Catering Tales
 

Self-catering was a requirement on the kipper fleet at some locations. A trip downtown to the local supermarket in Andenes was necessary whilst on detachment to Andoya (northern Norway for the uninitiated). We trundled down the aisles picking out tinned culinary delights for a 9 hour sortie the next day, involving 12 epicureans with discerning palates. Visual cues were necessary, as knowledge of the written Norwegian language was somewhat limited, to say the least. We did, however, secure some frozen reindeer steak.
About four hours into the mission, and I was given first tasting of our reindeer stew. My taste buds were mugged, when it became obvious that the two large tins of potatoes added, were, in fact, fish balls of indeterminate origin. I ploughed on, finished the lot, and declared it a magnificent concoction. The next hour was one of consternation, as the rest of the crew struggled to find the same merit in this spawn of the devil that I had. I maintained my praise of the dish until the day I left the Squadron ...

Cottesmore, mid 70's and the place is in a state of transition thus only a skeleton staff and.....a combined Mess.

All was well at this tranquil idyll until, that is, the arrival of 71 M.U We were working at Wittering, but, ostensibly, there was no room for our little party so, on arrival, we were pointed in the direction of Cottesmore.

It would be fair to say our arrival in said Mess, whose inhabitants were all attired in pristine uniforms and sporting regulation haircuts, induced something akin to major trauma and, strangely, we had no problem in finding a couple of spare tables. Had it been possible to install a mine field and machine gun emplacements with an electric fence between us and them, they probably would have. This was on the Monday and Tuesday was uneventful .

We returned Wednesday evening to find ?........a sumptuous buffet complete with alcoholic beverages no less, all laid out and, nobody around to consume it.

We were never too sure if it was because, with social etiquette ( M.U etiquette that is ) in mind, we started on the beverages first before progressing to quietly demolishing the buffet that the residents got a "shade upset ".......we were summarily evicted from Cottesmore next morning and, miraculously, rooms had been found at Wittering !

It transpired said buffet was, in fact, not actually being provided on our behalf, but for some evening function which nobody had thought to inform us of...which was probably a good idea anyway.

No lunch for the groundcrew
 

During a TECEVAL at St Mawgan, I was detailed to pop down to the mess to pick up the Hot box, tea urn and loaves of bread. Jumped in the Landrover with my collegue and down we went. Lunch was waiting, so we picked up lunch with our weapons slung over our shoulders. Whilst walking out to the car park carrying lunch we were approached by two of the TACEVAL team who had managed to get onto camp. We were then taken hostage and taken off camp where we were 'shot'. We made a miraculus recovery whilst eating 'lunch' with the TAVEVAL team who aparently had not eatten for a while and was one of the reasons we were the target of opportunity. After lunch we were given 'you are dead chits' and driven back onto camp. We, now relieved of our, weapons, NBC suits and the hot box walked back into Nimrod line sans lunch to much derision and doubts about our perantage. Furthermore we got the rest of the TACEVAL off. What a result. Needles to say we were never sent down to pick up lunch again.

Coningsby dining out night late 80s. Prawn cocktail starter. By the time the staff cleared the starters away, several of the diners turned pale and excused themselves. Altogether at least a dozen of us went down with food poisoning. All hushed up, naturally.

Dining-in Night at pre-pongo Wattisham. The Stn Cdr liked pheasant, so had decreed that it should appear on the menu...

Pheasant being rather expensive, many portions were more like rubber chickens and tasted about as good. But many also contained lead shot having been rather carelessly prepared.

So for the rest of the dinner, the Stn Cdr was on the receiving end of lead shot at regular intervals - which goes quite a long way when flicked with a knife, as many of us discovered! He wasn't the happiest bunny...:E

In flight catering on the V Force was somewhat less impressive than on the kipper fleet. The only provision for hot food was a soup can heater. This was so spectacularly inefficient that we used to reckon if you put a can in it after start up the contents might be luke warm by the time you were approaching top of descent on return from a five hour sortie.

Tanker, IIRC the B52 was and maybe still is able to use an electric frying pan. There is reference to the actor Brigadier James Stewart accompanying a crew on a 13 hour sortie over Nam and the crew using one to supplement their rations. Apparently it was the tail gunners job to get the rations, bacon,eggs, cheese and bread.

