite and liberated stacks of gear. They entered the
stores and checked out all we had, Quasimodo was charging around like a chook
with its head off and when asked to produce paperwork was able to do so
without fear or favour, his very indignation and outrage worked very well Thus we were all set for the ‘off’ as regards to the first of our
expeditions.
Freedom of Movements Our first essay on a camping
trip was down to Möhnesee. We took the autobahns and main highways down to
our destination; finding the ideal camping spot proved easy, although a few
other hardy souls were also camping out in the still chill weather of Easter.
The spot that we settled on was easily accessible from the road on which we
came in and it had a small but lively stream on one side of the clearing.
Very handy for digging a small hole in the bank thereof, which slowly fills
with water, to serve as a ‘chiller’ for bottles of beer. Some eighteen of us
had taken the trip and we also numbered a RAF cook, Harry, in our little
group. They happily agreed to do the catering as long as we mucked in with
preparations and did the washing up. A small price to pay for the excellent
tucker that they knocked up daily! They had brought a quantity of sand with
them, which was poured into the bottom of a small, shallow trench they had
dug out; with four iron rods and a sheet of iron we had a camp oven
organised. All one had to do was tip some MT80 petrol from one of the spare
jerry cans into the sand, ignite it after allowing it to permeate the sand
and we had a fire that would burn for long enough to start a real wood fire
as laid on top of it, even wet wood was no problem with this method. There is
something about the flavour of food cooked in this way that really whets your
appetite. Smiffy1, our Unit Clerk,
had excelled himself. He had indented for compo rations for our entire unit,
inclusive of pilots, plus blokes away on leave and the odd course. As a
result we had a swag of extra rations that were surplus to requirements. We
immediately sorted through the compo packs to see what we would have
available to trade with local farmers for such things as spuds, onions, fresh
eggs, milk and so on. The 15 cwt 1 On one of the trips Smudger and Ron
Corker arranged extra rations through the RAF Squadron Leader who was Trip number two was also made to the Möhnesee, which is of course
the large lake formed behind the Möhne dam of "Dambusters" fame
from WW2, a goodly way from our original campsite! The marks of the
replacement stonework on the face of the dam wall were still very much in
evidence as we drove along the side of the hill towards our destination,
perfectly central between the two small towers on the dam itself. The Germans
who lived locally went to great pains to point this out to any and all
visitors and seemed quite happy and rather proud of the notoriety of the
damage to their pride and joy. Nevertheless, the whole thing was once again a
roaring success, and a great time was had by all; better yet, there had been
no negative feedback about our first trip and the second one was also
trouble-free. This was very good for Major Nichols' Unit requirements in
respect of Exercises and he was to congratulate all of us on our exemplary
behaviour and the fact that no accidents to personnel or equipment had
occurred. As an aside to this, we found ourselves running dangerously low on
fuel on the return journey and called in at a Yank Camp to see if we could
get some petrol out of them. The Gum-and-gun-wielding MP at the barrier
finally worked out that we needed ‘gas’ and after a quick phone call we were
allowed to drive in and up to their POL (Petrol, Oil, Lubricants) point. A
couple of GI's filled us up and waved away any suggestion that we sign a
chittty for the ‘gas’. An MP had accompanied us to the POL point and now directed
us to the PX (Post Exchange), which turned out to be a combination
Canteen and Supermarket, the first such that any of us had seen at this point
in our lives. So we all came out loaded up with ‘Camels’ and ‘Lucky Strikes’
and such, these fags were so much better than the NAAFI issue ones that we
got in Germany, which were so full of saltpetre preservative that they used
to fizz and splutter like sparklers sometimes. They were also often so dry
from prolonged storage that they would shed tobacco as you pulled them from
the packs. The Yanks knew how to make you feel welcome, no doubt about that! The third and (for me) final
trip was to the 2Smudger was banned from the trip because, when ordered to
work on Major Nichols’ private vehicle to clean up the engine compartment,
initially flatly refused, when threatened with court martial for
disobedience, he threw a bucket of avgas over the still hot engine. This
rather pissed-off the C.O. We set off
bright and early for our trip down to Kobern, heading off as per the
instructions from my map-reader and the Ordnance Survey map for the relevant
area of Fortified by a cuppa and a wad, I walked down the bluff in the
company of two others, Ron Corker and one of the ‘gash hands’ I believe. The
object of this exercise was to practise my Kraut-speak to the extent of
finding a better spot to make a bivvy. Naturally, we chanced our arm in the
