Nostalgia search

[Pine-Tree72]

Nice of you, thanks ... looks like we got something of a green light, will try not to abuse it though.

From what I know of the Army and from speaking to other Army bods, I would say yes, you had a good and interestingly varied career, well done
You know thinking about it and although we did see the odd small a/c as the JARIC 'factory' was alongside the runway I do not recall at all seeing or noticing you guys much, and reading some of the things you have said I would assume you were maybe a little hush hush perhaps .. ? JARIC HQ was further along towards the end of the runway, a funny story there being that apparently in the war there was an antiaircraft gun on the top of the HQ building, only thing being if there was an attack from the water side, then it was shooting straight at the factory .. go figure

Towards the end, when the SAF (Singapore Armed Forces) were moving in, during our break times we would sit outside the buildings and watch the trainee fliers as they did circuits and bumps, if I recall right JARIC was just off the peri track and the runway ran left and right as you looked at it, JARIC HQ being way to the right and beyond that at the end of the runway a lot of trees, boy were those guys novices and we sometimes had a bit of a worried laugh they way some of them came in to land as they often dipped low and we were sure they were going to hit the trees, thankfully I don't think there were any actual crashes though ??

Re; the model a/c I'm talking about, given this is something of world wide forum and the fact no one else has commented they are probably long gone from a manufacturing standpoint, they were fun though and to a point innovative for their time maybe ..??

[Pine-Tree72]

Hope this isn't a step too far, but I remembered I had this.

I'm 9th from left 2nd row down, the Army bod who was in the same room as me is on my right (left as you look at pic) .... there are more Army bods than I remembered, your'e not on this by any remote chance are you ..??

[jarndice]

Were you at Seletar when the Belverdere's were there? Their hanger was to our left and the Scottish Aviation twin Pin and single pin and Beverly Hangers were to our right,
The Singapore Armed Forces took over the Belverdere Hanger and at the time had a couple of Cessna ab initio trainers,
Our Hanger was in a Hollow so that our Ferguson tractor would tow the Beavers up onto the PSP track,
One of our pleasures was on a windy day watch the single pioneer's try to land, More than once I have seen one of them fly past the tower only to reappear from whence it had just come, Helicopters flying backwards yes but it was the first time I had seen a fixed wing a/c do it,
It is unlikely we appear in many photographs,
Sometime before we were in East Berlin visiting Treptow Park (A Soviet Union War Memorial) in uniform,
A Soviet Union Officer approached our officer and asked if he could take our picture,
Some of us had certain flashes and badges that would have identified our unit so our collective advice to our Lt was DON'T
He overruled us,
At the Time we had been flying helicopters around the Berlin wall and Border Fence day and night (British Army Helicopters by Day out of RAF Gatow, US Army Hueys by Night out of Templehof) watching Soviet live firing exercises and stuff with what at the time was advanced equipment,
I was shown a copy of that picture in Penang some years later by a Chinese Gentleman in a bar.
I managed to alert the MPs and I spent 2 days being interrogated by a Brigadier and a Colonel of the Intelligence corp.
Not Hush hush but when I was in Nepal with my radios I was not just acting as cover for our a/c but listening to the neighbours to our North and South,
Interesting times.

[Jimster]

What Herman said.

[Pine-Tree72]

Thanks again MODS ..

I was at Seletar from April 1969 to March 1970 and don't recall seeing many a/c at then, sorry .. I do remember the prop trainers the SAF had, but later on I believe they also had the BAC StrikeMaster, the redeveloped version of the old Jet Provost, they were the ones that when on training missions gave us the 'worried laughs' as they came into land sometimes.

Wow you certainly did have a varied and interesting time of it ... well done ... the most excitement I had was an armed guard duty one time on a convoy taking munitions to the docks in Singapore as
my secondary duty at the time was Armed Guard. Ordered to go to the armory early one morning, signed for an SLR and 20 rounds, 10 in the mag, (nothing 'up the spout though' ) and safety on, 10 rounds in my pocket. I was a little early and had time for a coffee and toast at a stall on camp before going to the MT section, a Warrant Officer stopped me and asked what I was doing walking around with a (correctly slung) rifle on my shoulder, he seemed ok when I explained and I never heard anymore on that score so assume if he checked me out he found it was all OK, that was interesting day out.
Another time, actually Jan 1st 1969, yes that's right, no New Years day holiday then, I was detached to Gan for a month, that was from Tengah though and before I did the exchange posting to Seletar .. I always liked the US designation for a detachment, they call it 'temporary duty', always thought it sounded better and was more explanatory frankly than detachment.