My first posting was to the joys of the Mess at Bawtry with courteous service, a cheese board that would be quite at home in the Ritz, and real RAF Chefs who sourced the ingredients and knew what to do with them. Compared with my second posting to El Adem, for those who were around in 1968/69 and remember the reality of the weekly fruit and veg kite arriving from Akro and only containing green beans and little else.
This was allegedly due to a mistake by the catering WO and resulted in my hatred of green beans for half a century.

IG

Bruggen in the mid 70's had an excellent JR Mess, with a very scary WO. He would prowl the Mess with his spoon and any complaints were followed by a dip of his spoon, if the complaint was justified he would bring the guilty Chef out to apologise.

Odiham, Christmas dinner in the airmans mess served by the officers, previous year there had been a food fight, so Staish stands there in his best blues and warns if anyone throws food this year they would be in his office Monday morning, hats off.......... a potato curls it's way through the air in his general direction, followed by various delicacies from the menu as he retreated through the kitchen door having taken a severe pasting.

Odiham, summer, tasty looking ham salad on the servery, helps myself and sits down, flips over ham to cut it and finds the underside covered in fly eggs.... wanders up and points at it, Sgt Cook rapidly withdraws the salad, but does not tell any of the other unfortunates tucking into it for fear of a riot.

As a Metman I did deployments with both the army and [once] with the Harriers. I have no complaints about the HF.
As for 1 BR Corps, sumptuous breakfast with, inter alia, fresh baked bread rolls. "The caterers need practice on deployment too". But did some mess silver [really!] have to deploy?
No complaints at all.

I expect a fair few sections like us enlivened night duties with airfield mushrooms, into the frying pan within 5 minutes of plucking. At Leeming and Topcliffe the night shift took it in turns to bring in bacon, eggs, sausage .........
When the Duty Pilot came in for his early heads-up, the place stank of the fryup. On occasion he was just in time for a modest offering.

Of the first, when I went to get some cheese. "This is a Group HQ Sir, we serve the cheese.

Of the second I still remember the finest Fillet Mignon I have had. The Route was closed as the Hastings had been grounded and the aircrew feeder staff had little to do but serve our lone Ranger crew the finest of foods. We had taken 96 pints of fresh milk out.

Best ever service meals I had were at Bruggen, the cook who wanted to be a professional Chef when he left the RAF would use QRA as an excuse to practice, he work through his book of superb recipes and as he was only cooking for the crews he would ask us groundcrew what we fancied,he would work with us on a menu, then go off to plunder the catering stores, he was a delight to have on as our cook and we prayed he would be on our shifts, even the aircrew hoped he would be on.

St Athan Officers Mess kitchen wasn't usually locked ,so us poor hungry UAS bods would help ourselves to steak, microwaved,after we returned from the bar or somewhere off base after hours. One night we were rumbled by a RM Major and two naval officers ,who were there also looking for a late night supper. They promised to keep mum if we cooked them one each as well, which we did. Soon after that episode ,the kitchen was locked .We circumvented that one by going through the roof, which took some doing. Soon after that they put a padlock on the fridge and freezer, so our late night eating was finished.As an aside, I did hear some poor W/C ask for steak for lunch in the mess one day and being told there was none, tutted that in 20 years in the RAF, steak had always been available!

At Chittagong (May, 1943), there was an accommodation problem. Our few officers could be fitted in the Mess on the station. But there was no room for the influx of aircrew NCOs. We were dumped in a transit camp in the town. As the Squadron came to readiness at dawn, we had to up at first light and out to the airfield, long before breakfast in the transit camp.

A bunch of hungry and resentful sergeants faced the prospect of flying the Squadron's first operation without even a mug of tea. Our M.O. (Dr "Pete" Latcham - I'm glad he survived the war) was rightly indignant. He got hold of an empty and cleanish four-gallon can, borrowed a blowlamp from the engineers, scrounged the makings of a brew from somewhere, and made the best mug of tea we'd had for a long time. He couldn't get much in the food line for us except emergency rations: "Ship's biscuits" and a tin of jam (plum, I think). Not much but better than nothing. Well done, that man! I'll always remember that "breakfast". As it happened, we didn't fly that day. But the fur flew, and from next morning there was early breakfast for us in the Transit Camp ......

