Zofo
30-07-04, 16:11
This account is open source material and can be found on numerous websites.
Sometime in Summer1989 our squadron were taking part in a large exercise spread all around Northern Germany. I don’t remember where exactly we were though it was probably near the Bielfeld Ridge again. We had been hoofing around the countryside for 4 ˝ days, constantly moving, operating and when things started getting too hot then off we’d go again to hunt a new location where we could set up and make people’s lives a misery.
As we know, by law, armed forces are not allowed to move over weekends and all exercise activity has to come to a standstill (unless one is being tactical in a training area).We were looking forward to getting some sleep, a good hot meal and some time for a bit of personal admin. The higher ups and the real opposition had other ideas. On Friday morning we were given a “No Duff” move order a heck of a way North and then East. There was a lot of grumbling but we set too, packed up and sped away to our new location. It was a place we’d used many times before and was more like a second or third barracks to us. It was on the top of a very high hill, surrounded by pine and fir trees. (For those of you who read my wild pig story a while back, this is the same location).
We arrived on site and set up our antennae, receive and transmit and the non-drivers settled into the operating positions in our set up.
Our squadron commander, a major of high estimation (of himself) came around and gave us a warning that over the weekend, the squadron would be visited by perhaps a troop of the SAS who had been invited over to practice their stealthy arts – and for us to practice all round defence! He did not know exactly when they’d come but rest assured, they would. We’d never worked with them, against them and had never had dealings with them. Our chief signals chap was ex SAS Sig. Sqn. but he was with sqn. HQ.
It so happened that on Saturday afternoon one of the operators picked up a very strange radio signal quite high up on the HF band. It lasted a very, very short time and then nothing else. Knowing that these strange people used burst transmission, we thought it might be them coordinating things. Sure enough, soon after the galloping Major arrived to say that he’d had word that there were sneakies around in the area and we were to get ready to repel borders.
The troop was going to take no chances! We had I suppose about 30 bodies altogether plus four of five seniors and the troop commander. Our troop 2 i/c, an Aussie immediately made the following deployment. Me, a JNCO radio specialist, the troop commander and a runner were to stay in the radio det area. Everyone else was to go into all round defence for a max. of 400 metres from our area. This meant that for an operational troop, we had 95% on guard and the remainder operationally hamstrung! The guys went to their shell scrapes at about 1830. Us lucky ones settled down to our coffee, biscuits and trash mags!
Time crept on. The forest was still. Nothing moved. It got darker and darker. Still nothing happened. My watch said 2200 then 2300. It was still quiet. 2330 came and went and nary a peep from the forest. Actually, I was quite impressed. I’d never heard the blokes being so quiet!
At midnight we do changes – that is change the radio frequency to the next indicated on our sheet. As our radio op. did so, there was an almighty explosion, gunfire (blanks of course) and one hell of a lot of shouting. We in our large tent picked up our weapons and ran around in circles, led by the troop commander – there was not much we could do, as the tent wasn’t built for so many people. For some reason it quietened down and I heard the dulcet tones of our SSM calling for a follow up team. I got shoved out to help and we bimbled around the woods looking for bad guys. Needless to say, we didn’t find anyone. The troops went back into all round defence, we went back to our tent, grabbed some shut eye and waited for the debrief.
So what had happened that night? Ludicrously it appeared that we’d won! There were four SAS guys on stealthy approach. They had planned to attack at changes so we couldn’t call anyone up to report in but…they didn’t count on our ferocious defenders!! Well, not so ferocious it appears. One of the guys on stag (a Green Slime Int Corps muppet) had shifted out of his shell scrape, gathered a lot of ferns and small branches and covered himself below and above so that he could have a comfy time of it. Too comfy, because he fell asleep. An SAS man had been creeping along nicely checking our positions and had, fortunately for us, tripped over our sleeping sentry! The sentry waking up after being trampled on let off a couple of blank rounds and so the chaos started. The SAS men being sensible, bugged out as the area was too hot. And that was how it ended. Well, not quite! As 95% of the troop had been awake all night, a skeleton shift was on duty (including me) whilst most got their heads down. I was detailed to help one of our drivers sort out a water bowser for replen when there was an almighty bang, smoke and gunshots all around our main area. The SAS had crept back in past our one stag post and coolly posted a couple of flash bangs inside the complex area and added a couple of smoke grenades for luck. We were totally wrong footed of course and to make matters worse, I could see only two SAS men standing to one side with an umpire, who was casually scribbling down the score in a little book. I wanted to have a natter with these two blokes, one of whom was smoking. I thought they didn’t look like supermen but the umpire officiously waved me away. The two had another word and then slipped away into the undergrowth and left us to lick our wounds.
