National service

[Floridablade]

In the Cavalry regiments it was tradition for Y.O.s ( young officers ) to be given no authority whatsoever until the troop sergeant said so and then he would be on probation for a while until finally he was considered a fully fledged officer. One Y.O. arrived in the regiment and being a mrmber of a prominent family demanded his rightful place in the scheme of things. Yes said the C.O. quite right you should be given full responsibility and to just show you I mean what I say I want you to take your troop to this place. The Y.O was given the co-ordinates and off he went and of course got lost, not only that he hadn't organised any food or water for the troop. Of course the lads had been through this routine before and the lad responsible for knocking up the meals told the Y.O. there was only enough water for two days, in fact they had plenty of food and water but the Y.O. only got water. After a week with no radio contact, as far as the Y.O. knew anyway, the Y.O. asked the Sergeant what to do, the Sergeant said I can only follow orders sir. But we're lost and you know the desert can't you get us back to camp. Sure said the Sergeant but you get your denims on and get that Half Track cleaned, I want all the sand out of the engine compartment, when he'd finished he was given a meal and a cuppa. The troop were back in camp within 4 hours.

[Texas]

Sounds to me being a YO was worse than being an Acting Unpaid Local Lance Corporal, in which capacity I once spent a very bad week.

[Gerry]

He doesn't sound like any of the Y O's I ever new, but then I was in the infantry.

[Texas]

Had a run in with a YO once. I was wearing my cap badge in the center instead of over the left eye, on parade. I remember he was shorter than me, and he was, for some reason, in the (wait for it, wait for it,) Catering Corps. At that moment he hated every Signalman, having to be on the parade ground, and me in particular. Oh yes, and he had a very, very red face.

[sweetdexter]

Had a run in with a YO once. I was wearing my cap badge in the center instead of over the left eye, on parade. I remember he was shorter than me, and he was, for some reason, in the (wait for it, wait for it,) Catering Corps. At that moment he hated every Signalman, having to be on the parade ground, and me in particular. Oh yes, and he had a very, very red face.

 

I wonder what the criteria was to be an officer in the Catering Corps.

I can't ever remember seeing a C.C officer.

would Jamie Oliver be a Lt Colonel?

I can't imagine anyone who had aspirations to be a chef going into the C.C to fulfill their ambitions.

[finebyme]

Yep, I did national service (1956/1958) in York and Lancaster Regiment. Went to Port Said (Egypt) and enjoyed one of the best holidays of my life. Med cruise on the immigrant liner 'Australia' going and on HMS Theseus coming home. Made a man out of me. Pity they stopped it( National Service I mean)

[Highnote]

Oh yes Texas we had our good times and many,many laughs.and they are well remembered and treasured, but perhaps due to the seriousness of the work is because they take precedence in my thoughts? remember my work involved mens lives,aircrew,and on two occasions I well remember problems occuring due to oversight on the part of the personnel involved, a vital check on an auto-pilot mechanism, and a faulty job on the altimeter and airspeed system, and three people escaped courts martial by a whisker!, and to emphsise the importance of doing it right, in my time the work we did was subject to a three time check, first by me,then a junior NCO who checked our work, and did the work we were not qualified to do then a Senior NCO who checked everything we had done, and all the work thay had been done, and when all three of us had signed for what we had done, and only then was the aircraft passed to go into service.So hope this explains why it has!Stuck" in my memory for so long.

Yes they were very happy days for many reasons

[Texas]

Highnote, you make me feel ashamed. In the capacity of duty lineman, one weekend, I was called out to find a fault on a line at General Sir Brian Robertson's pad on the Bitter Lake.

I was met at the perimeter of his spread by a worthy of the Black Watch, to say I felt intimidated would be putting it mildly. He was a Staff Sergeant.

He took me to the offending piece of telephone equipment, a model of communication I had never seen before or indeed since, a Plan Seven telephone. I went into efficient lineman mode, blowing in the mouthpiece, screwing the earpiece off, tapping the BT, (that's that little oblong square box that used to be on the wall), I was scared sh****** really, I mean this was as bigtime as it could get. When I couldn't think of anything else to do, I disconnected the damn thing and told the the Black Watchman I'd get another 'phone.

Actually I was right, the line was open from the BT. I told him the 'phone was faulty. But hey, what the hell did he know. To him I was a genius.

I'm not trying to be smart about all this, with all the money spent on training me to be a Lineman, I didn't know nada about nothing.

The odd thing about all this is General Sir Brian Robertson left the the Army at the same time as I did. I went back to my civilian job as a fireman on British Railways, he became Chairman of the same. And who said education 'aint worth a lick?

[Highnote]

I like your story Texas,and may relate a little story, during my service,one morning the phone rang(remember this is the Instrument Section)and the Flight Sergeant took the call and look round to see what everyone was doing,and as I had a couple of Daily Inspections,nothing urgent, he said go up to S.H.Q to see Warrant Officer C-------- he has a puncture on his bicycle he wants repairing, very technical I thought, so off I went with my tool kit and did the job and reported to him what I had done, good the W.O. said and gave me half-a crown(12-1/2p) not much now but remember my weekly wage was £2 2 shillings, great,but the best bit was whenever the same officer wanted anything doing to his bike, brakes adjusting,punctures,a bit of lubrication, he would ring up and say send that LAC, and off I would trot and of course the half-crown was always forthcoming.

Another little earner but not for me was servicing the S.H.Q.clock, for which I received 40 cigarettes each time,and as I have never smoked always gave then away, so you can imagine when word got round where I was, I had plenty of mates when I returned

Speaking of pay I do not know what yours was but some time ago my Daughtrer-in-Law was looking at some photographs of your truly in service mode, and when I told her of my pay she asked was that a day? I told her no -- a week!!!

[prioryx]

yes i remember all that plus the roman ruins was cyreni ? and where was that huge mural painted by w11 troops ,of a women lots of action going on,i remember two bren gunners were sitting in her belly button. 1951 signals we moved far and fast we spent a lot of time out, through Kufrah &almost to Chad after two &half yrs out we got to know the land pretty well but i must admit we never looked or found OIL

 

The Roman ruins at Leptis Magna were very impressive. The mural you mention is the Gharyan lady. It is or was painted on the wall of an old Italian army barracks by some allied soldiers in WW2. The story is that the Germans thought that no tanks could get up the Gharyan pass but the British managed it.

The local photo shops would not print pictures of the Gharyan lady because it is of a nude woman reclining in the shape of North Africa with the town and battles picked out on different parts of her body. I went to see it and took some photo's but the negatives got lost.