ITW, Newquay, summer 1941. We'd only just arrived: the Airmen's Dining Hall was in the commandeered "Trebarwith" Hotel. Cold meat (probably "Spam") and salad for dinner tonight, chaps.

One chap had not examined the lettuce he'd just picked up carefully enough. Back at the table, when he turned it over on his plate, there was an inch-long black snail busy munching away at it.

"Orderly Officer ! - Any complaints ?" .... Despite silent hard prodding by his two tablemates, our lad was far too shy of authority to say a word. The Orderly Officer and Sergeant hadn't noticed the snail, and walked away.

No - he didn't eat it ! But he never lived it down for the six weeks of the Course, and had to answer to "Snaily !" for the rest of his time with us.

I think the wartime stocks of Plum Jam lasted well into the 50's.

When Coninsby re-opened in 1956, all OR's were eating in the Sgts Mess, the Airmens Mess wasn't finished.
The food was terrible, but we were kept going by the 'it will get better when the new mess is finished' story.

When we moved into the new mess it was terrible.
A National Service guy wrote to his MP.
The Command Catering officer turned up un-announced, at lunch time and he saw how poor the food was.
That night at tea, what we had would have graced the Savoy! This was kept up for about a week, but the level that it fell back to was very good.

Falklands 1991, the Death Star, and a rare consignment of mange-tout arrives...

For 2 days we had what is best described as a mange-tout frenzy, with said veg being on the books for every meal, breakfast included. Mange-tout fritters, soup, flan, puree, salad etc. - if you could think of a way of presenting mange-tout, it would be tried. Death by mange-tout was fast becoming an option, it was everywhere and in everything.

Day 3, dinner: "What, no mange-tout?" I enquired gently of the chef. "No Sir, we've used it all!"

During a 3 week long full tactical Ex, two ground leccys appeared with McDonalds wrappers and cups. Where the F'in H*** did you get them from we all asked. "The DS got them for us, all you need is the code words depending on what meal you want"

Cue - two days & a torrent of nonsensical phrases and name calling to the DS causing so much bemusement. :ugh:

Wasn't until day 3 of trying, when the two lads actually said they had bought the MacDonald's in advance of the Ex & carefully folded the wrappers up in their bergens, to be opened at a suitable time in the exercise.

Laugh or Cry. We didn't know what to do.

I will never forget the quite amazing meals that the Chefs at Gutersloh managed to provide when the helicopter force was deployed to the field. OK, they had fresh rations, but with only very basic cooking equipment they did an amazing job. Funny how AAC aircraft always seemed to pop in to our site around meal times!

Late 60's,Changi Airmens Mess...Orderly Officer doing his rounds.
Any complaints?
One young airman complained that it was the same old choice everyday.
OO looks around the mess. Indian bar, Chinese bar, etc etc giving 32 choices of main meal.
OO smiles at young airman and advises him not to get married!

and in the dessert:
anyone remember the triangular sausages served up at El Adem?

Leuchars, mid seventies. Q.R.A. meals all provided by the Officers Mess.
As designated driver, only one allowed out of the Q.R.A. shed unless in an F4, on way to pick up chef and rations when hooter goes.
Q.R.A. is exempt so continue to O.M.
Get to tradesman's entrance and informed no chef was available as they were all on guard.
Sergeant i/c says no rations either but you can have these. 200 roast duck freshly cooked for the now cancelled dining in night!
It is possible to have too much of a good thing

Sepulot, in the middle of Sabah Province, North Boneo, 1966 in the middle of Confrontation by Indonesia. Pitched up with my Whirlwind Mk 10 to take over the RN's tasking because both their cabs are sick. Billeted in the Ghurkhas Officers basha with my own room, bed. mossy net and side table. Dinner is called. We eat off regimental crockery and the Tiger is served in silver goblets. After dinner we retire to the veranda and listen to the wildlife of the jungle's evening chorus.

I was with 99 Sqn in the early 1960's and have a couple of catering (lunchbox) memories.

