Not So Much Thread Drift ............
................. as a complete swerve off course.
Given the exchange between TTN and self, thought I'd include the account below which describes the home made 28 Sqn standard. I wrote it several years ago for the 28 Sqn historian.
THE HOME-MADE 28 SQUADRON STANDARD
The summer of 1967 saw an increase in civil unrest in Hong Kong as an overspill of the Cultural Revolution which was sweeping through China. The Hong Kong Police were hard pressed to contain the trouble and the garrisoned Army units were not fully equipped for IS operations, with few rotary winged assets to help rapid deployment or to patrol the sea lanes and outlying islands. A decision was made to send a small force of Whirlwind helicopters to the colony and to base these at RAF Kai Tak and in due course, 6 aircraft arrived aboard HMS Triumph and were flown off by 103 Sqn crews led by Sqn Ldr F D H. Until the Spring of 1968, this detachment was manned by crews of 103 and 110 Sqn in rotation but it was eventually decided to make the presence permanent and to elevate the detachment to sqn status. There was much ‘gum sucking’ as to which sqn number plate should be used: the rotary wing lobby favoured 194, the first helicopter sqn to operate in the Far East but the fighter pilot lobby wanted 28 Sqn, which had been in Hong Kong for many years until its disbandment in January 1967. The latter carried the day and the plans proceeded apace to regularise the arrangement.
When 28 Sqn had disbanded its standard was laid-up in St Clement Danes church and OC RAF Kai Tak and SRAFO Hong Kong: Gp Capt Harvey Rex Williams, was anxious that the standard should be returned to the colony as soon as possible so that it might be paraded on the occasion of the Queen’s Birthday Parade. This author was placed on stand by to go to UK to collect the standard and return it to Hong Kong but Rex Williams had reckoned without the inertia of MOD and the Service clergy. It soon became apparent that the standard would not be returned and so Gp Capt Williams then asked HQ Far East Air Force to provide a standard and standard party from a sqn in Singapore – I think at the time there were 10!! Again there was a negative response but Williams was not a man to be beaten and with the bit firmly between his teeth, he declared that; ‘we will make our own! Visions of courts martial for misuse of funds and such like, flashed through the minds of those of us with a more sober view but the stn cdr sketched out a rough design which had the pole manufactured and varnished in workshops with a brass cap from the same place. The tassels and rope came from a curtain shop whilst the standard itself was made by the station tailor using several RAF ensigns of different sizes to give the necessary dimensions and weight required. A leather shoulder belt, into which was stitched a brass pocket, was also machined. To cover those events when we needed to rehearse our drill, another pole with a grey GS blanket was produced.
The preparations for the first outing of 28 Sqn’s homemade standard were by now proceeding apace. My role as potential standard bearer had been taken on by Fg Off AMc (now – TankerTrashNav) RAF Kai Tak’s Regiment officer and the stn Guard of Honour party, of which I was in charge - because I had been the only junior officer with a serviceable No: 6 when the job came vacant - was doubled in size and Flt Lt JA appointed to command what was now the RAF contingent for the Queen’s Birthday Parade. Our own rehearsals had gone quite well but eventually we had to mix it with the Royal Navy, in the form of a crew from a Leander class frigate and two contingents from the Army’s Welch Regiment, who would parade both their Queen’s and Regimental colours. The parade was to be run by the Garrison Sergeant Major, a surprisingly short and rather stocky chap called Murphy. The Army had a habit of sending priority signals for events taking place weeks ahead and since these seemed to be timed to arrive in the middle of the night, Orderly Officers at Kai Tak rarely had a peaceful night’s sleep. Routine signals, however, seemed to invariably arrive so timed as to throw our arrangements into disarray or to be too late to influence what we had already done. This arrangement was played to the full during the run up to the parade: the RAF turned up in working dress, when the GOC Hong Kong was due to inspect us and we carried our ‘blanket on a stick’ when we were supposed to bring the ‘real thing’ – causing much mirth amongst the airmen as the great and good crashed to attention to salute the colours and standards as they passed, including our own ‘rag’ bringing up the rear.
Sergeant Major Murphy quickly became a target for the airmen in the contingent for as he ‘dressed’ them, he would always move them forward and then send them back again, just so we could hear his voice. It soon followed that the lads would merely shuffle on the spot when he dressed them forward and then do exactly the same when he sent them back again but Murphy never seemed to twig this. They also went out of their way to appear as casual as possible whenever he appeared and although he was always addressed as ‘Sir’, he was never accorded the stiff formality he enjoyed from our Army colleagues.
One element of the parade which was not rehearsed until the final Dress Rehearsals was the Gurkha firing party, who would line the roof of a single floored shelter at the rear of the parade ground and fire a couple of volleys in salute. When the parade formed up, they would march to their position on the roof and do their business at the due time. Nobody, however, had thought to find a way to get them on the roof in the first place! Salvation came in the form of a giraffe ladder which was rushed across to Hong Kong in a tank landing craft and eased into position in the dead of night, proving remarkably difficult to get round some tight corners.
On the day, the parade marched on to an entirely unexpected problem; the area behind the parade and beneath the shelter, was filled with the noisiest crowd of Chinese civilians one could have encountered anywhere and they chattered constantly throughout the parade, making it impossible to hear any of the commands from the parade commander. Fortunately, we were well drilled and knew the sequence but although absolute concentration was needed the sounds from behind us were hugely distracting. There was some small revenge exacted, however, when the Gurkhas on the shelter roof fired their volley and caused momentary alarm amongst the civilians beneath who had no idea that there was anybody above them. Eventually we marched off. As the supernumerary officer in the RAF contingent I was last off and, in the days before it was the done thing to clap, it was with some sense of relief that the incessant din was replaced by the tread of marching feet and we disappeared into the nearby Naval base.
In the years which followed, I often related the saga of the homemade standard and it was only my ability to produce the photographic evidence, that saved me from redicule; one notable disbeliever being the then OC Queen’s Colour Squadron for whom the whole idea seemed like some major heresy. Eventually, 28’s standard appeared and the home-made variant became the ‘practice standard’. I often wonder whether it survived and if today it lies hidden deep in the bowels of a storeroom at Benson!
Old Duffer