Other Post Wanna nuther story?

[mikanmart]

In the 50's , we in all the Armed Forces used to get away with a lot of things which would be frowned upon now .
So , there was I , in Hong Kong ,28 sqdn at RAF Sek Kong , next to a Tank park , and 48 Ghurka Brigade , and across the runway from an Artillery Reg. who had 25 pounders .
My brother Bill was a Sapper with A troop ,54 field Sqdn , 24 Field Reg. at Tai Lam Chung , about 1/2 way to Kowloon from Sek Kong .We had friends in high places .
As I was destined to be a pilot (another story) the aircrew used to take me flying quite a lot . This was in a Vampire T11 trainer , a nice little jet , noisy too .
One day , pilot says to me "where do you want to go". "Ah" says I "Can we go and beat up my brother's camp at Tai Lam Chung ?" "Yus , mate " he said , being a posh ossifer "show me the way " So , having strapped the Vampire to our bums , we took off---not me at controls of course . I pointed the aircraft in the general direction of Tai Lam Chung(TLC) ,and in less than two minutes we were overhead at 6000 feet . Pilot weighs up situation , does a lower run by to make sure ,and flies out to sea . He let the Vampire down to about 250 feet , and we shot in toward TLC , behind which was a hill .
We shot over the road very low , and screamed up the hill and half rolled off the top of the loop . Too low to do a full loop . Flew a bit toward Kowloon and came back up the road over the camp at 90 degrees to the original path , then a lazy arc round and back over with wings banked , and me waving down the wing like mad .Reverse course and go back over TLC in a fast roll , and straight up to 28000 feet . Super .Really enjoyed it .
Got back to Sek Kong , and told hairy stories to me mates .
CO talks to me later on , and says "Are you going down to see your brother today , if so , let me know what's said , will you?" Well , course I was going , had to see the reaction.
There was a reception awaiting me at TLC . The Engineers' CO told me to be careful of the RSM and thanks for the flying display. I signed in at g'room , and saunter of to Bill's billet . Not half way there , and this bloke with a cheese cutter hat howls at me for a minute or two , but doesn't get anywhere . I got to the billet , and was told that the RSM had his head under the bonnet of a Bedford 15cwt when we shot across , and he jumped and banged his head on the bonnet . He was in the process of rollocking someone over a dirty engine .Funny , I never bought another drink at TLC .
Apparently , the RSM wasn't very nice , and had tried to get the pilot charged , silly sod . There were no low flying restrictions outside HK and Kowloon cities , so he had to lump it . The engineer OC thought it was funny too , and kept this bloke off my brother's back .Can't do that nowadays .
MIKE M

 

[Zofo]

Nice!

Nowhere near as dramatic but it was in '89 and we were doing the EPC (Easily Passed Course or Education for Promotion Certificate) at Bergen Hohne. It was a Friday afternoon and the Education Corps Captain doing the lesson at the time was the most horny thing in uniform I think I've ever seen! All the boys thought the same - we had guards, tankies, gunners and us Sigs folk. Anyway, everyone tried throughout the course to invite her to dinner, drinks and even just rough sex. She declined every offer with a smile and the "I'm an officer" routine.
Towards the end of the lesson, she was droning on about MACP or something like death by viewfoil when there was a terrific rumbling in the sky. "Aha" says she, my boyfriend. The noise got louder and louder and seemed to be right above our classroom. We all looked out and just above us was a Harrier in a hover. It wiggled its wings and f*cked off. "My boyfriend" she announced smugly to our dismay!

 

[Holmesy7291]

Nowhere near as funny or dramatic as the previous stories....when I was in the T.A, potential recruits (aka 'Probys') such as we had to attend Training Weekends-a Recruit Selection Weekend (RSW) and 3 Basic Training Weekends before the final 2weeks at Borden (yep, I was a Vermin). One of the training weekends was down on Sailsbury Plain, a place beloved and reviled in equal measure. This was the first time we were allowed to use blanks, and after a lengthy demonstration of exactly what a blank round and a thunderflash can do to your head via Bob the Head (a shop dummys head) we were shown our 'stand to' positions and ordered to memorise them as we "may" be getting 'bugged out' that night. The training continues during the day, basic stuff like camming-up, how to patrol properly, hand signals (which we ended up turning into a kind of shadow-puppet show!) and then we crashed out at something dark o'clock, after admiring the light-show the Artillery boys were putting on several miles away. Anyways, during the night...we get contacted. The shout goes up "Stand To! Stand To!"...everyone rushes around to their positions...blanks are fired...thunderflashes brighten up the wood, until...peace and quiet reigns again. 45mins after "standing to", everyone crawls back to their bivvies, and finds...me. Fast asleep. In my sleeping bag. I never woke up! Needless to say I was chewed out and bollocked to buggery the next day, but at least I had a good night's sleep!

