Forum Line Book

[morse1001]

As mentioned by mosquito617, there is a tradition in the RAF called the line Book.This contained funny and amusing stories mainly about unit personnel and activities.So in keeping with the tradition, here is our version.Please do keep the stories clean!

Here is the first contribution.The summer of 1976 was one of the hottest on record and I was doing my basic training at RAF Swinderby. It was coming up to the day of the Pass Out Parade, so square bashing was getting serious.
One day I was informed by our DI that I along with one other had been chosen to be the Parade Warrant Officers Assistant. By which he meant that we did not take part in the actual marching up and down but instead were to wait until the relevant moment and then we marched up to the saluting base carrying a table ladened with the trophies.There after while the rest marched and counter marched over the parade square, we just practised, in our own time, our allotted tasked until we got it perfect.

Fate was to take a hand, Being a keen and enthusiastic type, I had made sure that I did not have too much to drink and was planning an early night to be refreshed for the morns activities.As I was walking back along a quiet country road, with my mind full of forthcoming events and at one moment my mind was occupied by that fundamental question asked by all servicemen at one point – do they really put bromine in the tea? Then all of a sudden, I was jumped on from behind and then someone in front tried to punch me, my reaction was to fight back and they both ran. However, one of them let out a shout of “Our Flight leader was in Northern Ireland”!

I reported it to the duty NCO in the guardroom who just happened to have been the Rockape instructor that had taken us during our training. As soon as I told him the bit about the flight leader, he said “That will be 4 flight” Sure enough, Trev, the flight leader had been with the Interflora Mob in NI. I later met Trev at Cosford as we were on the same Tels course.

Although we went round to the block we could not find the suspects. At 0200, I was finally allowed to go to my bed with the words “you’ll be kept behind to talk to the SIB”. ringing in my ears


The big day arrived; parents, friends and relatives gathered around the parade square to see there loved one being put through their paces on parade. The sprogs were getting their kit ready, the billet air was heady mixture of brasso, whitener, Klear floor polish (if applied properly, it made toe caps really shine without much effort), shoe polish, body sweat and stale beer! Although it was a hot day, we still had to wear best blues!

The moment arrived; we lined up outside our block and were marched off. We stopped at the Canberra Gate Guardian, were my oppo and I fell out and took up position underneath the wing for shade. I have to admit, He was looking green around the gills but said he was fine. From our vantage point I watched the various manoeuvres taking place on the parade square and kept a eye out for the cue. The cue was the banding playing “The old Comrades march”, but I knew before that part the flights were to do a right wheel which would have brought them parallel to the saluting base.

As I heard the words of command, I turned rounded to alert my oppo,and it was at this point I noticed he was lying face down on the tarmac with what used to be called “A Map of Africa” around his face! I did not have time to do much but grabbed one the members of the Standby Flight” who were watching the parade and had to give him instructions as we marched out across the parade square! One possibly embarrassing moment avoided!

Once the festivities were over, I had to get my kit and move in the Permanent Staff accommodation. Coming from an almost clinically clean block to there was a real eye-opener!

[morse1001]

This one concerns Montys activities in WW1 but show the humour of the average British Solider!

Monty at the time was a brigade major and had received instructions concerning an experiment to increase the speed of battlefield communications. The plan was for a a solider to carry a carrier pigeon and release it when they made contact with the enemy.


So the big day arrived, a squaddie was assigned the task and with the bird under arm marched off with the rest of his unit to battle.


Back at brigade HQ, they waited for the arrival of the bird, after a few hours the pigeon appeared in the loft and the message was quickly removed and passed to Monty. He read the message which said, “I am bloody sick of carrying this bird around France”!

[morse1001]

There is a sometime TV presenter and military commentator who became famous during the first gulf war. What people don’t realize is that he started his RAF career as a techie and served on TCW. Where is nickname was the Geordie T**T because of his arrogance

I was serving with wing at the same time and during Exercise winged Victory had been assigned along with George, my best mate to provide comms for 41 Sqn RIC, where we had a small office in a hanger. The work was easy and it was quite a cushy number.

