What were they guarding ?
Petet,
In your #3683 above, you ask: "One thing that has bugged me is that some stories mention performing guard duty whilst at RAF Regent's Park and it made me wonder what they were guarding."
Ah, if only the RAF were as logical as that ! You don't have to be actually guarding anything. It is sufficient that someone has issued an order that a certain number of guards be set out, and honour is satisfied if they have.
I myself have vivid memory of a beautiful moonlight night in the midsummer of '41, standing (two on, four off) with my "pick-helve" in the garden of the Trebarwith Hotel, Newquay, looking out over the deserted beaches to the shining Bristol Channel. The idea was that, if a German paratrooper came floating down in range of my "helve" (handle), I should bang him on the head.
A rifle would have been useful, but we didn't have any. Luckily the prospect was remote.
Cheers, Danny.