"Army" veteran photo - Daily Telegraph
 

Today's Daily Telegraph has a photo on page 2 captioned "An Army veteran attends a Justice for Northern Ireland protest . . .". Fair enough, except that the "Army" veteran is wearing an RAF beret, a Royal Air Force blazer badge, an RAF tie (?RAFA) and carrying an RAF flag.

I despair of the depths of ignorance to which even a "quality" paper has sunk in respect to defence matters.

I emailed the editor about 0400 cos I'm on nights. I think I described the error as lazy and ignorant.

I totally agree with your sentiments but to be fair throughout the campaign we were never referred to as RAF but as Army helicopters or security forces. This was in part to play down our part and lessen the chances of our softer bases on the mainland from being attacked. Even today few members of the general public are aware of our presence over the water.

In journoland it's quite simple:

-if it's green, including helicopters and transports, it's Army

-if it's on water, it's Navy

-anything else, it's RAF

Note that Vet has 3 medals. One is the post 1962 GSM, then a blue ribbon and bimetal medal and finally a 3rd medal like the GSM with a red stripe down the centre, AGSM? His GSM has only one bar, unless he did extended tours in Aden for instance, is this genuine or not? No LSGC medal however.

I assume the journalist meant military, not Army, but such distinctions are beyond the ken of most non military, i.e. 99% of the population, these days.

Having switched to The Times on Saturday, and finding no imagery on Telegraph.online, I remain uninformed.

However, I do agree that when it scomes to matters Military, journalists these days do seem staggeringly ignorant. As are The Public :(

75% of today's RAF doesn't have a clue about the military.

There are those that do, and there are those that get worried about their det not having wifi or a bar.

Journos....
 

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Attachment 2092

Gijoe..............
 

I take exceptiion to that slur on the RAF. What is your proof? I think you are over compensating for a pre-conception.....probably naive...:E So wind your neck in...

Journo's Aircraft Recognition. "Plane, Plane, Plane." I'll get my coat.

The MOD can't even identify their own equipment correctly on various social media outlets.

I've seen a Merlin used in a Wildcat article, the Royal Irish Regiment pictured when recruiting for the Irish Guards and an 81mm mortar described as a javelin missile, not to mention spelling senior officer's names incorrectly and completely ignoring any feedback to let them know the correct spelling. It's embarrassing.

PN. I haven't seen the photo but I suspect his medals are GSM62 with Bar for NI, a NATO medal of some sort and then the Accumulated Campaign Service Medal which resembles the GSM with a yellow central stripe not red. It is awarded for more than 3 yrs in a GSM/OSM area. 3 Sqn RAF Regt like 72 Sqn completed 2 year tours in the province and if he did more than 1 he would have been awarded the ACSM. It is more than possible that he retired at either 9 or 12 years before the award of the LSGM so it very likely that his awards are genuine. For the record I too have those 4 plus 4 more and 3 extra bars, very common for todays RAF

Regarding the Accumulated Service Medal. I believe it did not apply to campaigns before Northern Ireland started and hence reference to Aden won't work.

If I'm wrong TankerTrashNav will put me right!!

Old Duffer

Dick quote of the month? :D

Huge and O-D, thank you. Key dates are 1969 and 3 years and 2011 and 2 years.

The Telegraph colours may be off and the middle medal might be a UN medal for East Timor.

PN His ACSM will be the 3 year one as NI finished in 2007. The post 2011 has 2 yellow stripes which is why I didn't mention it. Huge

Quite correct O-D. The qualification period for the Northern Ireland clasp started on 14 August 1969, and any service before this date (eg in Borneo, South Arabia etc) does not count towards qualification for the ACM.

And in addition all aircrew are pilots. I remember seeing a picture captioned "Tornado pilots take off from their Norfolk base en route for the Gulf". I assumed the navs (WSOs) weren't required and had all gone off on a spot of leave

And of course to a fighter pilot all rotary wing are helicopters or Chinook, and to maritime crews all submarines are targets.

And to submarines all floaty boats are also targets.

