1975 - 1977
No. 3(F) Sqn, RAF Wildenrath
I was posted to No. 3(F) Squadron on 2nd Dec 1974 and found myself in an alien world, by which I mean that I hadn’t worked at First Line since my time at Khormaksar in 1965 and had never really worked on a fighter aircraft before. When I arrived, most of the squadron were on detachment to Decimomannu in Sardinia so I had some time to get all the arrival procedures completed and get myself settled in the Sergeant’s Mess. The average time before Married Quarters became available was about six weeks, so both Maria and I knew that we would likely be separated over Christmas and so it turned out.
When the squadron returned from its detachment, I started to learn all about the practicalities of working on the Harrier GR3 and T4. I had completed the Harrier course whilst at Wittering so I knew something about it but not enough. One of the problems that we had was that 3 Squadron had only been in existence for three years as a Harrier Squadron and the turnover in manpower during the three month period around the time that I arrived was phenomenal. Fortunately some of the replacements came from No. 1 Squadron at Wittering so needed no extra training. Electrical SNCOs however were a little different. During my first month, in addition to me, George BIMPSON and Stuart MORGAN both arrived. We had all been on the same course at Wittering so knew something of each other’s backgrounds. George had been a Chief in Engineering Records for about 11 years and Stuart, although he had been working at First Line at Coltishall for a year, had spent the six years before that in the Maintenance Unit at RAF Sealand. Between us one year’s First Line experience in 28 years of service was not ideal.
George did not last long as he decided that he had had enough and obtained his discharge. When I was promoted to Chief Technician on 1st April 1975, I found myself as the senior electrician on the squadron and therefore in charge. At about this time I had an interesting one way conversation with the Squadron Warrant Officer. One of the first sentences he said to me was “I don’t like Electricians”, he qualified that by saying “they always solve problems by committee.” Fortunately I didn’t have an awful lot to do with him but one year he did give me the worst set of annual assessments that I ever had. Not a nice man at all.
 |
| 1975 Harrier on Detachment |
Our working lives revolved around the next detachment of which there were at least four a year. I have already mentioned Decimomannu but that was a good detachment, lasting about three weeks, because it was actually serving a useful purpose in allowing the aircrew to drop live bombs, even if they were only the practice version. The other three detachments were each of two weeks duration and were deployments to a Field environment where we lived in tents and flew the aircraft from a prepared strip literally in a field. There were some exceptions when we used an actual road as a runway and these deployments were much easier for the aircrew for taxying, take off and landing, and for us because there was less preparation work to do. I have included a photograph taken at this type of site and, on one occasion the aircraft landed very carefully because its Main Landing Gear had failed to lower. A very accurate piece of flying because absolutely no damage was done to the aircraft and the wing outriggers were not manufactured to take that sort of stress. The flying part of the deployment was, by and large, the easy part; it was all the exercises which took their toll, standing guard and pretending to fight off attacking troops. There were some good times and some fun when we were off duty, but I cannot say that I remember them with any lasting affection.
Because of these deployments, we needed to drive ourselves and all of our equipment to and from wherever we were deployed. As a consequence of that, most people with driving licenses were sent on courses to be able to drive 4 ton trucks with a 5 ton trailer. I was one of those people and I am sure that driving these vehicles was partly instrumental in wrecking my shoulders. Without power steering they were extremely heavy to drive and when we got them ‘off-road’ and had to manoeuvre them amongst trees, they were particularly problematical.
1976 was a significant year for me in that I received my LS&GC Medal for 15 years of almost undetected crime
One rather different detachment was to Skrydstrup in Denmark. We flew up and back in a Short Belfast, which was memorable for a couple of reasons. On the way up I was in the hold area and froze, whilst on the way back I was ‘upstairs’ and overheated. My lasting memory of that trip however was the ‘Safety Brief’ from the Flight Sergeant Engineer who calmly announced that in the case of emergency, we should follow the arrows – “on the soles of my boots”.
It was cold in Denmark and it was the first time I had slept under a duvet. The first night I just could not get warm until I solved the problem by climbing inside the duvet cover. This effectively shut out all the draughts and I stayed warm for the remainder of the detachment.
At the weekend, the airbase shut down, which meant no messing arrangements and absolutely nothing to do. Some of us managed to find our way to Copenhagen and I would like to say that we had a wonderful time, however I remember nothing of the trip and I don’t have a photograph to prove that I was actually there. We didn’t even get to see the Little Mermaid. It was so cold that I believe that we spent most of our time indoors, which probably means that alcohol was involved!!
My last memory of the trip, apart from the fact that Danish forces didn’t bother with haircuts and did seem to own a lot of hairnets, was another evening involving alcohol and a couple of the local troops, one male and one female. For some reason (who needs one) one of our Chiefs decided that it was the right time to introduce the ‘Zulu Warrior’ to the locals and, accompanied by much encouragement, took all his clothes off much to the surprise of the two Danish nationals. My memory is a little hazy as to how many people were at that party but when there were only two of us still with clothes on (the locals had joined in happily) I decided that, before the volunteers became pressed men, it was past my bedtime!!
 |
1975
Nuraghe Runs, Sardinia
|
The other detachment that we went on was the annual live firing detachment to Decimomannu. As I may have mentioned this was a good detachment in that no exercises were involved so once aircraft were serviceable we did have time to explore the delights of Cagliari and other places like Nuraghe Ruins which are to be found all over Sardinia.
For those of us who were golfers, we found Is Molas Golf Course, which was more than a fair test of golf, even for those of us supposedly with a low handicap. There was a lot of water involved, especially from the ninth hole onward and a considerable number of balls were used before completing rounds.
 |
1976 - Is Molas Golf Club
John ELLERINGTON, John TURNER, Colin CROXFORD, Stuart MORGAN, Merv COOK
|
No comments:
Post a Comment