View Full Version : Mystery Cranwell Photo
JTIDS
14th Mar 2014, 16:14
Can anyone help explain this photo, which hangs on the wall in Operations at Cranwell? One of the participants in the centre of the photo has been painted out at some point. As can be seen from the close up his legs are still there, but the rest of him has been removed!
Anyone know who it was or why he was expunged from history??
http://s29.postimg.org/eww7mn9fb/image.jpg
http://s29.postimg.org/48nva2a2f/unnamed.jpg
langleybaston
14th Mar 2014, 16:23
That would be the rotten sod who habitually piddled in the Met. rain-gauge.
S Met O. Roger Hackwell and I probably called down a murrain on him during one of our "Harp lager and an omelette" lunches. I think Harp had just been introduced in the Mess, and the glasses [empty] were sold at 2/6- each.
I still have half a dozen of the chunky glasses with handles. Indestructible.
alamo
14th Mar 2014, 16:38
I remember this photo hanging in the briefing room at Leeming circa 1980.
When I graduated from Sleaford Tech, the graduation photo was taken some days before the graduation - wings were held in place by Velco. Can only surmise that the deleted failed to graduate and was crudely air-brushed from history. At least his legs graduated!
Wensleydale
14th Mar 2014, 16:50
Can only surmise that the deleted failed to graduate and was crudely air-brushed from history.
Perhaps its the first student to be "Chopped"?
MPN11
14th Mar 2014, 16:57
Fairly poor job on reconstructing the roundel too.
I blame Stalin.
Fake Sealion
14th Mar 2014, 17:11
Seems a tad harsh on the bloke.
Could have just "airbrushed" the Wings rather than the whole body:eek:
Wrathmonk
14th Mar 2014, 17:21
Perhaps he left the RAF under "less than honourable circumstances"?
IIRC in the course photo album on TWCU if you were chopped your face was inked over. If you VW'd the graffiti was less politically correct.....
goudie
14th Mar 2014, 17:23
Seems to me inadequate organisation, whereby you can set up the graduation photo, when there's still a chance of students being chopped
NutLoose
14th Mar 2014, 18:22
Maybe he went back to the future......
StopStart
14th Mar 2014, 18:25
If memory serves, there were a couple of pics like this at Cranwell. As stated above, course photo taken before graduation, chap fails FHT and gets chopped. "Airbrushed" out.
langleybaston - even Google Translate is struggling with your post. A few early Friday afternoon shandies perchance?
gr4techie
14th Mar 2014, 18:44
At least his legs graduated!
Must have been the legs issued to Douglas Barder?
Wander00
14th Mar 2014, 18:55
Talking about airbrushing people out of photos, at second son's wedding to a beautiful and very clever Danish girl, there were 8 "parents - parents of both were divorced and remarried or re-partnered. The photo of the bride and groom with the "parents" arrived - with a gap between Mrs W and bride's Father - in the week after the wedding the bride's mother had sacked her boyfriend, and had him airbrushed out of the photo. Made it look like Mrs W and bride's Dad were not talking!
MPN11
14th Mar 2014, 19:00
I've also been one of 8 'parents' at a wedding ... interesting/scary/tense scenario. ;)
Marcantilan
14th Mar 2014, 19:13
Maybe he went back to the future......
Brilliant!
BEagle
14th Mar 2014, 20:12
On our Graduate Entry course at RAFC, one chap broke an ankle not long before he was due to take his FHT.
So The System decided to take 2 grad photos; one included him (with his plaster cast carefully concealed) while the other did not - in case he bonged his trip.
We took rather a dim view of this, so the 'without' photo had people holding hands, pulling silly faces, picking their noses, flies unzipped etc. and could never have been used. Fortunately he passed his FHT and the final grad photo was fine!
ex-fast-jets
14th Mar 2014, 20:51
On our Graduate Entry course at RAFC,
Things never were the same.........................
Wander00
14th Mar 2014, 20:54
IMHO where it all stated to go downhill..............hat, coat...............
BEagle
14th Mar 2014, 22:40
I was on a Flt Cdt entry, then went to University for a few years of applied Chipmunkery and drunken debauchery interspersed with the odd lecture - it beat the heck out of Knocker, Ferris and Chimay! But when I returned to RAFC to finish off OT and to do my JP course, the atmosphere just wasn't the same.
I think it went downhill when they let oiks from that secondary modern place in Bedforshire become Cranwell Flt Cdrs..... Things became even worse when it merged with the College...:eek:
Shack37
14th Mar 2014, 22:51
Maybe the chap under the roundel has four legs.
Wander00
14th Mar 2014, 22:53
After 11 years as a civilian and TA Officer (not necessarily in that order) I returned to the RAF, but in the Admin Sec Branch, as a flt lt with no seniority. My first F1369 debrief from my OC Admin, who had filled every rank in TG 17 from SAC to WO, then made wg cdr started as follows " Flt Lt W is an ex Cranwell cadet, and it shows in all he does." One of the best moments of my life.
cuefaye
14th Mar 2014, 23:28
It was me -----
N2erk
15th Mar 2014, 00:41
Shack37--My thoughts exactly. Not as bad though as 78 Long AD Phantom course- 5 empty chairs and NO bodies (or legs, oh- other than on the chairs)
I had a bit of an early onset senior moment, looking at that. Given the year, I thought some of the instructors in the front row surely would have had some war ribbons. Then I realised that back in the day, student numbers on courses that size probably really did exist.
Innominate
15th Mar 2014, 06:51
"Not as bad though as 78 Long AD Phantom course- 5 empty chairs and NO bodies "
Is that the one that was captioned "Lord Lucan, Glen Miller, Shergar..."?
langleybaston
15th Mar 2014, 09:52
langleybaston - even Google Translate is struggling with your post. A few early Friday afternoon shandies perchance?
was MURRAIN the problem: death, deadly illness, curse likewise ....... ?
N2erk
15th Mar 2014, 15:40
Innominate- yes that's the one. I don't know the background on this, and I can't post the photo, but that's it. I believe 14 GA course was cancelled (due to the fuel crisis post yom Kippur war) but I guess no-one was amused or they had a sense-of-humour failure, so no silly photo.
alamo
16th Mar 2014, 14:00
Rather reminded of the course/graduation/squadron/whatever photo in College Hall of the guys who did an 'Albert RN' and smuggled a dummy prop from a summer ball, a beefeater at the tower, into the photo. The unshaven 'cadet' is identified as SFC B Feater as I recall.
Yellow Sun
16th Mar 2014, 16:44
Rather reminded of the course/graduation/squadron/whatever photo in College Hall of the guys who did an 'Albert RN' and smuggled a dummy prop from a summer ball, a beefeater at the tower, into the photo. The unshaven 'cadet' is identified as SFC B Feater as I recall.
D Squadron 1966, the ringleaders were from 92 Entry with some co-opted assistance from 93. Alas, FC Feater never made it the Senior Entry but is believed to have made a successful "home run".
YS:ok: