Nimrods in Malta
We started our posting to Malta by forming up with 38 sqn as a holding unit at St Mawgan, sharing accommodation with the resident Canberras. Mintoff had already started creating so we had two or maybe three crews on this holding unit.
We finally arrived in LMML as crew 1 in the lead aeroplane skippered by S/L Patterson and almost instantly set about partying (as Nimrod crews often did) and that lasted until Mintoff and Carrington fell out. The crewing was all changed around and I ended up on Crew 2 with ‘Keefy’ Merret as the skipper. I mentioned our intrepid flight to Gozo and back again in the previous post. And then it finally started – the withdrawal - on New Years Eve and our crew were deployed to Akrotiri. This was the start of six months bouncing around. I was single but the married guys had to endure their families being sent to crappy records quarters at Gaydon .
We flew into Akrotiri to be met by nothing except a dog handler. A bus finally arrived and we were taken to the mess where a big celebration was evident.
Arriving in the mess the CMC (dressed in a ballerinas tutu) told our very senior Master Aircrew Air Engineer that we could not enter the mess in overalls. We were allowed about 14 kg of personal kit ex LMML so fancy dress did
not make the packing list. (I had two changes of shreddies and socks and my four bottles of Southern Comfort from my bunk in Luqa. I left everything else behind and never saw any of it again . Our Eng told this CMC in no uncertain terms that the Malta withdrawal had started about 5 hours ago and he will have to get used to Nimrod crews ruling the roost in the Akrotiri (his) mess.
After about three days on the Keo the Station Commander summoned our captain and asked him to tone things down a bit as he was trying to get his station back to work. We repaired back to Malta again on about the 10th January to give a hand and helped with the withdrawal – parking cars (owned by 203 crews who were away on trips or training) for shipment home with RN and RFA ships, packing things up in general and trying to sell things off to anyone who would have them (tv sets , washing machines, Fridges etc) I ended up throwing some things into the sea off Dingli Cliffs.
Every Kg on every ASC c130 flight to the UK was accounted for and filled with personal effects. Finally we departed with another aeroplane to Sigonella - It was ok to begin with as our accommodation was in the Central Palace in downtown Catania. Our first operational flight out of Sig was a comedy of errors and someone ordered Alitalia meals from Fontanarossa catering. Well - poncy angel cakes and a small bottles of Italian rosso at a crazy rate of Lira is not the thing of Nimrod Galleys.
Our next flight was catered by the US In Flight Galley at Sigonella. Free for enlisted men and one dollar for each officer – and almost any amount of food you could carry on board. The Americans were brilliant to us. Far better than our own types in Akrotiri who just seem to think we would rape and pillage their base.
Life carried on between Akrotiri where, if I recall correctly, we often had two Nimrods, and training fortnights in the St Mawgan Simulator and back to a very wintery Sigo piggin nella. We were using the Italian Mess for lunch and the Aeroplanes didn’t do a great deal except the occasional dry trip around the soviet anchorages and the occasional SAR. The Italian mess served crude Vino Tinto at lunch so the afternoons were invariably a write off. One of the aeroplanes was manned as a comcen alternating with CW to and from Episkopi, and Voice comms on Upavon. There were two routes back from the mess to the aeroplane - one a circuitous route and the other meant jumping a ditch. In the ditch was bamboo shoots growing so you would have thought that anybody jumping the ditch would have taken that into account especially after the Vino Tinto. My room mate, who will remain nameless, miss cued his vino induced jump and fell into the ditch. He went into an Italian hospital with a bamboo ‘spear’ right through the palm of his hand and out the other side. If he reads this he might just own up.
Next we were moved to a holiday camp and things went rapidly down hill from there.
Right –time for the pub.