When I handed in my kit . . .
I was visiting a FOB when we came under fire (FOB Robinson). I was advised just to keep my head down and not to do any of this fighting stuff and just wait for the local farmers to return to their fields. And no, I don't recall having my bayonet then but was carrying 6 loaded rifle mags, pistol plus two mags, body armour, helmet and respirator and lots of bottles of water in the convenient pockets of the assault vest. A bayonet might have broken the camel's back!
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Mind you, two memorable new arrivals had also handed in their brains at the same time as their kit.....one proposed to the Capt he would go and supervise the engineers doing a wheel change on a T/R and another asked why a Capt addressed " them " them being his chosen term for engineers, by their first names !
Both were duly "educated " by the respective Capt's involved.
Last edited by Krystal n chips; 7th Aug 2018 at 05:02.
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WUH, as Miss PN2 said of at Kandahar, if I have to use my rifle something has gone seriously wrong.
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Unfortunately for me, our OC Supply wasn't open to such corruption - in 1990 I was charged just under £100 for a replacement for my genuinely lost on excercise Noddy wind-up aircrew watch that probably cost about £15 in Argos.
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I got charged for an R88 Camera watch. It fell out of my pocket when the zip broke. Next few weeks I looked for someone wearing one on a chain. At least insure paid out.
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38 Group, RAF Tangmere in 1967. The balloon was about to go up on some remote island (Anguilla?) so we were all issued with war-like equipment including a tin helmet (don't know the official terminology). When it came to my turn the storeman said, without a sign of a smirk, "We don't have one in your size so here's a deficiency chit". Fortunately I never got sent anywhere and handed back all the war-like equipment a few weeks later.
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If all the kit returned, how many got issued second hand kit such as flying sure etc? More a stores exercise to ensure you didn't collect too many spares. After departure you were unlikely to be able to draw more, so why return it?
Mind you, I got to keep all my flying kit less headset.
Mind you, I got to keep all my flying kit less headset.
On the early RAF Stanley dets, tin hats were issue in theatre to avoid burning fuel carrying them to and fro. Good thinking from the loggies (can't believe I actually wrote that!). Gozome time, pitch up at stores to hand in tin hat and other bits of locally issued kit. Trouble was, we only had one tin hat between the two of us, my nav having carefully lost his. Solution: I handed my kit in first, starting with the tin hat, and while the SAC storeman was putting the rest of the stuff away, trusty nav removes my tin hat from the shelf and hands it straight back to him. One hat, two signatures, good to go.
They got their own back on me many years later when I was de-kitting at Northolt. About 5 seconds after I had handed Storeman 1 my aircrew watch as one of the last actions, Storeman 2 arrives from the office area an announced they had lost my clothing card!
Storeman 1 sighs, and points out that I could have kept the watch as the rest of the kit would all be scrapped, but now they would have to record it. (Smiling) "Sorry, sir, nothing we can do about it now." "Really?" "No." He wasn't quite so amused when I insisted on having a receipt for it, nor when Storeman 2 pointed out that he would now have to get his own watch... 
They got their own back on me many years later when I was de-kitting at Northolt. About 5 seconds after I had handed Storeman 1 my aircrew watch as one of the last actions, Storeman 2 arrives from the office area an announced they had lost my clothing card!
Storeman 1 sighs, and points out that I could have kept the watch as the rest of the kit would all be scrapped, but now they would have to record it. (Smiling) "Sorry, sir, nothing we can do about it now." "Really?" "No." He wasn't quite so amused when I insisted on having a receipt for it, nor when Storeman 2 pointed out that he would now have to get his own watch...
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...one proposed to the Capt he would go and supervise the engineers doing a wheel change on a T/R and another asked why a Capt addressed " them " them being his chosen term for engineers, by their first names !
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I remember the XYZ(£&$ of an OC Ops? who walking into the debrief room on LSS and asking do you not all stand up when a senior office enters a room, everyone from the F/Sgt down looks at each other in total disbelief and stands up.. next debrief Staish walks in we all stand up to attention and remain at it... he looks puzzled and asks why, we relate what happened.. he mutters did he, ignore that, you guys have enough to do without this sort of thing and I will have words... next time OC Ops? comes in rather sheepishly and sits down.
I must admit 10 Sqn had more than its fair share of dicks, on exercise we had a Flight Eng who after a CPX sortie...I.e he sat out on the pan in the cockpit for several hours pretending to be flying then came in and snagged the instruments not more than 1 foot in front of his face for having dust on some of the dials...
sorry thread drift.
I must admit 10 Sqn had more than its fair share of dicks, on exercise we had a Flight Eng who after a CPX sortie...I.e he sat out on the pan in the cockpit for several hours pretending to be flying then came in and snagged the instruments not more than 1 foot in front of his face for having dust on some of the dials...
sorry thread drift.
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When serving at BZN I encountered a 10 Squadron Captain who wouldn't speak to ground crew directly, but tried to conduct business through the Flight Engineer. In my case unsuccessfully - I just walked away from his aircraft and asked our LSS Flight Commander to speak to him.
Ch Tech turn the aircraft around, cpl empty the toilet etc
"Ben, would you rather we called you Chief Tech or Ben?". Ben, Sir, that way I know you know me rather than just recognition the badge.
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"We don't have one in your size so here's a deficiency chit".
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I was told of the occasion when the drinking water container in the ejection seat survival bag of an operational bomber type was changed to "gulp size" sachets. Having thrown away the old drinking containers, a signal arrived stating that the sachets were not to be used because of some bursting under low pressure conditions. The solution at one station was for the safety equipment section to put a deficiency chit into the survival pack instead of water. This went on for a few months until someone discovered the discrepancy and apparently, heads rolled. Milo enterprises anyone?
When serving at BZN I encountered a 10 Squadron Captain who wouldn't speak to ground crew directly, but tried to conduct business through the Flight Engineer. In my case unsuccessfully - I just walked away from his aircraft and asked our LSS Flight Commander to speak to him.
IMO....Centralized Servicing removed a lot of the personal contact between aircrew and groundcrew.
Also, the Captains walk-around inspection was a tradition rather than a requirement as the F/E would do a much more detailed inspection, often having to scramble to finish before the passengers came and block his access to the steps to return to the Flight Deck..
Later, when the Ministry announced that all VC10 Captains would be instant Sqn. Ldr. rank, I did encounter some who could have done with leadership training.....but I left soon after that.
Since we are way off thread...............
Running a FJ line hut in RAFG and co-ordinating F700s for a four ship, in walks very junior pilot early for the slot, "Come on chief, sign your life away". He got 'the look', " no sir, it would be your life". It went all quiet.
Running a FJ line hut in RAFG and co-ordinating F700s for a four ship, in walks very junior pilot early for the slot, "Come on chief, sign your life away". He got 'the look', " no sir, it would be your life". It went all quiet.
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Chief i knew at Brize signed all military documents Rastus, he had a separate real signature for everything else life wise, his logic was if he was ever asked if that was his signature he could honestly say no.
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Two pieces of kit I was issued but never asked to return were a) a felt tipped pen and b) a packet of polos. We were issued with them during an exercise at a kipper fleet retirement home in the North of Scotland some time in the early 90's, with the instruction that we were to use them to simulate a Combopen and a set of NAPS tablets. The intended solution was that every eight hours there would be a tannoy telling us to take our NAPS, to which we were then to consume a polo. I assume that anyone coming under a chemical attack and feeling the effects of a nerve agent would then have the opportunity to pretend to stab themselves in the leg with a coloured pen....
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Not sure what a scribble against the bike store would count as; always used a selection of different pens though.