Had some interesting duties in my time, one nice little trip later one was about 10 days in Sicily, we had gone out with two Nimrods and I was official photog along with an MOD PR Officer and two civvy pressman along for the ride. One Nimrod went u/s and the other was 'sick' so we reported every morning to Sigonella US Navy base for about an hour every day then off to the beach or whatever as there wasn't a lot to do with the a/c in the state they were. Actually ended up working for about two days towards the end when the Nimrods were serviceable again .. then when I got back to UK, because I had been 'working' over Easter, I go 4 days off .. very civilised I thought ..

[jarndice]

My only visit to Gan was on VC10 Guy Gibson on the way home then to Cyprus and Brize Norton, A stark contrast to the British Eagle Bristol Britannia charter that took me to the Far East,
It went u/s at each stop and took three days to get us to Paya Leba (The old Singapore international airport).
I was met by a rainstorm but to my surprise the rain was WARM!!!,
A pal from my last posting met me and drove me to Seletar, on the way giving me the bad news that Captain "Tiny" Hasledon had been killed when his Beaver went down in a thunderstorm over north Germany, Much loved and sadly missed,
I arrived in mid December and of course missed Christmas dinner which had been the week before, I had salad on the 25th !
I was taken to 14 Air Despatch Heavy Lift detachment which was understandable given my regiments penchant for leaving serviceable a/c in mid air but I was told very quickly that I was in the wrong place and I should be at the other end of the Hangar with the other brown jobs,And so my life at 130 flight RCT began.
I suppose the Air Sea rescue launches and the bright yellow Westland Whirlwind rescue helicopters had gone when you got there as well as the Gloster Javelins ?
We had an association with the launches as well as the rescue helicopters as we would be dropped off in the murky waters of the Straights by the launch and drift around for an hour before being "Rescued" by the helicopter all in the name of Sea Survival,
Jungle survival was slightly more interesting and took a little longer (10 Days) Culminating in that same yellow helicopter lifting us out which always had on board a pack of Tiger beer waiting for us,
Bless those "Blue Jobs".
I smiled when I saw the Javelins for the first time thinking how old these types looked That is until we moved to Changi where our Beavers were housed with 4 shortly to become 3 Maritime Reconnaissance Shackletons, one ditching in the Indian Ocean a little later (Based on the Avro Lancaster and the forerunners of the Nimrod and then with the overnight withdrawal of the Nimrods being brought back into service) and across from us were a dozen Gloster Meteors of all types fulfilling the role of Target Tugs,
It felt like a mixture of time machine and Aircraft Museum.
A lot more to this story as I am sure you have,
Never been to Sicily and I would love to know more about it,Please.

[Pine-Tree72]

Hi .. yes we flew into Paya lebar too, but then we were in a civvy flight, a charter with Caledonian Airways in a 707 ... staged through Milan and Bombay, I was at Cranwell at the time caught the train at Grantham, to London and then Gatwick for the flight looong day that one.. !!
There must have been about 40 plus of us the first day when we reported to the 'factory' at Tengah, up to that point I had been doing what was termed ground photography, ie taking pictures as one does with a camera, wasn't that happy being at the factory as it was all about air film processing and printing, part of my job description at the time but not something I was fond of doing although I am grateful for the experience looking back.

Sicily was interesting, not to say lovely frankly, good memories of it. Went there from HQSTC at High Wycombe with a civvy MOD PR Officer from the camp and two pressmen from Manchester newspapers. Drove down to Brize Norton I think it was, may have been Lyneham (memory) and a late night flight to Sicily in a C130, a Hercibird, some flight that was in those string seats .. you need to have flown in a C130 to know what I mean, an experience but not one want I would want to do too many times.
There were two Nimrods at Sigonella US Navy Base from Kinloss I think it was, as I say they both had problems though and only got to fly towards the end of the 10 day duty. I had a 'B' class licence and so became designated driver of the hire car we had and initially we were in a hotel in Catania but then moved to a smaller one on the beach at Taormina and apart from reporting in every morning our time was pretty much our own for about 8 days. The Nimrods , or one of them, finally got off on a long sortie with the pressmen on board and we were there to meet them when they landed many hours later at Sigonella in the early hours of the mornings, an abiding memory for me there being that with my demob not that far away, wondering around the pan that night, with the a/c noises, hangar noises and the atmosphere I knew then I was going to miss being in the RAF.
There was talk about trying to get a pic of the Nimrod with Etna in the background, unfortunately the weather wasn't good and it didn't come off, which miffed me a lot as I was due to fly in a US Navy chase aircraft so as to to get the pic .. oh well ..
The PR Officer was married to an Italian, or should that be Sicilian girl and had relatives in Sicily, so one day he asked me to drive him to Caltanissetta in the middle of the country, (middle of Mafia country too apparently) to see his family, a nice day out, also spent a little time comparing notes with US Navy photogs, which was interesting too.
Flew back in a C130 again and enjoyed the extra 4 days off because I had been 'working' over the Easter holiday that year.

