BK, 1961, 204 Squadron, I am in bed after a late night shift, manders until about 0200 then A/F and refuel to max.
Being as I was radar mech with not much to do I help refuel.
Anyway, at about 10 or 1100 mates burst into the billet and start packing go kit.
"Where you lot off to?" says I, "the Caribbean" says them
"Am I going?" No was the answer.
About half an hour later Chiefy comes in to check and says to me "What the F*** are you doing in bed, you are going this afternoon".
I'm out of bed in a flash and tell chief that I need a Yellow Fever jab and start packing, he sorts out a visit to Medical, gets everyone else into the Gharry and goes.
I get my jab and ring the squadron to pick up me and my kit.
Now when I get to the dispersal it appears that the aeroplane which is taking me on a jolly
is in ASF and won't be ready until late that evening, so up to the mess for food and back to ASF's pan where our Shack awaits.
Of course, being Ballykelly and January, it is now getting quite dark and the rain is threatening,again, so we load up the panniers and all climb aboard.
The usual start up procedures and after the normal 15 to 20min crew round up we start to taxi, straight onto the Grass
One fully loaded, straight out of ASF after servicing, Shack buried up to the port axle in BK's soggy greenery.
Everyone out, defuellers called for, as much fuel as possible sucked out of the port wing, as much weight as possible taken from inside, couldn't drop the panniers because of the list to port.
"You, take the Donkey's Dick from", IIRC, "the No. one tank" said Chiefy
Now I had been on the squadron for about 8 months, it being my first posting from Cosford and whilst I was OK doing
refuelling I had never been involved with defuelling, so I took my trusty GS and undid the jubilee clip connecting the hose to said Donkey Dick,cue quite a few gallons of Avgas liberating itself all over me.
Avgas, as I shortly found out, is a bad thing to cover yourself with, it burns the skin,even without being alight, so it was back to the billet tout suit for a shower and change into another uniform then back to the circus on the pan, where a Tug was just winching out the Shack.
The upshot of this is we had to 'borrow' an aircraft and set off 24 hours after the other two and why, when people are shown a photo of me and a couple of mates in front of a Shack on the pan in Jamaica, they say "so, you were on 210 were you?"