In 1977, someone, who should probably have known better, decided that 'static' units (ie non-flying) should be "Tacevalled".
So it came to pass that on my last duty day in the RAF I was duty NCO in the guardroom at Pitreavie Castle (I kid you not) when, at about 1900hrs or so, we were 'attacked' (one WO observer and two infiltrators, one male one female).
For those who don't know Pitreavie, it was a bloody great hole in the ground that (theoretically) could survive an overhead nuclear airburst by the 'upturned glass' principal and closing the huge steel doors.
Anyway, this exercise went on for a while, intruders captured, escorted up the long entrance road and released to start again. At one stage, the female intruder had been captured and brought to the guardroom, whereupon she disarmed the luckless RAFP guy, locked the door and held us all hostage. I was making coffee for the WO obs who was almost wetting himself trying not to laugh. Next thing we are lying on the floor, me thinking "I've got about twelve hours left in the RAF, what the hell am I doing?", when there is a bang and we are covered in bits of glass. My DSM, a Sgt, who had become guard commander, had decided if we are going to play silly bgrs. lets play ! So he had broken one of the windows, trained his rifle on the lass standing totally gobsmacked and told her to open the door, thereby we were liberated. I tell you, you couldn't make it up.
By this time I had just about had it so explained my situation to the OIC who let me go home on the 0800hrs bus back to Turnhouse. Probably thought (correctly) that I really wasn't taking it seriously.
One thing that did come out of it was that, although the underground complex was sealed off, there was a Lamsen tube connection to the Met office on the surface. One of the intruders (who obviously were experienced at this) had sussed this and sent a tube to Ops containing a bit of paper with the word Bomb written on it !!