One day the techie came in threw his SLR on the desk and said “look after the”. This was not the correct procedure and broke the rule which said that your weapon should not be more than a arms length from you at all times.

George and I decided that he should not get away with it and so I stripped the weapon and removed the breech block. We then contacted the RAF Sgt who was attached to our instructor staff and explained the situation and gave him the breech block.. he told us that we heard something about it very shortly.

Ten minutes later the cry went round the hanger for all TCW personnel to parade for a weapons check. The techie ran in, grabbed his weapon and joined us on parade in the middle of the hanger. Okay, it got also got everybody who was not TCW else out of their various offices standing watching us!

The order was given “For inspection, port arms” 150 SLR cocking handles were pulled back, 149 went clunk, one went chink. The Rockape Sgt marched up to the techie, pulled on the breech block and proceeded to give him a lecture on weapons safety! The techie was never so arrogant again!

[morse1001]

Also on the wing at the time was a chap called John Wain, who tried to live up to the name. he applied three times for the SAS selection course but never got beyond the flight commander.

One day on the ranges, we were doing an exercise with LMGs. The exercise involved us lying prone at the 700yds marker and on the command “GO”! we had to get up, pick up the LMG, run 100yds, drop into the firing pit and bring the weapon into action as soon as possible, once the mag was finished, we swapped over, run to the 500yds pit and repeat the process, each time you moved you swapped role, and finally at the 100yds pit, once the mag was finished, it was lowered and Two figure Eight targets appeared and you had to fire your personal weapon. You should try doing it wearing full NBC kit!


On this occasion, John demanded to be No1 at the start and so his weapon was “prepared”, the barrel was readied for removal and placed on the butt. “Go” was shouted and John stood up, got hold of the carrying handle and set off down the range. It was only when he jumped into the pit that he noticed that all he had was the barrel and that everyone else was laughing!

[morse1001]

While serving with the Marine branch, I was detached to Holyhead in Wales. Great little unit, it was a converted country house near the harbour and at weekends, the officers and SNCOs used to leave and the Erks had the place to themselves. The bar was cheap and plentiful and the local women used to try and get a invite for the weekend! But that is another story!

Part of the duty of the boat at Holyhead was to carryout deck duties with the Search and rescue training unit based at Valley.

As a bit of fun, we had score cards and now and then we would wait till the winchman was being recoved to the lace>Wessexlace> and pull out the cards and give him his score! E.g. 5.6, 5.6 etc.

One day, we had a SARTUWessex above us and a winchman was being lowered and on the way down, he got himself into trouble, he just missed being impaled on the VHF aerial for a start. So, we gave him his score there and then, which was in 0,0,0,0. He landed on the deck and disconnected the winch and came over to us huddled in the doorway of the wheelhouse.

His comment was “Do you lot know, that the instructors take a note of these scores”! There was us thinking that we were having some fun!

[morse1001]

Every so often, the peace and quiet of Airport Camp Belize was disturbed by something called Exercise mayan trial, which was designed to test the camps defences.

On this particular exercise, it had been decided that F Coy AKA the SAS detachment, would provide the "enemy" element, where as the RCT aka Rough cut timber, would provide most of the camp defences.

My unit, had a difficult role to play, since in the event of the real thing, we would spilt up into our various war roles, most of which would involve going down south to provide support to the army units facing the southern border. this meant that we never really took part in the exercise, except for wearing combats and carrying a rifle everywhere.

BFBS Radio stayed on the air in order to keep the troops informed of what was going etc. There was the 277 Request show, which I, a volunteer presenter had occasion to host, but during the exercise it was the station manager who doing it.

He broadcast a appeal for requests for the programme that started at 1900, and since our hut was the only accomodation that had a telephone extention, I phoned in said i was Driver Bloggs RCT and asked for the theme from High Noon for the SAS with the message, "Come round here, if you think you are hard enough"!

