Your “normal” British Officers….

J Boyle….

Not only would a British Major-General not stand in line, he would not be seen dead in a Burger King….. He’d be wearing civilian clothes, sunglasses and a beanie to disguise himself even if his kids dragged him in there to buy a bun….

My Log Book says that on December 6th, 1967, I was on a VIP run with the USN C-in-C Pacific fleet (CINCPAC), the little cigar chewing guy “Bull” something or other…. he was there to have an aerial look at the Naval Base in Singapore. He made hand signals to me to unplug my microphone and head set and when I did he said words to the effect that he was getting the run-around about the Naval Base from the senior officers he was meeting and when he went to the Naval Base himself on his schedule would it be possible to get the honest picture from the senior enlisted men as he wanted to get a clear understanding of the state of the Naval Base….. An entirely different approach from an American “very” senior officer. I told him that he would have to “insist” that he wanted to speak to CPO’s and PO’s and senior ratings and that RN senior Officers would not be happy about it. “Then we’ll see,” he said and stuck the cigar back in his mouth.

There were many occasions where I had to just smile and move on, aware of the stupidity but unable to get past it. British Officers then thought of themselves as “the bees knees”, when clearly a lot were not. Yes, there were good ones but a lot of them were just passable as officers in my opinion. A lot of them had never heard the phrase, “Water your horse first…” and if they had they would not have known the meaning behind it.

There have been many films where the attitudes and actions of British Officers have been portrayed and most of it is correct. Born to Rule was their attitude during the time I was in the RAF. Despite some coming from the lowliest of backgrounds, their attitude changed once they become commissoned and surrounded by other officers. Pranks played by airmen would be treated by a charge and “jankers” or even days inside but stupid activity on the part of officers was always “high spirits”…. and we wouldn’t want to curtail that, now would we chaps ? Their attitude was one of the reasons for leaving the RAF. I hope to God that it has changed in this modern world.

An Army Captain I lfted out of Bankit one day in Sarawak appeared in our “All Ranks” RAF bar at Nanga Gaat in his jungle green uniform with pips removed from his epaulettes. I walked into the bar and recognised him as coming out of Bankit that day. Small talk ensued and he said, “I think it’s bloody marvellous that you RAF chaps all get together in this bar for a convivial drink after duty….. of course you know I’m a Captain don’t you ?” I mean it was obvious to anybody by the six holes on his epaulettes but why re-inforce it ? I turned around and left the bar.

I leave you with this reply by a Lieutenant-Colonel who we brought out of a forward base in Borneo. His name was Carruthers. I asked him, “Has your family been in the British Army for a long time, Colonel ? You have a very ‘British Army’ name….” He replied, simply, “Since Cromwell”.

Regards,

RPM, Fuel Flow, TGT…
http://www.electranewbritain.com

Was it good out there ?

Lauriebe, pagen01 and Postfade….

Don’t know much about the Valetta fuselage lying next to the wooded area next to the Sungei Seletar. It may have been used by the Fire Stoppers for evacuation practice. The Vampire stood at the back of the building there and in truth I’d forgotten about it until the picture came up enlarged on the Forum thread !

I had been out to Singapore straight out of the brats in 1959 and was at the ASF at Changi, first in the Modification Bay, then posted to Labuan for six months and then back to Changi on 2nd Line Inspections, Hastings mainly. That took up the two and a half years. Labuan was beautiful, a small island, friendly people, never did I think I would get back there again when I left in 1961. I left Singapore in 1962 and then went to RAF Lyneham, then Thorney Island where I worked on 1st Line Argosy, posted in when the OCU moved from Benson…..

After eighteen months Flight Engineer training from 1964 to 1965 and flying at Thorney on the Argosy, I eventually arrived at RAF Ternhill for SRT training. That was quite a let down and none of us F/E’s wanted to be there. After flying on the Argosy after OCU training and then being posted onto Whirlwinds it came as a complete shock to be on helicopters from which I did not recover !

I remember a senior officer maybe an AVM; “Bird-Wilson” visiting Ternhill and asking me how I liked Helicopters (?)…. “Not at all Sir, I am not interested in them at all Sir….” I got the usual ****-eyed looks from the hangers-on officers accompanying him. At least I told the truth ! They should have trained up volunteer helicopter Groundcrew to be on the things and given them an aircrew category of “Crewman”, full stop. We were called “Flight Engineer Crewmen”, but they dropped that to “Crewman” when the NCO Aircrew Signallers started being posted onto helicopters. There were then Air Electronics brevet wearers and they didn’t know what to do with the surplus “signallers” trained up so: “Here you go, go to helicopters as Crewmen…..”. In the main, they didn’t like it either.

No. 5 SRT Course at Ternhill had been a revelation. We had Royal Navy pilots on the course as well as RAF pilots and I found the Navy drivers to be ill-disciplined and during the confined space landing exercises I thought they took too many chances and I regarded their flying as “bull-at-a-gate” stuff. Risk takers. I didn’t want to be on their sorties…..

We did the ‘winching at sea’ exercises at RAF Valley in bitterly cold weather and it was no fun to be in an immersion suit for four or five hours at a time. After all that “rescue” training, I recall I only had to do one rescue on the winch in Borneo throughout the near two years we went there.

After arriving at Seletar and settling-in, in late December 1965, I was sent over for two weeks familiarisation to Sibu and Nanga Gaat. When I arrived at Nanga Gaat in late January 1966 the Navy had long vacated but there were a few tales of their antics.