first Gasthaus we came to, our The ‘gash hand’ shot off up the hill to get the lads ready to
make a swift move as soon as everyone had finished eating their wads, while
Ron Corker and I bought the Mayor and the barman of the pub a beer by way of
thanks. Within an hour, the camp had been set up and we made our way into
Kobern for some serious ale and tucker. Again, we hit the first pub that we
came to, quite a busy place it was. The bar staff seemed to strike a busy
patch coincidental with our arrival, as they began filling three trays full
of beers. We waited as patiently as we knew how to place our orders and
once the beers seemed to be poured to the requisite number, clamoured for
service. The barman and his offsider smiled and sat us down at two long
tables and served the poured beers to us, some bloke had shouted the lot of
us a beer each! It only got better after that, we all split up and joined
various German groups around the pub, in my case the people I sat with plied
me with the local wine, not surprisingly this delicious golden drop was
called Moselwein! That night we lost Harry, our RAF cook, for the duration of
our stay. The table he sat at contained the family grouping of the Wine
Pageant Queen, a dark haired, green-eyed beauty who took a serious shine to
him from the moment they clapped eyes on each other! Our funny hats and Gash Hands and SnowdropsThe gash hands attached to 12 Flight in those days were seconded
from the Royal Artillery and were the usual collection of blokes drafted at
the whim of their previous Cos who naturally selected their best men to be
rid of! I have to say though, in all fairness, as these blokes got posted in
and found out what a doddle they had drawn, they mucked in with a will
whenever required to do so. This was far and away the least regimental of any
postings that I had in the Army, we were too busy for that sort of nonsense
and on the odd occasion when we had to front up for some arcane military
function, such as GOC's Inspection, it was ploughed through with the minimum
of fuss and bother. The gash hands had one of the two billets that we occupied as a
Flight and we ‘Techies’ had the other, the remaining two billets in our
spider were occupied by the RAF Police. We had a very good rapport with these
blokes and very often they would front up and ask if any of us fancied going
into We were devastated then when on one hot sultry summer night in
June, we found ourselves arrested by these jokers! We had all gone out at
around We were marched
en masse before the CO the following morning and after a lecture on letting
the side down and showing ourselves up before the RAF, we were given 7 days
‘restrictions of privilege’. Later that day Major Nichols realised that he
had jankered the whole of his Techy crew except one and would be unable to
provide duty crew rosters for late flying aircraft. Hasty arrangements were
made to release two men from defaulters every night so that they would be
available if needed. Meantime we had gone around and threatened to withdraw
our goodwill towards the Snowdrops and as we were the only blokes on Camp who
would do anything for them, they made us a couple of promises. They would see
to it that our defaulters was as cushy as they could make it and from then on
would make sure that we got prior knowledge of anything that might drop us in
the plid. They came good on both counts and life was made very easy for us
after that. It is
worth pointing out the difference in treatment of nebbies and Hoi Polloi when
misdeeds were to be answered for. In contrast to our dastardly crime, Staff
Sergeant Kennett wrote-off one of our original two Chipmunk trainers (I am
indebted to Smudger for reminding me of this incident). Our intrepid leader
had decided to do a ground-run in the Chipmunk to check up on a reported mag
drop. Problem was that he forgot to put chocks down for the wheels and then
compounded his fundamental error by not hauling the hand brake ‘on’.
Consequently the aircraft started rolling forward as soon as he revved the
motor, Kennett was quite oblivious to this because he was perusing the
instruments as he gunned it. He suddenly woke up to the fact that he was in
motion but too late alas. The kite struck hard and was a write off; at the
subsequent Board of Inquiry our beloved leader was exonerated and some ten
days later his promotion to AQMS came through. We figured that on a pound for
pound basis the quickest way to General’s rank would have to be via doing the
same with a Beverley transport! I believe that Kennett eventually retired as
a Major. To cite one example of the co-operation between us and the
Snowdrops. It was about ten minutes gone Another perk of
the job was that we did a fair amount of refuelling by hand, using the
special filters as provided. While this was onerous and heavy work, it had a
very useful side effect. Any jerry can opened for the purpose of filling a
kite’s tanks but not completely emptied was classified as ‘contaminated’ and
was disposed of. We saw to the disposal via our cars’ petrol tanks of course,
knowing that at any time we could be stopped and have a specific gravity type
check of our tanks to detect this green AVGAS, we took a simple precaution.