Sometime in Summer1989 our squadron were taking part in a large exercise spread all around Northern Germany. I don’t remember where exactly we were though it was probably near the Bielfeld Ridge again. We had been hoofing around the countryside for 4 ˝ days, constantly moving, operating and when things started getting too hot then off we’d go again to hunt a new location where we could set up and make people’s lives a misery.
As we know, by law, armed forces are not allowed to move over weekends and all exercise activity has to come to a standstill (unless one is being tactical in a training area).We were looking forward to getting some sleep, a good hot meal and some time for a bit of personal admin. The higher ups and the real opposition had other ideas. On Friday morning we were given a “No Duff” move order a heck of a way North and then East. There was a lot of grumbling but we set too, packed up and sped away to our new location. It was a place we’d used many times before and was more like a second or third barracks to us. It was on the top of a very high hill, surrounded by pine and fir trees. (For those of you who read my wild pig story a while back, this is the same location).
We arrived on site and set up our antennae, receive and transmit and the non-drivers settled into the operating positions in our set up.
Our squadron commander, a major of high estimation (of himself) came around and gave us a warning that over the weekend, the squadron would be visited by perhaps a troop of the SAS who had been invited over to practice their stealthy arts – and for us to practice all round defence! He did not know exactly when they’d come but rest assured, they would. We’d never worked with them, against them and had never had dealings with them. Our chief signals chap was ex SAS Sig. Sqn. but he was with sqn. HQ.
It so happened that on Saturday afternoon one of the operators picked up a very strange radio signal quite high up on the HF band. It lasted a very, very short time and then nothing else. Knowing that these strange people used burst transmission, we thought it might be them coordinating things. Sure enough, soon after the galloping Major arrived to say that he’d had word that there were sneakies around in the area and we were to get ready to repel borders.
The troop was going to take no chances! We had I suppose about 30 bodies altogether plus four of five seniors and the troop commander. Our troop 2 i/c, an Aussie immediately made the following deployment. Me, a JNCO radio specialist, the troop commander and a runner were to stay in the radio det area. Everyone else was to go into all round defence for a max. of 400 metres from our area. This meant that for an operational troop, we had 95% on guard and the remainder operationally hamstrung! The guys went to their shell scrapes at about 1830. Us lucky ones settled down to our coffee, biscuits and trash mags!
Time crept on. The forest was still. Nothing moved. It got darker and darker. Still nothing happened. My watch said 2200 then 2300. It was still quiet. 2330 came and went and nary a peep from the forest. Actually, I was quite impressed. I’d never heard the blokes being so quiet!
At midnight we do changes – that is change the radio frequency to the next indicated on our sheet. As our radio op. did so, there was an almighty explosion, gunfire (blanks of course) and one hell of a lot of shouting. We in our large tent picked up our weapons and ran around in circles, led by the troop commander – there was not much we could do, as the tent wasn’t built for so many people. For some reason it quietened down and I heard the dulcet tones of our SSM calling for a follow up team. I got shoved out to help and we bimbled around the woods looking for bad guys. Needless to say, we didn’t find anyone. The troops went back into all round defence, we went back to our tent, grabbed some shut eye and waited for the debrief.
So what had happened that night? Ludicrously it appeared that we’d won! There were four SAS guys on stealthy approach. They had planned to attack at changes so we couldn’t call anyone up to report in but…they didn’t count on our ferocious defenders!! Well, not so ferocious it appears. One of the guys on stag (a Green Slime Int Corps muppet) had shifted out of his shell scrape, gathered a lot of ferns and small branches and covered himself below and above so that he could have a comfy time of it. Too comfy, because he fell asleep. An SAS man had been creeping along nicely checking our positions and had, fortunately for us, tripped over our sleeping sentry! The sentry waking up after being trampled on let off a couple of blank rounds and so the chaos started. The SAS men being sensible, bugged out as the area was too hot. And that was how it ended. Well, not quite! As 95% of the troop had been awake all night, a skeleton shift was on duty (including me) whilst most got their heads down. I was detailed to help one of our drivers sort out a water bowser for replen when there was an almighty bang, smoke and gunshots all around our main area. The SAS had crept back in past our one stag post and coolly posted a couple of flash bangs inside the complex area and added a couple of smoke grenades for luck. We were totally wrong footed of course and to make matters worse, I could see only two SAS men standing to one side with an umpire, who was casually scribbling down the score in a little book. I wanted to have a natter with these two blokes, one of whom was smoking. I thought they didn’t look like supermen but the umpire officiously waved me away. The two had another word and then slipped away into the undergrowth and left us to lick our wounds.