9th November 1980:
Unusually, II Squadron had been moved in convoy to Germany for the annual NATO exercise rather than being dropped into Sennelager TA for the period. So that we kept our record of always jumping a drop was scheduled for this day at 1500hrs on West Wretham DZ in Yorkshire.
To a man the squadron all had the same idea and kit was forced into every crevice of the road party vehicles and our parachute containers were filled with booze and fags...
Beautiful jump... Bit of a rocky DZ but no injuries...90+ Rocks with sh1t eating grins are packing chutes and thinking how clever they are when the whisper comes down the DZ:-
"Customs!!!"
The gutsy amongst us wrapped the contraband in their chute and started to tab off the DZ. Others built cairns or buried the offending items. Vast quantities of petrol were expended returning to the DZ that night for people to try to find a bottle of Brandy or two they left out there. To this day I'm sure there is plenty of unclaimed contraband out there.