According to one VSO that I know. There are 2 kinds of people in the RAF, Support Helicopter and the rest, and of those there are 2 kinds, Wessex and the rest and of those there are 2 kinds, 72 Sqn and the rest.

And having now seen the picture in question the other medal is the UN Cyprus so odds on he was heli ground crew or support.

Correction. 72, 78 and the rest.

Sad to say that VSO lumped 78 in with 18,28,60,84 and 103 as the rest and don't start with the yellow hatters of 22!:hmm:

Northern Ireland, all helicopters were ARMY.
Sep 1971, Wessex called out to transfer a badly injured soldier from hospital in Londonderry to Belfast. Aircraft captain was a Royal Marine and the co-pilot was RAF. At Londonderry, they shut down on the helipad and waited the call in a crew room. Amused to hear on the midnight news that an Army helicopter was waiting for the casualty to be cleared for transfer. Eventually cleared to RTB without the casualty.
Later discovered that the mis-identification Army/RAF was a deliberate ploy.

While the telegraph error is typical of todays media what some of you uniform guys and girls do not seem to realise is that the same level of accuracy and research applies to everything they write about especially anything vaguely technical.

Basic bottom line is don't believe anything in the papers , its either deliberate editorial bias, a la Murdoch world , Ignorance or laziness either way its wrong or inaccurate.

Sadly this type of mistake, however crass, is all too common. The Telegraph has not been a "quality" paper for some decades now.

Never heard of Khormaksar I guess

One reason I fairly recently switched to The Times, after a lifetime of Torygraph.

That is incorrect if it is in the Guardian... It would be "Plain, Palin or Plan" :)

IIRC this was in part to ensure the safety of those serving at CRP Bushops Court. The IRA saw the enemy as the army and left them alone. It was eventually mortared in 1989 but, it was rumoured, the local IRA phoned and apologised claiming it was a mistake; however the risk was seen to have increased and it closed shortly after.

The CRP reported to CRC Boulder where I was serving at the time. We went one morning and couldn't get an answer on any of the landlines or by BT, so reported it to HQ11Gp who said they'd investigate. They called back shortly after to say it had closed the previous night. Speaking to those who where there at the time the closure was kept secret to ensure the safety of those leaving. Numbers were gradually reduced and equipment moved out and, at the end of the last shift, they padlocked the doors and gates and just drove away without telling anyone else in the AD system.

SACEUR and his staff were reportedly less than impressed. As part of the NATO AD chain the U.K. was required to monitor the approaches to the perimeter and initially claimed that that the civil radar feeds now being fed in provided a replacement - until it was pointed out those in NI/Eire were SSR only. At which point the U.K. was pointedly told to fulfill its responsibility - at which stage 144 SU stood up at Ty Croes in Anglesey in 91 as a replacement with a mobile radar until the politics were sorted out.

Re ORACs post above on Bishops Court/Ulster Radar, here is a bit of history regarding the IRA attacks on RAF personnel at the base.

http://globehoppersanonymous.*******...n-ireland.html

There were plenty of stories regarding the supposed "leniency" the IRA showed towards the base, the main one being that one of the civilian controllers had "influence" and they didn't want to **** in their own nest. This was at odds with the fact that one of civvy assistants was a corporal in the UDR, something we only discovered when she was manning a road block we were stopped at one night.
The authors line about the brightly coloured bus being discarded after the attack is a bit misleading. What I think he means is that the buses were painted in Ulsterbus livery, which fooled no-one. The bus was still in service during my time there (1974-1976) with the bullet holes in the ceiling covered over with duct tape!

(To read the story, replace the asterisks in the URL with b.l.o.g.s.p.o.t. omitting the dots.)

Sadly my old buddy Graham H****s, who was Stn Cdr BC at one point, is no longer with us and thus unable to cast additional light on the subject. He did describe his tour as 'interesting'!

Sitgelfel,

Couldn't get your link to open so did a bit of searching, seems pprune truncates the string. Instead of just replacing the asterisk with bl*gspot, also replace the "...n-ireland.html" with:

********.co.uk/2013/12/an-explosive-welcome-to-northern-ireland.html

... or Sharjah .....