By altering the speedo reading and log books on the unit’s 4 vehicles and
thereby justifying the expenditure of MT80, we had sufficient of that to mix
with the AVGAS so that the colour matched that of commercial grade petrol,
some of which would be in our cars’ tanks anyway. Another way that we
supplemented our pittance was to get as many fag coupons as we could from
anyone who was a non-smoker. By purchasing each twenty pack of Escaping Helga
An old mate from Boys’ service joined the Flight - Bob King, who
had been in the AAS Pipe band. Bob was married to a German lass so he
did not join in the general debauchery and mayhem of we singles. At about
this time I got my feet under the table for a while. Ron Corker and I had
gone into Wassenberg and chatted up what turned out to be two sisters; we
made a date with them for the following day and after a couple of dates it
was obvious that I was in with a chance but Ron was flogging a dead horse. Thereafter I made single as opposed to double dates. A fortnight
or so after we had met I was dropping her off near her home, which was within
a hundred metres of the border with Fun and Games
One of my more enduring
memories of Wildenrath back in those days was of the time, in late February,
when we turned out to support the local village soccer team. It was a
bitterly cold day and the wind was gusting straight in from On the occasion of the last Rosen Montag that I was fated to
spend in Oggie, a Royal Navy Leading Hand, was attached to 12 Flight
preparatory to the advent of the Skeeter Helicopter, the Army at that time
having only a bare handful of mechanics qualified to work on choppers. I met
a few of his ilk while at Chopper Flight at Wallop too, a good bunch of lads
and no error, I always felt that instead of being known as the Fleet Air Arm,
they should have been known as the Fleet Short Arm though, because there was
nobody faster than those blokes when there was a sniff of crumpet! Winds of Change
One scorching hot summer’s day
the Wildenrath camp area was invaded by a forest fire, a large part of the
enclosed camp area was given over to pine forest and everything was tinder
dry. Once in amongst the trees the flames got a good hold and all bodies in
camp were detailed to fight the fire. Ron Smith and I were replacing the
undercart on an Auster and were at a critical part of the procedure, we were
detailed to secure the area once finished and then check for spot fires along
the perimeter. The rest of the Flight disappeared into the billowing clouds
of smoke and some fifteen minutes later we shut up shop after grabbing a pair
of shovels from the Stores. We trotted over to the perimeter fencing and
quickly observed that the wind was wrong for spot fires out where we were, as
it was coming into the camp and not out. There was a thick pall of smoke
blotting out most of the camp area from us and vice versa of course. The area
around the Control Tower was particularly well blanketed by billowing
smoke; noticing this and then spotting a small village with a pub just a
couple of hundred metres away on the other side of the wire, a thought
occurred to us. A quick trip back to the Stores procured a pair of wire cutters
and a length of locking wire. A few minutes later and we were sitting down to
a nice feed of Bockwurst mit Kartoffelsalat and a couple of beers to wash it
down with. Once we had sated our appetites, we made our way back to the fence,
removed the temporary wire restraints, got back through the hole and then did
some quick invisible mending with more locking wire. Half an hour or so later
and the smoke began to clear away from the runway area and shortly afterwards
we spotted blokes wending their way back towards the hangar areas. We ambled
back to the flight and listened to the tales told by our grubby looking
compatriots, most of whom had been issued with lengths of hessian and
detailed to deal with any minor outbreaks springing up again behind the
advancing real firemen with hoses and such. Beating out flames with sacking
is a tedious, dirty and tiresome job and we really felt for our hard done by
mates, we would of course have shouted them a beer had it been possible to
get back to the pub unseen. Another time, there was a huge storm raging over the whole of As he crossed the threshold of the tarmac he was about twenty
feet in the air and from that point it took him some five minutes, engine
going flat Compassionate Leave and a Home
Posting
My time at Wildenrath was about to come to a close in a most
unexpected way. My mother and de facto stepfather had, some months
previously, finally tied the knot. Imagine the surprise then for me to get a
letter from my mother telling me that he had left her and that she was
thinking of doing away with herself. Horrified, I approached Major Nichols to
seek compassionate leave and hopefully get things sorted out before disaster
struck. Two hours after my interview with him I was preparing to leave 12
Flight altogether. He had granted me 7 days compassionate leave and arranged
for me to be posted to Helicopter Flight at Middle Wallop effective from the
end of the period of leave. I left without a meal or saying cheerio to half of the lads and
that night found myself once again boarding the (HMT) ‘Vienna’. This
was a rougher passage by far than the previous ones and I caused a bit of a
disaster below decks. Probably because of the tension of my situation I
rapidly felt a bout of seasickness coming on; I was a goodly way from the
heads and in trying to make my way to them found myself loudly gagging in an
effort to prevent myself from upchucking in the sleeping area. I actually
made it and after pelting the porcelain for some five minutes or so I became
aware that others were getting in on the act in the other traps. I made my
way out of the heads and was surprised to see blokes chucking up all over the
place. I have heard of such a thing as a feeding frenzy but this was
something else entirely! The stench was overpowering and I don’t think anyone
there held on to their recent ration intakes. Later on, when things had settled down a bit, I heard a couple of
blokes say that they would like to get their hands on the evil sod who had
gone charging through the place making barfing noises and triggering everyone
off. I thanked my lucky stars that I had not been wearing my pale blue beret
and had held both hands over my lower face and mouth during my epic journey
to the heads! That, for better or worse, was the end of my Teutonic
adventures and a rather inglorious start to the next phase of my Army life. Postscript
I did receive a letter from Smudger not long after leaving 12
Flight to say that some of the unused billets at Wildenrath were being
cleared to make way for the billeting of an American Guided Missile regiment
- with tactical nuclear capability (‘Corporal’ rockets). These billets were
full of items held in storage and Smudger noticed that the people doing the
loading of the trucks were MSO blokes, most of who spoke and read English
very poorly. He and Ron Corker grabbed the 3-tonner, filled in a standard RAF
late meal chitty and after presenting that to the MSO bloke in charge of the
labourers, loaded up with four easy chairs, large table, six dining type chairs,
a sofa and some lamp shades. The picture that he posted to me of the new
improved billet with a ‘Quiet Room’ section was quite brilliant, a lounge
room by any other name. The tradition lived on!! |