(If you're wondering how I managed to sleep through all that...I grew up right under the Gatwick Airport flightpath, so I learned to sleep through almost any noise. Given a long enough saw I could stand in the garden and bi-sect 747's as they passed about 200ft overhead) drill; hel; gren;

 

[GunBunnyInaMAB]

Isn't it amazing what you can get used to?

Heavy sleeper, huh? I was an Ammunition Carrier Operator in a 155mm Self-Propelled Field Artillery Battery in Germany from 1978-1980, in the 3rd Armored Division, 5th Corps, U.S.Army/Europe. A typical day in Graf went like this:

Up before the sun, drive down the gun line picking up empty powder cannisters, ammo cans, empty fuse and projectile pallets,(basically all the trash left over from the all night fire missions). Drive across the whole of Graffenweir to the land fill, dump the trash, turn around and drive back across Graf to the ammo point. Load up 180 98 pound 155mm projectiles,(projoes); 180 powder cannisters, pallets of fuses, boxes of 5.56mm primers, M-60 machinegun ammo, M2 .50 caliber machinegun ammo, artillery simulators,(they whistle like incoming rounds before detonating), a case or two of CS tear gas- all weighing in well over the 8 ton cargo capacity of my M520 GOER.

gren;

Then drive back to the battery, off load everything while picking up the trash from the fire missions that were carried out while we were away, then back to the dump, then the ammo point, over and over and over again. Then after a yummy dinner of cold C-rations(packed way back in 1953), we get to pull a 4 hour guard duty sitting in a hole and watching out for boarhogs,(that's what the live M-60 ammo was for). Then finally you get to close your eyes for maybe 3 hours, before being jostled awake by someone's booted foot, informing you that the gun sections need more ammo because they shot up everything you brought them the night before....

And I never heard them fire a shot- all 6 Howitzers!! Now that's heavy sleeping!!!

 

[Holmesy7291]

Ok, you win! unworthy; solaf

 

[John A Silkstone]

A snippet from my book

BEND YOUR ELBOW, EXTEND YOUR THUMB, AND HOPE.

Pete Dunn, never having been outside of London before, was persuaded to come home to Bolton with me. He couldn’t get over the friendliness of the people. Folks that he had never seen before were buying him drinks because he was with me. “This would never happen back home in London,” he told me.
On Sunday night we were making our way to the station when we bumped into two girls I knew, so we stopped to talk and missed our train back to Aldershot. I told Pete that we would have to hitchhike back to camp, and so we set off walking.
A lorry stopped, and the driver informed us that he was travelling to Reading but could only take one of us, as he had his two dogs with him. I told Pete to get in and make his way back to camp.
I had a bad night, with only a few small lifts. I knew that I would be late back, so about 03:00 hours I telephoned the guard room to inform them of the events. I arrived back at 11:00 hours, and was placed on a charge for being absent.
I found out that Pete had arrived back twenty minutes late. He had been on a charge that morning, and got seven days restricted privileges. All over lunch he gloated: “If I got seven days for 20 minutes, they’ll shoot you for being 5 hours late.”
At 14:00 hours I was marched into the CO’s office. I explained that I had known I would be late back from my weekend pass, and that I had notified the guardroom of this fact. The CO phoned the guardroom and found this to be true. The case was dismissed and I was marched out of the office.
I was told to put on my cap and belt, and marched back into the office. The Commanding Officer congratulated me and informed me that I was to be the squad NCO and was promoted to the rank of Lance Corporal. I left his office, collected my chevrons from the QM’s department and had them sewn onto my uniform by the camp tailor.
Pete stated, “There’s no justice in this man’s army. I got seven days for being twenty minutes late, and you get promoted for being five hours absent.”

 

[Holmesy7291]

My dad told me of this little event some years ago. A few months after being demobbed from National Service, dad was in London and came across a group of suntanned Squaddies struggling with huge kitbags at a Tube station (the escalators were broken). He helped them to the top and one, who he describes as a "proper cockney boy" started coughing and spluttering like nobodys business (this was back in the days of the old "pea-souper" fogs). He then says "Cor, fuckin' luvley!", to which my dad replies "You're joking aren't you???". The reply comes back "Nah, mate, oi've been in Malaya fur three years dreamin' of London air!".