Any Borneo Whirlwind veterans here?

[Old-Duffer]

A slight Thread drift for which I make no apology. 110 took over Nanga Gaat from the RN and hence the name of the pub which was there. There is a story regarding the 'nine holer' to which one adjourned for obvious reasons. This place was covered with a tin roof and modesty was preserved by the use of hessian screens and some slightly more permanent walling. The medical orderly decided that the place needed to be fumingated and so asked the Gurkha officer if he could chuck a smoke grenade in. There then followed the usual bit where the officer told the sgt, who told the cpl, who ordered the L/Cpl, who passed the order to the Private. By this time, the smoke grenade had become a '36' grenade and this was duly thrown into the pit, fortunately, having first coinfirmed that the was nobody perched over the hole. The bang was most impressive and assured a certain amount of redistribution of the contents of the pit. All that can be siad was that there was no fan involved.

SATU RATUS SEPULOH

(The 110 Squadron Song – Origins & Lyricist Unknown. Sung to the tune “The Times They Are A’changin”)

We bring you a tale of One Hundred and Ten
Of weird whirly birds and far weirder men
The Far East is where these strange deeds were all done
With the aircrew all rapidly ageing
But the strife is all over, the battles are done
And the times they are a changing

T’was at Nanga Gaat that we first found our fame
But now we are told we won't go there again
No more happy nights in the old Anchor Inn
Where we drank till the darkness was fading
Then flew all the day before drinking again
But the times they are a changing

The market place knew down in old Kuching
And many a night that they would all hear us sing
Of Simangang, Sibu, Nanga Gaat and such
And how we all like them so very much
But now we are moving up to Labuan
How the times they are a changing

The Tokyo our custom is now bereft
All our young maidens we have now left
No more nights spent down on good drinking sprees
Our times spent dodging the redcaps
For now we are once more civilised chaps
Gosh the times they are a changing


So live with your memories my merry men
Friar Tuck’s saahnie boxes you’ll ne’re see again
For banished abroad from this fair land are we
Across t’ other side of the ocean
But given the chance would come back again
But the times they are a’ changing


Old Duffer - in nostalgic mode