RAF Stanbridge circa 1989 - junior officer rewriting Station Standing Orders.

....... female personnel in custody are to follow the same routine as male personnel, except that they need not shave.

(sometime later, said JO had to be rescued after wandering into a minefield in the Falklands)

Old Duffer

Brief for solo on chipmunk…ok serf, just find a hole in the cloud and climb to 5,000 for your solo aeros.

Marly, take that Puma to Denmark, do all the tasking the Yaeger Corps has for you and don’t come back for a week.

Sycamore - you've got it! A blissful summer as I recall!

At that dining in night, from the PMC: Gentlemen, catch that pig.

beardy, surely you mean the 'pink rabbit'??

Hilarious that Ba$tard Bill tried to stop the story getting out!!

Possibly my worst ... my Desk officer telling me I'm going to be posted to Lossie just as the OH was posted to Bracknell. 450 nm as the crow flies? The conversation was less than friendly, with me assuring him that my PVR could hit the system faster than his posting instruction!

Happily, an ATC contributor here picked up acting rank and took the job, and I remained South and collocated! Thanks again, Hugh!

Salute!

I shall try to keep this short, but was about worst orders I ever got.

So we had quit the N. Viet thing early 73 and our POW's were coming home, many of my friends. But HHQ decided to bomb Khmer commies and our unit flew from Korat and hit "enemy" covoys that carried ammo to use against "friendly" forces. We didn't have U.S. ground units there officially and I wasn't sure about who was in charge of the "country". Nevertheless, we had our orders,

So on patrol our tactical control tells us to contact so-an-so FAC, which we did. I was flight lead that day. There was a small convoy moving ammo along a no nothing road and we were gonna destroy it. OK. Get our briefing from the FAC and then he tells us the bad guys are booking to a close grove of trees we could easily see. He then says that civilian labor was chained to the carts and wagons and such, but the enemy had booked to the grove of trees.

He tells HQ the situation and they say to hit the convoy. He repeats that the bad guys are in the trees about 200 meters or so from the road, and there are only innocent folks tied to the carts and wagons. HHQ says "no matter, hit the convory vehicles". The ROE dictated we couldn't hit further than "x" meters of a road. FAC says, "but, but, but....then tells Blue Chip he is marking the target for us with his willie pete.

About 15 seconds later a puff of smoke rises from the grove of trees where the enemy had hunkered down. "Hit the smoke". Heh heh heh. Guess we were following orders, and our SLUF's dropped about 16 Mk-82's on that grove,leaving only splinters.

Question is? Did we follow orders?

Gums sends...

Ordered to land at the beginning of my night flying currency training.
OC OPS “We’re trying to minimise noise complaints- why were you flying at 9pm?”
ME “Night Flying requirements”
OC OPS “Does that have to be flown at night?”

Gums,

You followed orders to the letter....doctrine said you hit the marked target and no inniocents got hurt.

One of my "Bad Orders" received was an occasion I was told to turn my Door Gunners loose on anyone outside the perimeter of a hilltop radio relay site.

I confirmed the Order by obtaining the Initials of the Officer issuing the Order.

We flew circles around the perimeter working our way down the mountain with each revolution....and the only people we saw were Buddhist Monks in their Robes and a Pagoda type building with a wooden water line running to it.

I reported that to the TOC that was issuing the Orders....and they repeated that it was an official Free Fire Zone and that there had been some Recon Troops surveilling the Hilltop Defensive Positions that morning,

They confirmed the "Light Them Up Order" and I acknowledged that.....and we fired up a few thousand rounds of 7.62 on a rather large Boulder about Five Hundred Meters down the mountain from the Pagoda.

My Gunners got to shoot....throw smoke grenades....and generally have a good time.

I reported I could not confirm any Enemy Casualties....the TOC was happy....I was happy...the Crew were happy....and the military aged male indigenous persons wearing the Robes were happy.

The Gunner got the dirty end of the stick....he had to clean three M-60's....as we had a Ramp Gun that day plus the standard side door guns.

