Originally Posted by
teeteringhead
And then there's arriving at a DTG, thinking it was a GR - and vice versa.
I recall two training areas in Germany (can't recall the names) which were exactly 100 km apart, due East/West.
So if you left out the prefix letters - and the (ground) Army never bothered with those! - you could easily be 100km wrong. And every service did it.
..
Never personally went to the correct grid ref in the wrong training area during my time in Germany, but I did once go to exactly the correct grid in the correct training area a month early! The tasking folder for the exercise was dated June and they actually wanted SH in July.
During one big NATO exercise in the 80s, the German Bundespresident was scheduled to be flown in by helicopter as an observer of the final push....big local news, big welcoming party, press and TV cameras et al. We were told to avoid their landing point at all costs. So we did, we landed further down the hill. At the scheduled time, two German Super Pumas arrived overhead, vaguely circled the area, then suddenly flew over to our landing point, landed alongside our rather muddy Pumas and shut down. The shiny green door opened and down came the folding steps. The VIPs all climbed out, as did the crew. Unfortunately, the expectant welcoming party was a couple of miles away and we realised that one of us had to break the bad news. IIRC, the late George Blackie, as the squadron diplomatic rep (!) made his way across to them to whisper in the crew’s ear.... Red faces for the governmental crew, who had to round up the confused VIP pax and whisk them away again, up the hill.