Couple of pics attached for interest ...

[jarndice]

Hercules Hmm,
My first flight in a military aircraft was in a Handley Page Hastings (Ask your grandfather) out of Lyneham that flew us to Weston on the Green for our initial jumps it had the same nylon paracord seats as the Beverly's and Argosys that we used later,
Then came Fat Albert which had the bright red plaited Nylon seats,
The Hastings,Beverly (Tailboom seats, no windows in the fuselage) and the Argosy had windows at seat level not the Hercules,
Of course we stood on the seats to look out,
They ripped apart and guess what the jumpmaster lost it,
We continued the flight in 2 lines sitting down the centre of the fuselage,
No sense of humour some people !
My first ever flight was in a Comet to Switzerland to visit my sister who worked for the UN in Geneva as a translator, nice although it was in a thunderstorm so some sick bags got used,
The Nimrod being of course based on the Comet had a solid pedigree and should have had a much longer life and if it had been a De Haviland built a/c probably would have had,
Ahh the Boeing 707, Nice,
Flew in a Charter Air India 707/320 from Paya Lebar to Calcutta Dum Dum ( The first a/c I have flown in that was airborne before I new it, Smooth) then cab to the British High Commision then landie to the Hooglie station for a 2 day/night train ride to the Indian/Nepal border to join the Ghurkas at Dharan Cantonment,
Reunited with my Radios and helped by a Lt Colonel of the Signals we set up a tangle of skywave aerials as well as a 27 foot mast for the Beavers air traffic control (The Nepalese Government insisted upon it,) The Skywave was initially to work Morse back to base in Singapore at night but at the Colonels suggestion the extra aerials would allow us to listen to the neighbours to the north and south and as he very kindly provided mains power to my radios which bypassed the BSA one lunger petrol charging engine I could hardly refuse,
Etna from the air must have been quite a sight, Our family have friends in Benevento which is just outside Naples in the hills with apparently great views of Pompeii although due to my military duties I was never able to visit them,
Italy remains on the bucket list.
I think the worst flight apart from operational flights (Back to the Beverly at night over Borneo) was on a Royal New Zealand Air Force Bristol 170 from Katmandu to Singapore via Rangoon arriving at Changi on Christmas eve.
Long slow and very noisy.

[Pine-Tree72]

... ask your grandfather .. ??

I know what an Argosy and Beverley is, seen them a few times, my home was on RAF Binbrook flight path and we went to many Battle of Britain days there .. also got posted there from Singapore .. never put where you dont want to go on a form in the forces, the clerks sense of humor is that they will send you there. I was lucky enough to work on the Lightning, they had a 16mm radar image recorder in the top spine and a 16mm gun camera under the front wheel, our job being to load and unload them as well as develop the film. Had to crawl into the lower engine bay on one to get pictures of a linkage that was broken, surprising amount of space really although still a might cramped while holding a camera and flash.

Forgot to add a bit about Gan .. very enjoyable short one month detachment there, don't think I could have done a years posting though, it was later reduced to 9 months, working day was 7am to 1pm because of the heat beings as it is almost on the Equator. Often got visits from various a/c, flight of Lightnings one time, another time it was six Victors, that was before they were relegated to tanker duties.
A fair few civvy aircraft staged through too, as well as the RAF flights of course, I remember there was a bit of a fuss one time about a civvy airliner from a smallish firm, the flight line guys were reluctant to touch it because of its condition, it got turned around and took off again and presumably got where it was going safely as no more was heard about it.
Managed a great flight in a Shackleton while there too, got some good aerial shots of the island, landed a bit early at one point and we were stood on the end of the runway for a bit, then a bit disconcerted to see we were surrounded by fire and ambulances ... apparently there had been some smoke in the cockpit or wherever during the flight, turned put to be nothing major and we taxied back to the pan and offloaded safely ,,, interesting as I say.