The Best Lunch Box
Best lunch box I remember was that supplied from Embakasi in Nairobi in Sept 1961.
With some sort of trouble brewing in the Gulf it was decided the Army brigade based in East Africa would be transferred to Bahrain, a long Britannia flog of many hours - Embakasi - Khormaksar - Bahrain and then back again to do the same trip several times over to get the brigade to up Bahrain.

Anyway on the first trip we left Embakasi, dished out the lunch boxes to the squaddies in the back and then heard mutterings of complaint. When asked what was wrong, the general consensus was that the 'jam' tasted salty. It turned out each lunch box contained a small pot of something to be spread on the rolls or biscuits or whatever and the contents were very salty.
Investigation quickly showed the pots were in fact pots of Caviar, real Caviar and not ersatz Lumpfish roe. This was not immediately obvious to the troops so we collected any unopened and unwanted pots and put them aside for later crew use.
Their loss was our gain!

Later, but not with 99 sqn - the worst lunchbox ever - for me anyway.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....e79bd226cb.jpg
Lunchbox as provided by civilian caterers at Khartoum in 1979.
A couple of ropey rolls and two dead bananas - so awful I had to photograph it for posterity. Mind you it couldn't have been too bad because ISTR none of the crew had to be hospitalised afterwards!

One year in Victoria (SE Australia) at Balcome Army Camp, the only living in Officer at Xmas, decided to give the Mess Staff a break so told them he wouldnt be in for lunch and they could go home to their families, he was going to the beach.

At 1200, on the Beach, a Staff car Heavy arrived and out came the mess staff in full formal attire and trooped down the beach carrying large silver platters, a table, chair, and an ice box.

The poor hossifer had to sit at the table, and be served his 3 course Xmas lunch with dessert and wine. Much to the mirth of the general public on the beach..

Then there was Jenkins
 

Cpl Jenkins was a steward at Cottesmore. Not sure where he worked but probably the feeder. Now Jenkins always seemed to get on the dispersal exercises. I don't think the SACs liked him because he was so efficient.

First time was at Ballykelly. We arrived, turned the aircraft round and came up on state and then went the dispersal accommodation. There, tables laid with fresh linen, Jenkins brought out our post-flight meal, ham eggs and chips I think - all five at once. The other 3 crews received the same superb attention. The exercise continued with Jenkins managing the Bomber Command 4-hr eating cycle. Later we had afternoon tea before stacking for the night, a few beers in the Mess, steaks in the bar, and back to our bedrooms in the dispersal, but not before supper where Jenkins produced more ham and eggs.

Another time at Pershore Jenkins contains in that vein but found time to light a coal fire in the crew room.

While he was not officially a cook he turns his hand to anything and made the austere dispersal into comfortable mini-Messes. To my shame we never saw how our groundless fares as once on state our movement was limited and on stand down we would go to the Mess or off base.

lb But (probably) as I was once advised by a subaltern of some fractional cavalwy wegiment in the field on a similar occasion:

"It's only the travelling silver dontcherknow...."

Re the butty box, Cpl Rigger at Brize was seen going through the rubbish bags full of the used in flight butty boxes during a major RAFG exercise, ( we were sending plane after plane out full of pongoes), later he was seen doing the same in the skip. It turned out he had opened a box and noticed it had a Shiphams meat paste jar in it and on the label it stated something along the lines of collect 5 labels for a £1 and there were just over 156 labels per flight, times that by several flights and it started to add up to a fair bit of money at the time.

Catering memories:
Cranwell early 50s: late supper kept warm for returning sportsmen to help themselves - pilchards tinned in tomato sauce, dipped in batter and deep-fried. Surprisingly tasty.
Gibraltar late 50s: late lunch for arriving crew - the remains of the meal prepared for the SoS and party, on their way to S America. It started with lobster and went on from there.
El Adem also late 50s: early breakfast for departure to Eastleigh - fried sliced spam and dried egg 'omelette'. Edible, but one nav started with cereal and the reconstituted milk got him about 4 hours later. Straight to SSQ on arrival.

RAF Colerne, gate guard duty sometime in the early 70s. I forget what the usual routine for late supper was but clearly remember on one occasion an amorphous meal of chips, beans and a broken fried egg being delivered to us in a soggy paper bag. No cutlery either.