RAF Scampton, early 70’s: Exercises called at all times of day and night, could last a week, one Friday evening the guys all enjoying a drink or two when at 20:00 the hooter goes, cue a load of keen slightly sozzled ground crew rush off, with the exception of the OCU lot who see a good opportunity to mine sweep the hurriedly left beers before heading off to work themselves. Other stories I think might not be for a forum, but one had to make the ordeal as less arduous as possible.
RAF Luqa, mid 70’s: Bit unfair here as the station knew when the taceval crew turned up as they could not just drive in unannounced. We had packed lunches left in hangar blown up, someone’s car nearly had the locks blown off as he had parked in the wrong place at the wrong time. The most frightening thing out here for anyone who was asked to try the old getting in risked life and limb as it was the only place I have been in those days where we were always loaded with live ammunition, so anyone trying it on soon stopped once a ground crew pointed a gun at them 9especially as during ‘peace time’ we had a few inadvertent rounds discharged.
RAF Wyton, late 70’s: one place that seemed to take all this exercise stuff seriously, although we were back to pick axe handles, CPX NBC kit and as someone else mentioned CPX trenches, agree one looked a right plonker stood in these trying to look hidden.
There was a CPO who had been issued an ID card with the wrong date of birth on it and the Navy would not replace it for some time, so each exercise he ended up being carted off in the back of a Landrover until it was established he was not an exercise inject. The SWO got abducted a knife point and locked in one of his cells, this ended up being an inject taken too far.
The station commander heard that there was going to be an early Monday morning exercise so had everyone in Sunday morning to show how alert we were, taceval team turned around and went away, when they came back they caught the station totally unawares.
Back to the CPX kit, two guards stood on the barrier across the taxi way when the Station Commander decided to have a wander around his station, arrived at said barrier and on identifying himself asked if the guards knew what state the airfield was in (we were at NBC black at the time), having only bits of paper one guard replied that he considered the station in a bit of a state, on demanding why the guards were not wearing NBC kit a piece of paper was promptly produced stating this was our NBC kit. After the exercise on asking his execs, they confirmed that no-one had ever had any kit issued, that changed by the next exercise.
There are a few more for this station, and more for the next 5 or 6 I had the pleasure, or not in some cases, of being posted to. I can confirm the storno story and have a vague memory that this was either Wyton or Honington, with Honington being more likely.
Sorry if this has been a bit long, but the other stories above reminded me of some my experiences, so thought I would post a few.
Last edited by Exrigger; 4th Aug 2013 at 19:20.