Originally Posted by
ZH875
Bedford dispersal site had caravans for sleeping in. Three rooms of 4 bunks. Damp and smelly. A short walk away across daddy long legs infested grass was the ablutions block with its chemical khazi's which were emptied by the honey wagon once a week. The brick buildings used for stores, admin, and general stuff. Advance party would go down and light all the stoves to get some heat into the buildings.
I did an Exercise Minion to Bedford in November 1972. The accommodation can't have been too bad as I managed to sleep through a 05. My captain, whom I still see from time to time if only to exchange information about our meds, said " I saw no good reason to wake you up". Bedford was socked in with very thick fog - you couldn't see one set of lights, let alone three. We got off the next day and three days later we were at El Toro USMC Air Base in very sunny California. The AOC was on a round-the-world the world farewell jolly and had stopped off in California to see his daughter who lived in La Jolla. He managed to cock up the engine start (599), thus needing a new engine. We had arrived at Offutt the day before and so he requisitioned our perfectly serviceable bomber (605). I had foreseen something like this happening and so had with me mapping as far as Hickham. Luckily the replacement engine was sent to Montevideo before it arrived in LA. While collecting it we were vouchsafed a sighting of Hugh Heffner, who had flown in in the Big Bunny and who looked so raddled then that I am surprised he lived as long as he did.
As YS said - Happy days!