Funny Things Happen in The Air Force

[NutherA2]

In the late 1950s the Commandant at Halton was Air Commodore T N (Punchy) Coslett, himself an ex-brat and former RAF heavyweight boxing champion. At a practice AOC's parade, I had the easy post of "commanding" No 1 Flight of No 1 Squadron; No 2 Flight being led by a mate, Pete E*****s.

All went well until the march past, when Pete set his troop in motion out of step with my lot. Punchy's shout drowned out the band as he ordered us back to the starting blocks with the instruction "Will the Commander of 2 Flight set off in step with No 1 Flight"

The restart was no improvement; Pete still hadn't got the hang of it. After sending us back to the start position again, Punchy's next shout was "Flt Lt E****s start off IN STEP WITH NO 1 FLIGHT".

Sadly, the third attempt was no more successful; this time the Air Commodore simply halted us and roared "Flt Lt E****s come here". As Pete stood smartly to attention in front of him, Punchy drew his sword, pointed it at Pete's chest and the whole parade heard his final words "Flt Lt E****s, if you do that again I'm going to run you through".

Happily for Pete it was fourth time lucky.