Harrier forward det to Tromso, Norway way up above the Arctic circle, Feb 1986. Snow blizzards. Harriers back home waiting for a decent forecast before setting off.

Det cdr to me: get out there and put out the dayglo markers for the vertical landing pad.
Me: But it's a raging blizzaed out there. We'll lose the markers before the jets get here.
Him: Me sqn ldr, you fg off. Do it.

So out I went into the blizzard, doing my best Titus Oates impression, in a temperature of -30C (with wind chill) and laid out the markers. Half an hour after completing my task, the jets cancelled and we all traipsed off into town on the pop. Next morning, same again - almost.

Him; Put the markers out.
Me: I already did, yesterday.
Him: I can't see them.
Me: Neither can I. I think they're buried under the snow.
Him: Go and dig them out.

So I went out with a shovel, and after a lot of guessing and digging I managed to retrieve the markers, all bar one set, which I didn't find until the snow melted over a fortnight later.

You know what they say: if you can't take a joke......

Pilot.
Set up the OP over there..
But Sir, it really needs to be out there, you can't see anything from there.
I know what I am talking about, I have a degree in Geography! ( I kid you not )

Following day and visit from senior Rock Ape.
Which firking idiot set up the OP over there, it needs to be out over there...
All fingers point and our geography genius slinks away.

Gutersloh SRO c. 1970 [rather a long and rambling and complicated one.

"The personnel to whom these orders apply are to blah blah blah ......"

Thus a large number of personnel [including we civvies] spent an earnest 10 minutes trying to see if we were affected, to no avail.

The official follow-up was succinct and grumpy, and clearly a bollocking had been administered.

And it turned out to have nothing to do with we Met. folk.
anyway.

The other was priceless and surely deliberate: the temporary telephone directory for Finningley B o B included an officer "i/c Temporary Erections"

"Splice the Mainbrace" was always well received.

Badly worded Orders … Officers Mess Rules …
”members are not to entertain members of the opposite sex in single quarters unless a separate sitting room is provided” …
Yay, I have a separate sitting room. Nothing specifies WHICH room shall be used for ‘entertaining’.

During a Taceval at RAF Scampton "Attention, attention! There will be a briefing for all crews in the Main Briefing Room at 10:00 hours".

The Ground Defence Commander, being a bit brighter, realised that this would be a very tempting target for the intruders who had been expected to infiltrate the station. A Word was obviously said, because a further tannoy message followed....

"Attention, attention. Ignore the last message; the briefing will now be 10 minutes later!"

Heard over the 1MC (All Compartments Intercom system) aboard an American Gray Funnel Line Ship....

"All Hands, All Hands...Hear this! Give the Ship a clean sweep, fore and aft, collect all rubbish and deposit it in the **** Cans provided!".

About one minute later heard over the 1MC...."Hear this, hear this! Belay my last about the **** Cans!".

I happened to be sitting in the XO's Stateroom enjoying a Cup of Coffee when that happened.

He was not amused.


That was an interesting cruise from the Philippines to Hong Kong as I was conducting an Undercover Drug Interdiction Operation that had started in the Philippines and led us to some crew members running a lucrative side business.

Bruggen standing orders.

Alcohol is permitted in the blocks only for immediate consumption

Define immediate consumption,
I watched one guy in our block consume over half a crate of Grolsh when challenged, it took him a while and he was well and truly pissed by the end of it, but consume it he did.

Hardly high nor low. However Lurked for understudy OOD at Osprey for 3 weeks after a rather unfortunate incident with a smoke grenade.
However, there was one high point. Called with the duty DLC ( an SD survo whose survival lectures were legend) to attend a food fight in the junior rates mess. As one OD was lobbing a banana into the fray, “you, stop that. Do you think that stuff grows on trees !”

Non-military but a classic:

Our famously irate deputy head was supervising main hall being turned into a boxing arena, with VI th form providing labour [it beat
double maths].

"STOP!. There are lots of chairs there that weren't there when I put them there!"

Thank God his sense of humour survived the laughter. [He was the official wielder of the cane: rumoured to be chalked so that all six landed in same small area]