National service

[Texas 10]

No I didn't Gerry. The last I heard about it the authorities were only thinking about giving some sort of medal. I can't see them giving me one for the shenanigans I took part in anyhow. They dont give medals for enjoying yourself, do they? I remember when I was in Line Troop at 3GHQ, being sent out on a fault at the SIB compound. This was a compound within a compound at main GHQ. So after doing the business with the 'phone, I started sniffing around the office (there wasn't anyone around). On the wall was a big map with colored pins stuck in it, depicting incidents in the Canal Zone, the little horns started sprouting out of the side of my head, and I moved a few around.

They ai'nt going to give me a medal for that. I expect a knock on the door any minute.

[Gerry 10]

It's not too late Texas, if you change your mind go to this website.

 

http://www.army.mod.uk/royalgreenjackets/news/suez_canal.html

[fleetwood 10]

Enjoy all your comments, please excuse my typing skills which also affects my spelling and grammer, I also went for my medical at Ecclesall rd. Started my basic training in December with the Royal Sigs. that same year, Catterick in Dec. and Jan. is not pleasant. After trade training the following year went to Newton Abbot then flew out to Egypt. I hated it when I went in the army but kinda liked it by the time I was getting out, I am going to go on the Royal Signals web site as I still remember some of the lads that served with me. I found out about the canal zone medal so Iapplied for it and recieved it a few months later. I'vestill got photo's of all the Sheffield and Rotherham lads that were in the same camp at that time. Oh happy days.

[Floridablade 11]

Signals motto, Certa Cito Sxxx or bust, never let your Bxxxxxxx dangle in the dust.

[fleetwood 10]

Thank you FLORIDABLADE I remember the motto, do you remember the regimental march, if my memory serves me right it was 'Begone dull care', we used to sing it at school, who would of thought?

[Floridablade 11]

Yes it sounds like our march can't remember though no wonder the others thought we were a bunch of queers.

 

On regimental marches you would think the Royal Northumberland Fuzzy Wuzzies would have Bladen Races but no it is The British Grenadiers.

[Harleyman 12]

You meet a lot of characters in the miltary but there are some you never forget. One such for me was Jock McPhate. Jock was from Glasgow and from a tough part of that city. He got posted to us from Hong Kong where he had run afoul of military law. It seemed that the army posted all the miscreants from Hong Kong to our unit which was stationed in Malacca, Malaya having regarded us I believe as some sort of " punishment battalion". Jock was built like a brick s***t house and had boxed for the Army in the far east boxing championships as a heavyweight. His intake of alcohol was stupendous and he got into many a brawl in the bars of Malacca and spent many a day in the guardhouse. When he was drunk he was as mean as a grizzly with a sore ar**se and the rest of us in the barrack room kept well away from him when he was in this state. Jock was the kind of soldier who in peacetime was a continual problem but in wartime would have probably won a VC. He was as strong as a bull and when we were out on the ranges with the howitzers he could do the work of two men, manhandling the guns and shells like they weighed nothing. Likkewise on jungle patrols he was more often than not the point man.

One day he came into the barrack room carrying a cardboard box with three barely alive kittens in it. The mother had died or left them and they were in a pitiful state. After issung a warning to to us all not to say a word he put the box under his bed and for the next few weeks nursed them as tenderly as any mother might do.

At that time the army was switching over to an all volunteer force and were offering national service men a 300 Malay dollar bonus if they signed on for one more year. Jock was one of them but as it turned out he waited too long and signed too late to get the bonus. So there he was in for another year and no chance of qualifying for the bonus. When he found this out he went into Malacca one evening and got dead drunk and smashed up a bar. The juke box ended up out in the street and there wasn't a chair or a table with four legs on it. The Chinese bar owner sent photos to the C.O and claimed damages from the Army. Jock was sentenced by a court marshall to six months in the glass house and sent home to England to serve his sentence followed by a dishonourable discharge. By chance he was on the troopship Oxfordshire that I was sailing home on and he was kept in the ship's brig for the three week voyage. I saw him up on deck one day taking a brief breath of fresh air and guarded by an MP. I slipped him a packet of fags and that was the last I saw of him.