Borneo was a sort of magical place but the Sarwaks I spoke to could not understand “why” they were being incorporated into Malaya. Nanga Gaat was the home of the person known as the Tumunggung Juga and he was the representative in the Malaysian Parliament for his Iban people. He was fiery but I can’t recall him having any success with the Malays. One look on Google Earth shows what the Malaysians have removed from Sarawak. There are very rich Malaysians today because of the plunder of Sarawak.

Did I enjoy it, you ask ? I enjoyed Borneo, but did I enjoy helicopters ? No not really. Getting back onto the Argosy in 1968 was like the bad dream ending.

Postfade… I have a couple more aerial shots of Seletar and I can see where the picture of the Dakota was taken…it was on East Camp, you’ll see the two small hangars in the background right on the left of the photos. If Photobucket will behave I’ll have them up as a string of three (with the first one posted in the middle) shortly.

Regards,

RPM, Fuel Flow, TGT…
http://www.electranewbritain.com

Bario Pictures…Ahh, Bario… a pleasant place…

First off… The Lt.Col. in the foregoing post was a brave man to face up to a howling Jakarta mob…

BARIO….

Bario is located close to the Kalimantan border and in this picture the border is possibly the hill in the East.

This picture shows the whole camp… RAF accomodation beside the runway, Army camp on the hill. View is looking South-west.

This picture looking West back up the normal approach route into Bario.

The first pic shows the TwinPin taking off to the West which re-inforces the fact that the border was not that far away from Bario.

Bario is at 3,500 feet so the climate was very pleasant. I was lucky enough to hear the local schoolkids playing their bamboo flutes, tenor flutes, right down to bass flutes. It made an eerie sound. I was told that the English schoolmaster resident there, had introduced music into their lives and had also introduced salad variety vegetables into Bario, they grew tomatoes and other salad stuff there.

While I was there, Borneo Airways did fly in with their Twin Pioneers. On the left of the last picture, beside the runway are a group of huts. That was the Borneo Airways Terminal. The Bario locals used to bring a water buffalo there that they intended to butcher and sell in Labuan…. They would wait until they heard the sound of the Twin Pioneer at the scheduled “Borneo Airways” time, butcher the beast and have it all in cuts and wrapped up in banana leaves tied with vine by the time the Twin Pioneer landed. Ten minutes at the most !!!

RPM, Fuel; Flow, TGT…
http://www.electranewbritain.com

Fuel Drum Stacking….

Sycamore…

I’ve seen some horrible fuel drum usage in my time but I learned a lot from Borneo which stood me in good stead when later I worked in Papua New Guinea in the years 1992 to 2002. Drum fuel is quite often used there to refuel Commercial flights.

We didn’t tip the fuel drums onto their bases, ie; vertical drums until we were ready (and sure) that we would need the fuel therein. Obviously the logistics of getting fuel drums up to remote areas as in Borneo is a nightmare for the Supply Wallas….so we were careful and only took fuel when required for safety. Wait five minutes, do a water check and then use it if O.K..

Lifting them up required a certain technique, we are talking about 44 Gallons of Avtur (Jet A-1 to the purists), which in anybody’s book is 350 lbs. Two men was good, to do that. Usually you were on your own, particularly in 3rd Division. There you would be left all day with fuel drums and a “Zwikky” pump just to top off the beast halfway between legs from “Base to Border”. I have a bad back, which I have blamed on the Argosy, but now I come to think about it, it was half that and half the bloody fuel drums.

In respect to the dregs in the bottom of drum fuel, yes, there would be water and until people used the stack pipes correctly there would have been problems. Yet, I did see, a TUDM Alouette refuelled straight out of a drum and ‘then’ the Malay refuelling the beast did a water check, out of the aircraft low point. A backwards way of doing it. In respect to dregs, I note here (without my wife listening) that I have oft been profferred two or three delightful handmaidens by the headman of a village for the remains of a drum but decided that I would not be able to withstand the invigorating pace that would have ensued…. “Chicken Me”…

Notwithstanding that you were left on your own all day on some remote LZ in the middle of the Borneo Jungle, worst of all you would be left with a packet of sandwiches prepared by the Chinese Cook at Nanga Gaat, which as aforesaid, were always the same variety, which had been appelled by the Canadian Pilot with name of “Donkey C**k” sandwiches….so you hold these (by now “hot”) sandwiches, would look at them and make a decision as to whether you were “going” to eat them or not. Usually not.

One of the beauties of being left on your own in the middle of nowhere was the silence. Total and utter silence, not usually experienced nowadays in this insane world. Taking a leak was very interesting…I kid not that taking a leak attracted all the butterflies from out of nowhere who would be after the salt and other minerals… dozens and dozens of them…some even daring enough to land at the head of the stream…. Anybody doubting that should immediately buy a tcket and go there to experience it themselves.

So….left there to ruminate or whatever… you could get “twitchy” and on one accasion a bloody great pig about seven feet long passed through the LZ at a trot and I was too slow to c*c* the SMG and drop him. On the same LZ I heard voices one day…’C*c*’, remove mag, check full, replace mag…..ready. It was Ibans fishing…. they had caught the biggest Catfish I saw there, about five feet long. If I ever go back, that’s where I’ll go… I know exactly where that place is.

Know your enemy: “Hot” Donkey C**k sandwiches.:mad:

Know your enemy (2): “Hot” village handmaidens full of fun…. !!!:D

RPM, Fuel Flow, TGT…
http://www.electranewbritain.com