My First ever flight was at Swinderby during basic training, flight experience they called it and it was in a Hastings if I remember right, also flown in a Britannia, the whispering giant as it was known .. Do you know the Varsity at all, good training flight in that, air to ground photography, we were a little naughty on that one as we flew around the Pacific Glory, one of the tankers that had a collision back then and an oil leak .. The Shackleton, C130 Hercules as I say, Boeing 707, Chipmunk and the Jet Provost too and VC10 of course, think my favorite though was in a Puma.
An exercise had been called at HQSTC about 2 in the morning, and being Armed Guard I was issued an SLR and designated my watch area .. about 8 am a Tannoy message went out that I was to report to the guardroom, there had been a job scheduled that required taking pictures from the air of the 5 RAF HQ buildings across the country and with the exercise I had forgotten all about it, Anyway, handed in my rifle, went to the photo section for my camera etc. and then to the helipad where the Puma was waiting .. that was a fun flight, sat in the doorway, legs hanging into space and just a very strong harness around my waist linked to a strap in the Puma .. We got back to High Wycombe mid afternoon I think it was, and walking from the helipad I was aware there was no one about at all, like a scene from a movie, you come back and everyone had vanished... it seems a nuclear strike had been called in the exercise and everyone was in the bunkers, weird experience with a somewhat amusing ending .. I went to the door of one of the bunkers and they wouldn't let me in .. explained to them what had happened and an umpire finally said .. OK, you're dead ...
I had to lie down outside the bunker door, which was nice, been up since 2 am remember, I fell asleep and when the exercise was finally over they literally had to shake me awake.

We will have to be careful, folks will be thinking we are trying to get a bit of one up man ship going against each other, not so of course, enjoyed reading your experiences and as I say envy you the variety of duties you had, I had fun and interesting times but not as diverse as yours..

Etna was magnificent, didn't get to see it from the air as I say, weather scuppered the flight, but even at ground level it is something to behold, especially when it was erupting, as it did a little while we were there. I can recommend adding Sicily and Taormina to your list ..

[jarndice]

I think I will start with the Vickers Varsity,
Before I joined the service I was an apprentice studying for my ONC later OND in Mechanical Engineering whilst employed at a Garage in Bovingdon Hertfordshire,2 days a week day release and 1 night at college in Chesham.
Across the road from us was RAF Bovingdon it had been a USAAF later USAF base but it was always RAF Bovingdon, Varsity's, Ansons and a myriad of RAF types used the base but a fond memory was while eating my sandwiches outside on the forecourt we watched a USAF Low loader pass us carrying John Glenn's heat blackened space capsule which had just been flown in on it's way to the Science museum.
Later it became a favoured location for WW2 war films including Steve Mcqueen's War Lover and 633 Squadron which gave us wonderful sights of B 17s and DH Mosquitoes with the odd ME 108 pretending to be a 109.
My earliest memory of RAF Bovingdon was when my Father took me there on an open day in the early 50s, We went through the gate and to my surprise My Dad was greeted as an old friend,
I found out that he had been badly injured when the Destroyer taking him away from Dunkirk had been bombed and sunk, He was rescued but was unfit for further duty and by the time he had been released from hospital the USA was in the War,
He enlisted in the USAAF as a civilian Armourer on the base for the duration,
The Army was/is the same when it comes to postings, Unlike the RAF, Germany to the Army was a Home posting so I asked for Cyprus and still got Germany,
Not for long though because the Indonesians got ambitious and invaded Borneo, We being the Military equivalent of the fire brigade were on the next flight out of Brize Norton, which reminds me of the loss of a good mate who was in a Westland Scout (Precursor to the Puma)Doc was in the back on a despachers harness when it was shot down over the jungle, We were in a forward location and watched it go in,
It took 2 days to get to the A/C, Everyone was ok except Doc who on impact was thrown through the back window into the split open fuel tank and drowned in Avtag,
A proper seat belt would have kept him in the cabin,
After I left the service I had a holiday in the Maldives and as we landed I fully expected to be arriving at GAN but no we arrived a few miles from the main island,and we took a high speed launch to our holiday island watching what until that time I had thought were poets dreams "Flying Fish"
They really do exist,
A later tour of Germany took me to a Nato unit, Crash out saw us driving to the Caves at Maarstrict in Southern Holland which was the wartime HQ of Northag (Northern Army Group),
Being "Staff" I was allowed inside the Highly reinforced double Bomb Doors but the cooks, Drivers and others were only allowed inside the initial NON Bombproof doors where they rolled out their sleeping bags and camped under the trucks and landies,
We have fond memories of the Maldives but talking with friends it appears the Russians now use it as a holiday resort so we go to Mauritius which is cheaper, larger and really good for Scuba diving, if you do go everyone speaks English but they favour French,
Not impressed with Sri Lanka,
Dirty and the people were very rude and I would not recommend it.3 weeks and forbidden to swim in the sea.
Thanks for the Tip about Sicily, I shall keep it in mind but the plan is the Seychelles for the next holiday.
I have a great affection for the Indian Ocean, Although we had a great holiday in Cuba a few years back, Loved it and saw my first hummingbird as well as pelicans fishing in the sea by scooping up fish as they flew slowly across the sea in front of us.People really nice and the £ was cheerfully accepted.
Covid and my cancer scare has really ruined any plans for holidays abroad until next year.