Jock, wherever you are God bless.

[buck 11]

I would have been called up for National Service but I signed on for extra years so I could join a Military Band.

I served for two years in Hong Kong !958-60.

Looking back they were years that were very informative, and broadened my mind no end.

Not a complete waste of time .

I was glad I was there.

What do other 68's year olds and older think?

I served in the Royal Navy for 18 yeaars starting in 1949. We didn't have a lot of national servicemen unlike the RAF and the army so never had any axe to grind. while I think it was a good thing to get young men involved in the discipline so lacking today, I prefer the idea of a highly professional military doing what they do best, if we are not in a major war.

[Texas 10]

Why was it all the hardcases were Scots? Jim Austen mentions a Jock McPhate, his description is almost a cliche. We had one in 3 GHQ, 'Spanky' Preston by name, a terrible man. Always a threat, and everybody steered well clear. He came from Glasgow too and even the Glaswegians in our troop kept away. Apart from all the usual mayhem, which I dont really want to relate, he finished up in hospital and they had to strap him down. When he got out it seems he was going to the compound, so he knocked the driver of an ambulance, unsconcious, and drove off. We heard that he'd been picked up in Cairo by the Military Police via the Egyptian Police. He was badly beaten apparently. A total nutter.

But what of the other characters? We had this kid 'Woggy' Fox, he was so dark he used to get propositioned by Egyptian funny people. It upset him no end.

And we had an 'Anglo' by the name of Sid Murphy. I mean I ask you, an anglo Indian called Sydney Murphy. He was a great guy though. Can you visualize him speaking with the hindi accent and the head going side to side, like they do ' What time is it?' My stomach thinks my throat is cut.'

And a guy named Gerry Booroff, Londoner, from Willesden. Butter wouldn't melt in this guys mouth. We had a nutcase Officer,name of Rogers, who dreamt up the idea of a Regimental boxing team to take on the mighty Ordinance Corps. Gerry found himself on boxing training.

He turned out the best of the bunch, he won his bout, the only win of the tournament, I might add, and was stalked by 'Spanky' Preston for weeks. Gerry had to sleep with a Stella bottle every night.

[cartav 10]

Some of the responses got me thinking of characters I knew...... One, in particular, was from London, a smart a**e, like many of them from the smoke. He was a big lad, of Italian descent & a barrow boy for a living. Luigi ( to save his real name from becoming public) didn't like the Army. Having been sent on his first leave to UK from Osnabruck he decided there were better things to do. He gave it some thought and came to the conclusion that he wouldn't go back. He got away with it for six months or so, then, after a dispute with some hard men who were distressed at the condition in which their sister found herself, Luigi thought it might be better to seek protection in the Army rather than be parted from useful items of his anatomy.

 

So he came back, marched up to the gate in the custody of the Redcaps who had been charged to return him to his unit. He languished in the guard room for some while until the court martial could be assembled, he chose his troop captain to defend him. It was a wise decision. The captain sifted through the paper work but found little to prove Luigi been absent. When a soldier went AWOL, the required procedure was for the battery clerks to type out an absentee report in triplicate. One copy went to regiment, one was sent to the Military Police & the third to his home town civilian police. Then his absence had to be published on Battery Pt 1 orders to make it official. But it wasn't always the case that a soldier was intentionally overstaying his leave. Sometimes the returning leave boat was full, they only sailed every other day. Sometimes he might be ill or have had an accident. Wily clerks didn't make work for themselves, they often sat on it for a bit. Luigi might just turn up in a couple of days, that would mean more paper work if his absence had been reported.

 

Then of course there was demob. A chief clerk might have his own departure on his mind as in this case. He packed his kit & disappeared rejoicing, forgetting about the need to complete the absentee report he'd put on one side. So when the court martial was in session, the first thing Luigi's defending officer asked for was the documentary evidence, knowing full well there wasn't any. Until an absentee's name was published on orders, the Army concluded he was still around, his only proven offence was not turning up for daily parades.