So frankie Laine was duly broadcast. Ten minutes later, Ginge Border, a royal siggie attached to us, phoned in, this time claiming to be from F coy. His request was nancy Sinatera singing "these Boots are made for walking". the message was in the lines of the song and the chorus,

"You've been saying things
you ought'not have been saying"

"These boots are going walk all over you"!

Plus, beware empty guinness bottles!
the IRA had a saying that a SAS man could speak seven languages and disguise himself as a guinness bottle.

Other units then sent in similar requests and it got quite busy on the show.So much so that they continued the requests on the Nightflight programme at 2200.

Next morning, while walking to cookhouse for breakfast, I was stopped by the brigaders driver who I was friendly with, as I walked past the RCT hut. he told me about the various requests and then took me into the hut and there sitting on the table in the centre of the hut, was a crate of empty guinness bottles, which had been placed there during the night.

Later on, the Warrant officer I/c F Coy came into the Ops room to book a Puma for one of their operations. As soon as he saw me, his face creased into a big smile and he said, "someone was having fun last night. It could have been worse, we could have went through their windows"!!

Later on, I found out that when they attacked the RAF Regiment Compound, the Rockapes stated throwing empty beer bottles at them!

[morse1001]

The BFBS hut was located near the POL point and was for most of the year, very quiet, normally it was just the presenter and the odd fellow presenter who would drop. If you went past Midnight with the Nightflight show, your normal company was the cockroaches that came out at night.

However, once a year at the bells we would open our doors to anyone as we held the "Wireless for the Blind" which was an opportunity for everyone to let their hair down and raise some cash for charity. the events started during the day but did not really get into the swing of things until nearer nightime and the beer was taking effect.

people used to walk to pledge money for requests or try their hand at announcing the record, it was funny watching cocky people getting stage fright as soon as they were told it was live! People would also drop in the money that they had raised that day and there was a party going on in the Hut.

One of biggest fundraisers was the kidnapping and ransoming of various people and things from around the camp. Most active in this activity was a group known as the "Peoples Front of Judea" AKA F Coy. they even kidnapped the Butcher Radar cat and drove through their compound with the cat strapped to the back of their wagon.

I took a call from the PFJ to say that they had kidnapped the Air commander and wanted fifty dollars for his safe return.

The BFBS staff had mounted a daring raid led by a Glous Major on the RE bar and removed their magnificant 10 x 15 foot flag whilst the sappers were in their bar. we wanted and got a hundred dollars for the flag!!!

However, I made an appeal on behalf of all RAF Personnel for the ransom money. A short time later, i was called to the phone and when I answered it, the caller informed me that he was Squadron leader kennedy, Officer Commanding 1564 Puma flt Royal Air Force and he wanted to make a statement about the kidnapping of the air commander.

I asked him what he wanted to say and got the reply, "its about the ransom money, he's a Harrier Pilot, so the harrier people can F******g pay it"!

Just before the bells, we broadcast an appeal for any spare scran that was going. Just after the bells, a landrover drew up outside the hut, two Sgt cooks got out and produced a table and started to fill it with goodies!!

The party was pettering out around 0400 and I said that as I was not really feeling tired, I would keep it going as long as possible; meaning 0700. I was glad of the table full of food because i did not get a relief untill 1900. I signed off by asking that if anyone was going to the NAFFI bar could they order me up a double barcardi and coke plus two bacon banjos. As I walked into the bar, Queenie the head bar maid poured the drink and produced the butties. She refused to take my money as someone had paid for it! I never did find out who did it. I slept for about twelve hours after that.

Do you think the RAF would accept a female recruit with short fat hairy legs, and who really is alergic to exercise of any form, but does actually like men in uniform?

[morse1001]

Originally Posted by mosquito617

Do you think the RAF would accept a female recruit with short fat hairy legs, and who really is alergic to exercise of any form, but does actually like men in uniform?

They'll take anyone so long as they pass the intelligence test!

Ah. That's me buggered then... I'll just have to join the Navy instead.