The moment Wattisham was put on alert, a mini
was despatched to the community at Shotley Gate, although sometimes it was pre-positioned
at Shotley, if someone remembered. Once
the driver got to Shotley, or to the mini, they would hang a huge speaker out
of the passenger window and drive around married quarters with a world war two
air raid siren howling up and down through its haunting scale. One of the best alarm clocks I have ever had. I don’t think I have ever met anyone who hung
back or made up some excuse for not responding to ‘the hooter.’ Most people would telephone their section to
find out what state of readiness we were at and where they were required to
report to. I would say that every single
person in the air force had some sort of scam going, but the moment ‘the hooter’
went, we all reacted as we were expected to.
And that will probably apply to most members of most armed forces, for
when ’the hooter’ went, you never knew if it was the real thing or not.
This time I telephoned operations and was told
that the unit was already on a very advanced stage of readiness. I was to get my cabbage gear on and my NBC
suit. I was still wearing my American
Marine combat kit, which really wound the Rock Apes up, but as I always explained
to them, what could I do with legs like mine?
It was late evening and the exodus from Shotley began. There was a bus stationed at Shotley and a
nominated driver so you would see chaps standing at corners waiting for the bus,
but you would normally stop and pick two or three up, before joining the whacky
races and hammering off toward Wattisham.
It was dark and it was raining. There
was a slight chill in the air. I threw
my car onto a pavement in married quarters at Wattisham and jogged off toward the
main gate. I wasn’t that keen, but you
never knew who was watching.
The Station Warrant Officer was in charge, it
was dark, so it was highly unlikely that he would be in ‘get your hair cut or
ears lowered’ mode. We had lined up, in
single file, which allowed the guard to bring forward and process one person at
a time. The entrance to camp was on a
slight incline and there was a healthy stream of water coming down the road. The guy before me was called forward and I
stepped up to the line. Despite the
guard going through their standard procedure with the guy in front, I could
hear the guard inside the guard hut talking on the telephone. He was repeating the information while
writing it down, a very difficult and extreme task as you well know, especially
under battle conditions. Someone, with the
same rank and surname as me had been reported as stealing a minibus and some
weapons.
You could see the smile erupt across the
Station Warrant Officers face. He wasn’t
a mean or nasty man, in fact we got on quite well, however, with a queue of twenty
plus people behind me, he could not be seen to be flexible or favourable. He stepped forward, well; forgive me, Station
Warrant Officers don’t ‘step forward’, he wasn’t going to invite me to dance a
version of The Gay Gordons, he marched himself
forward, pointed his gun at me, a lovely little sterling machine gun, and screamed
at me to get on my face. I looked at the
ground in front of me and the stream of water, I then looked at the Station Warrant
Officer. He could move his weapon to one
side, which would indicate and allow me to step to that side, and then get down
on the ground or he could scream at me again.
As I lay there, spread-eagled and face down, in
what is probably known as a mini flash flood, I could feel the rain water soak
into my clothes and knew that I was going to be quite uncomfortable for some
time. In case I was a diversionary
tactic, the queue behind me were called forward in double quick time and
processed, which took about ten, wet, cold, frustrating minutes. Now with me on my own, on the road, the Station
Warrant Officer brought his guard forward so that I could be searched. With the search complete I was brought to my
feet and once again heard the guard, in the guard hut, read back the facts that
the fellow, with the same rank and surname as myself, had been found with the minibus and it was all one big mistake. So I am now quite reluctant to go on any
further, not because I had thrown all my toys out of the pram, but because I
knew what lay ahead of me. Because air
traffic was a part of operations Joe Pearson was the main control martial supervising
entry to the section.
I knew that the idiot would want to know who I
thought I was turning up to work in such a state, and I really wasn’t in the mood
to deal with such an arse. Although, as
I made my way towards operations, I remembered the idiot Joe Pearson and his single
minded passion for the Nijmegen marches.
All his little gang of marchers wore combat clothing, so if I could find
it in my heart to be nice to him, I might be able to borrow some dry uniform
from him. I reported to operations and
began to go through the entrance procedure because the operations building was
pressurised, I had to go through a guarded air lock. The idiocy started with the first person I
met. Look at the state of you. Who do you think you are turning up to work
like that? I bit my lip and went through
the procedure till I came to Joe Pearson, idiot extraordinaire.
There was no way I could humble myself before
him so I spoke to him on a man to idiot basis.
“Joe, any chance you could lend me some dry combat clothes, please.” I know, it was an effort to say please. I could see a, lot of my guys milling bout. They had heard I had been arrested at the
main gate and were probably pleased that their leader was maintaining the low
standards I had constantly set for myself.
“No,” said Joe. “You’re wearing USMC
Marine combats and I don’t want to end up stuck with them.” I went through to flight planning, into my
office, locked the door and stripped off, draping my kit over the radiators so
that it might dry. This was another
version of the clipboard sleight of hand system. Go in to your office and lock the door, as
long as there were no internal windows you were fine. No one would know if you were in or out. If anyone tried the door or knocked you just didn’t
answer.
I actually waited until my whole kit was dry
before putting it all back on and went in to operations. By now word had spread about what had happened
to me at the main gate so most people naturally assume this is the reason I am
late, and why should I say anything different.
If I remember correctly that exercise ended very quickly. Basically command had instructed Wattisham to
bring seventy five percent of its aircraft to full battle readiness, and for
some strange bit of luck it only took about twenty four hours. I went home, looking forward to a nice warm
bath, some clean clothes and an idiot free zone. It was the Sunday evening, about four days later. I was sitting at home and the telephone rang. Your immediate thoughts is that ‘here we go
again’ especially when I recognised the voice as one of the air traffic guys
from Wattisham. It was Karl, who had
been one of my guys when I was in air traffic.
He explained that he had heard what Joe Pearson had done to me, or not
done to me, as the case may be. Karl had
taken it upon himself to go to the lockers where Joe Pearson kept all his marching
combat kit and filled the locks with superglue.
I know, I should have told him off but you know, all I could do was
smile.
No comments:
Post a Comment