 

So it appeared to the Court. They had thought it would be easy, hear the evidence, find him guilty and decide the sentence. Not so, the accused was made aware of the facts, he was confused & wanted confirmation. "Sir", he said "Does that mean I'm not guilty?"

The colonel scowled, said he knew the accused was as guilty as hell but they couldn't prove it. In fact the sentence for the minor charge of being absent from place of parade had already been served whilst Luigi was in the guard room awaiting trial. It sank in, the cockney's reponse was swift. "Then, sir, what about me back pay? I've drawn nothing for six months!". He didn't get it.

[Harleyman 12]

Why was it all the hardcases were Scots? Jim Austen mentions a Jock McPhate, his description is almost a cliche. We had one in 3 GHQ, 'Spanky' Preston by name, a terrible man. Always a threat, and everybody steered well clear. He came from Glasgow too and even the Glaswegians in our troop kept away. Apart from all the usual mayhem, which I dont really want to relate, he finished up in hospital and they had to strap him down. When he got out it seems he was going to the compound, so he knocked the driver of an ambulance, unsconcious, and drove off. We heard that he'd been picked up in Cairo by the Military Police via the Egyptian Police. He was badly beaten apparently. A total nutter.

But what of the other characters? We had this kid 'Woggy' Fox, he was so dark he used to get propositioned by Egyptian funny people. It upset him no end.

And we had an 'Anglo' by the name of Sid Murphy. I mean I ask you, an anglo Indian called Sydney Murphy. He was a great guy though. Can you visualize him speaking with the hindi accent and the head going side to side, like they do ' What time is it?' My stomach thinks my throat is cut.'

And a guy named Gerry Booroff, Londoner, from Willesden. Butter wouldn't melt in this guys mouth. We had a nutcase Officer,name of Rogers, who dreamt up the idea of a Regimental boxing team to take on the mighty Ordinance Corps. Gerry found himself on boxing training.

He turned out the best of the bunch, he won his bout, the only win of the tournament, I might add, and was stalked by 'Spanky' Preston for weeks. Gerry had to sleep with a Stella bottle every night.

 

We had other hard cases too. None of them worth remembering.

The reason Jock McPhate stands out is because he was a first class soldier out in the field. A real team player. Some of the other hard cases were nothing but a bunch of ******s when on field exercises of which there were many. Jock was an okay guy when he was sober. He just had this Jekyll and Hyde personality when it came to the drink.

He was probably a result of growing up in a Glasgow slum. The child is father of the man as the saying goes.

There were many stray cats and dogs wandering around the base in various states of misery but none of us gave a toss for them. But Jock did. Just for a moment the hard, rough, tough outer layer slipped away to show what he might have been had circumstances been different in his life.

 

I was a national serviceman in the 26 Field RA (The Midland Gunners) One of a very few that were serving in that regiment in 61/62. Still proud of the fact that I took everything that a tough outfit like that could throw at me and leave with an honourable, good conduct discharge. National servicemen got paid much less than regular servicemen and I suppose that the army chose never to see the inequity in this but rather as an incentive to sign up as a regualr and qualify for the much better pay. My army was a peacetime army at that time but I think in war that the national servicemen should have had their pay rate equal to regulars. How many NS men fought and died in Korea

and the jungles of Malaya (during the 12 years of the emergency) alongside their regular counterparts?

 

Wonder if the American draftees in Vietnam received less or equal

pay than their regulars?

[Floridablade 11]

I was doing National Service in Gibraltar, RNF and we had a platoon of so-called hard cases of which for no reason I'd become a member, the lad in the next bed was a certain character called Cochrane who had a nasty habit of picking up queers beating them to pulp then robbing them. We were stationed in Moorish Castle but most of the regiment were in Casemates and Cochrane went into a shop near the camp gates and talked himself into getting the woman owner into bed, he came back to barracks with thousands of fags and proceeded flogging them for half price. Cochrane was killed in Korea.