I was the cadet in charge of No. 2 Flight of the graduation that day (be tall and a bit shouty, wave pointed stick and hope others are following duties). It was forecast to be v. gusty so chinstraps were worn down (which also countered the poor fit of quite a few SD hats - they were supplied under contract and only delivered a few days before amongst rumours that we might have to graduate in berets).
The final pass was the one that made things interesting. A large number of hats were blown off (including the cadet Parade Commander's) and one of the RAF Regt Flt Sgts picked up the first hat he saw, slapped it on the recently liberated and tousled locks of aforesaid Parade Commander such that he was appropriately dressed to give the order to march off. The slight snag was that the hat (grabbed at random from the many now redistributed around the area) was not well-matched to the cranial circumference it was now embracing and tilted forward and down to the extent that forward vision was now a fond memory.
The result was a slightly creeping-line-ahead pattern march toward CHOM with me (with a hat size too small rendering it essentially welded to my head) giving slight course corrections and a countdown to the steps.
Talking to one of my flight later, he noticed that the earlier 'full dirty' pass had the arrestor hooks down which apparently was verboten. About 20% of the graduating personnel's hats were left on the Parade Ground after we had made our way into CHOM and there was a wailing and gnashing of teeth from the Directing Staff (we heard the saluting dias was lifted - complete with understandably quite peeved Reviewing Officer - by the afterburners). My mother who was one of the spectators lost her hat (never found) but declared it all a great success having not realised that anything was actually amiss.
Happy days...
Last edited by Mal Drop; 17th Oct 2013 at 21:01.