Eastern radar was at RAF Watton. Watton was in Norfolk and as you all know, or
at least do now, Norfolk is part of East Anglia. One image I suppose that might spring to mind
when thinking of East Anglia would be The Hay Wain by John Constable. For me myself when I think of East Anglia I
think of Americans because the place is heaving with them. Very strange when you would approach someone
and expect to be greeted with an accent similar to the singing postman
performing “Hev Yew Gotta Loight Boy?” and instead someone would say something
like, “Have a nice day ya’ll.”
I first met American forces in North Welsh Wales. They provided a pararescue service. This was not a half-cocked rescue service,
far from it. The USAF pararescue were
quite similar to the RAF’s mountain rescue, except they were not as mad. They responded to any American military
personnel in difficulty and would always be in a race with us to get to the
casualty. They used huge Jolly Green Giants,
the CH-3E helicopters, and would parachute from them to get to the personnel
needing assistance. It was a huge effort
and we greatly admired them, but one thing they didn’t have was local knowledge
and that often slowed them up. By the
way, for the rubberneckers out there, a pair of CH-3E’s were the first helicopter’s to fly non-stop
from New York to Paris, a journey which took just under thirty one hours and
saw them refuel in mid-air, nine times.
For us, if we rescued anyone, we were grateful if they bought
us a few beers but the pararescue guys expected any military personnel they rescued
to get a tattoo of a green foot on their buttocks. In a way I’m glad that wasn’t widely known through
our lot, for I would hate to think what we would have asked people to get tattooed
on their arse.
The second time I met the Americans was again at Valley. It was a Saturday evening and a F1-11 was in
trouble. He was coming in for an emergency
landing. It was a wonderful sight. Night time was drawing in and the lights from
the houses and buildings in Holyhead sparkled, like bright diamonds on a dark
cloth. The F1-11 had an engine fire and
when we managed to spot him visually it was an amazing sight. There must have been a one hundred foot
stream of flame behind the aircraft and I remember thinking, as it came in on a
direct line for our runway, that if he was carrying any bombs, or heavy
munitions, Holyhead might not exist for very much longer if this all went wrong. The aircraft landed safely and the fire
brigade were all over it.
At first light, the following morning, a Hercules transport
aircraft arrived and a new engine for the F1-11 was produced. The engine was replaced and the new one
tested out. Now I don’t know who was to blame
but if you’ve ever seen an F1-11 up close, you will know that this is quite a
substantial aircraft. This fellow needed
to give the new engine a full test before attempting to fly it, so he gradually
brought the power up and engaged reheat; you know when you see the two barrels
of flames flushing out of the rear of an aircraft.
The area it was parked in was not a specialised area, however
the team had managed to satisfactorily test the new engine and announced that
the aircraft could fly, the only problem now was what to do with the huge hole
in the taxiway that the F1-11’s new engine had gouged out. By mid-afternoon, on the Sunday, the Americans
had gone and I was impressed. Now in East
Anglia I found myself surrounded by them.
It was only when I saw the map.
That map, the one that shows all the military bases in the UK, even the
ones that aren’t there, that I realised I was looking at airstrip one.
Well done to those of you who know what I am talking
about. Airstrip one is the name of the
Oceanian province in George Orwell’s novel, 1984. Suddenly it all made sense, not the Americans
but Orwell’s message. The missions flown
from these USAF bases are far too numerous to mention and cover a great deal
of the globe. It didn’t mean that much
to most of the fellows at Eastern who really only had two interests in the
USAF. One was to get flights in the refuelling
tankers, that operated from Mildenhall, and the other was rugby. Despite the fact that the USAF were always
very welcoming and hosted fantastic parties we never were attracted to, or
targeted, American service women. They were
no different to your standard English lady and there was no reason why we
should not pursue these young ladies but we didn’t.
One fellow did and amazed us all with his clever plan. He bought himself out of the RAF. He then married an American service woman and
took American citizenship. Next he became
a local American serviceman and performed the exact same job as we did except
he was now getting paid three times as much as we were, as he was considered to
be in an overseas posting. Crazy world.
As for the rugby and the Americans, like their pararescue
efforts, I have to say I admired their determination. The Americans seem to believe that American
football is the one and only true sport in the world. Every time we would take to the field I was
slightly embarrassed, as they would go through a warm up procedure designed, it
felt like, to intimidate us. I could
never believe the growling and snarling that would come at us and just waited
for the first scrum where many of the poor American service men, despite their
size, would crumple and die.
We never went in for pre match pep talks or the like, although
I do remember one time at Watton, Tim Lort decided to psych us up before a
match and we wrecked the metal lockers in the changing rooms . Of course the Americans were not natural at
rugby and we had such stars as John Hughes, Chidge, Jon Hampson and Tim Lort ,to
name but a few, so hats off to the Americans.
We loved going into their clubs afterwards because they piled the drink
high and sold it cheaply.
It was at Mildenhall where we arrived to play a game of
rugby. It was too cold or too wet to
play. The pitch would have been ruined
so we all retreated to the bar for some drinks.
Believe it or not this was quite a common thing. I once went to
Cambridge to play against an army side and was quite surprised when the
regimental sergeant major strolled onto the pitch and told the referee to stop
the game, it was raining. We were taken
off the field and allowed to wait in the lee of a hanger until the rain had ceased. Then we were allowed to go back on to the pitch. How daft was that?
As you know, when you put enough drink down the throat of a
rugby player they start to sing and this day was no different to any
other. Tim took to the stage and began
to sing. Unfortunately some of the
ditties contained very racist remarks. I
shall not repeat them, for I know what it’s like to read defamatory remarks
about one’s race, even in jest. Tim
wasn’t, nor isn’t, a racist, we just didn’t think and the resulting punch up
would have been perfect if Burt Reynolds had turned up and joined in.
Of course rugby wasn’t the be all and end all of our
lives. Beer was. Our natural enemies were the cricketers and
the soccer team. Cricket was boring but
soccer was mind numbingly ridiculous and we believed it really was a girl’s
game. However the football club was having
its annual dance and I decided that it was time to find myself a
girlfriend. Catherine and I had drifted
apart, we still wrote to each other but it was too much of an effort to hold a
relationship together over such distances.
I was still seeing the young lady from Warrington, in fact there was talk
of an engagement however, in my defence, a ring was never produced.
Most fellows will preen themselves before attending a
function and I was no different. Some
chaps like to leave a good few shirt buttons undone to show off a mat of hair
signifying, in their minds, the inner animal.
Some wear tight clothing, some drench themselves in aftershave. I on the other hand knew that my best
features were my legs. It’s no easy task
having the loveliest legs in Ireland but for this function I decided to
maximise their appeal. I rolled up my
trousers legs to the knees. I then began
to worry that the effect of two bare legs might be far too much for the average
girl to be exposed to so I pulled on one wellington boot.
I kid you not; this is how I attended the annual football
function. You may think that I probably
spent the evening in a corner hugging a beer when in fact the moment I walked
into the function, the prettiest woman in the room, if not the world, decided
that I was to be hers, not just for the evening, but for life.
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