Taxi for CGS?
 

Asking for a friend. Has CGS been found yet?

They never really lost him, just were temporarily uncertain of his position...

As he is CGS surely it was everyone else who was in the wrong place?

Social distancing?

Or did the former Hereford Hooligan insist on being dropped at a distance so he could make a covert approach?

Have to be quite a distance...

Army aviation. An area weapon. Close enough for government work.

Back in pre-mobile phone, pre-NVG days, I went on a TEWT with a bunch of senior RAF and Army officers somewhere desolate on the North German Plain. At the end of the day, the Army started to set off for home in their various vehicles. With OC 230 Sqn among our number, as well as our Stn Cdr, his boss, we confidently awaited our Puma pickup for the short flight back to base. And we waited. As the light faded, we saw the Puma fly by in the distance and disappear. Fortunately, a remaining Army officer’s driver was able to use the radio in his Land Rover to relay a request for MT to pick us up for the long journey back to Gütersloh.

1969, Exercise 'Coral Sands' in an exercise area north of Townsville, Queensland. It was a big SEATO exercise involving Commonwealth armies, navies and air forces and there was a lot of press interest.

Bumbling along in my Whirlwind 10, shipped from Singapore to Townsville inside Sir Galahad I flew by an abandoned station near the remains of old mine workings. My crewman called out that he had seen SOS on the ground outside the old house.

We investigated and there were four parched press men who had been transported there by a steely Wessex of the Royal Navy. Apparently it had got the position wrong and hadn't thought why there was nobody else there.

We loaded them and carried them back for a beer or two and civilisation.

There was a few rude comments about the Navy in the local paper.

We've all done it. Monaghan's a lovely little town, according to some.

Monaghan was from a 10,000 border patrol, late at night......... In poor conditions.
I'm sure this was a similar situation..............

Which inevitably reminded me of the great https://www.pprune.org/military-avia...irthday-3.html with Post No 42 being my favourite! Anyone for tennis?

Jack

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....07168331d.jpeg

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....6c73a2f38.jpeg

When I was an ALO with 4Armd Division in BAOR, we were on exercise in the Sennelager area. A visiting senior officer was to be taken by a 4 Regt AAC Gazelle to visit some of his troops in the field, but unfortunately, his ADC gave the Sqn the wrong grid reference. While the pilots given the task realised the error, (they had already flown to the location of the troops to be visited earlier that day) they said nothing, flew the colonel to the wrong grid, dropped him and left. Apparently, said colonel had seriously upset and offended members of the sqn the day before.......

Ah, yes. Effin big church and green phone boxes, if I recall. By the time it was ID'd, it was quicker to keep going west. No one seemed to mind though. 😊

And then there's arriving at a DTG, thinking it was a GR - and vice versa.

I recall two training areas in Germany (can't recall the names) which were exactly 100 km apart, due East/West.

So if you left out the prefix letters - and the (ground) Army never bothered with those! - you could easily be 100km wrong. And every service did it.

Aah green 'phone boxes Mog - brings back a few memories......

It seems that the Ac Comd was correct - he dropped CGS off at the specified grid - unfortunately, someone (ADC perhaps) had provided the wrong grid............doh

Infantry of all types don't like admitting they have mis-plotted a grid and so love to blame the aviators when they get dropped exactly where they asked but realise it wasn't where they really thought they should be...

As for crossing the border in NI - always amusing when the OC bollocks everyone for infringing it, promises trouble for the next offender and then does it himself:)

Never personally went to the correct grid ref in the wrong training area during my time in Germany, but I did once go to exactly the correct grid in the correct training area a month early! The tasking folder for the exercise was dated June and they actually wanted SH in July.

During one big NATO exercise in the 80s, the German Bundespresident was scheduled to be flown in by helicopter as an observer of the final push....big local news, big welcoming party, press and TV cameras et al. We were told to avoid their landing point at all costs. So we did, we landed further down the hill. At the scheduled time, two German Super Pumas arrived overhead, vaguely circled the area, then suddenly flew over to our landing point, landed alongside our rather muddy Pumas and shut down. The shiny green door opened and down came the folding steps. The VIPs all climbed out, as did the crew. Unfortunately, the expectant welcoming party was a couple of miles away and we realised that one of us had to break the bad news. IIRC, the late George Blackie, as the squadron diplomatic rep (!) made his way across to them to whisper in the crew’s ear.... Red faces for the governmental crew, who had to round up the confused VIP pax and whisk them away again, up the hill.

Did George start his 'whispered' advice to the crew with "Hey shaggy" by any chance:)

Most probably.....in Glaswegian German!