Following on from the new thread about the recall at Cosford what are the abiding memories that the goat has of exercises? I'll get the ball rolling, this could be quite long so grab a coffee and read on.
It was either the back end of 1985 or early 86 LAC Ladf was posted to Marham, and was on ECPG (Entry Control Point Guard), an add-on to Aug Force where you man the guardroom and do fire piquet type stuff. Monday evening having had a mere 8 hrs kip since Friday morning training. (if your shift standby was during the day you were not allowed to kip in the guardroom bunks and were not allowed to leave the place either!!!) at 16 : 00 I had 12hrs standdown and went to my pit to crash for as long as poss. Anyhow ladf is punching out ZZZZZ's only to be rudely awakened by one of the FLM's bursting into my room as the siren blared out and being told to get my @rse to work pronto, it was 18:45 Monday evening. Being on ECPG I had to get to the guardroom, and got there as a steady stream of day shifters who had probably only left a couple of hours earlier re entered the camp. The SWO (the legendary Bernie) had me black out all the windows then sent me back to my room so more ZZZZ's ensued. However with the entire station blacked out,and just as I arrived at my block I could hear a Herc landing. But I went to kip blissfully unaware of the carnage about to be unleashed on the unit. I went to work at 06:30 (thanks to the SWO) the next morning and the stories of the previous nights exercise were staring to filter round the station (with usual embellishment). Apparently the Stn Cdr thought it would be a good idea to enhance the realism of the exercise by getting proper intruders in. The Herc I had heard landing had a group of 20-30 Para's on board with the instructions to create havoc. And so they did. The first people to confront them were the SRF (Station Reaction Force) including a mate of mine who was well into all this sort of stuff (even buying his own webbing and other adornments) they were summarily given a Fcuking good hiding, 2 hospitalised, my mate had all his Gucci equipment liberated by the pongo's, and all their vehicles were nicked. having spread out in all directions the Para's got to 27 Sqn where the F/S painter and finisher was guarding one end of the site. he issued a challenge and got sparked out. Any SLR's that were liberated were stripped and thrown to the four winds. another painter went to his F/S's aid only to be knocked to the floor and being told "don't move" looked around at his assailant and said "what" whereby they danced on his hands breaking several fingers. sotries such as this came from across the unit, a lad on 57 challenged and got a rifle butt in the mouth and then 57's JEngO confronted the Para's with the challenge "Stop I am an RAF Officer" which resulted in him being dragged through the barbed wire ankle traps by his feet. The SEngO on 57 sensing things were beyond control got all his boys back in to prevent further casualties. Any vehicles which were left outside were disabled, all the Victors on the flight line had chalked "X" on their nose wheels where the Para's claimed them destroyed. The Wraf's in the tower were hiding under their desks as the Para's came up the fire escape and were trying to get at them. The Tornado Sqn's were somewhat better off having HAS's but they still got brutalised when the chance arose. The end result of the Stn Cdr's "good idea was that the next day he had reports of 20 personnel needing medical treatment (5 in hospital). The Station could not operate until a complete Fod sweep had been carried out (thousands of items from weapons parts, bits of MT, spent cases and links were recovered) this closed the unit for Tuesday (job done by the Para's) But MTSS and the armoury had to work all the hours god created to fix the MT fleet and reunite the serialised components of each SLR. And I slept through this. All of what I have written here is second hand but knowing guys in most of the sections and seeing a large number of black eyes, swollen lips and crooked noses in the mess the next day seemed to bear out what had happened. For his part the Stn Cdr tannoyed the Station later on the Tuesday highlighting his outrage at what had happened and stating that the Para's would never be allowed on this unit again(a bit late). And that was my first experience of an Exercise in the RAF!!!! I thought if they are all like this I want to stay in the fcuking guardroom!!!! (and not a ham and egg banjo in sight!!!!)
It was either the back end of 1985 or early 86 LAC Ladf was posted to Marham, and was on ECPG (Entry Control Point Guard), an add-on to Aug Force where you man the guardroom and do fire piquet type stuff. Monday evening having had a mere 8 hrs kip since Friday morning training. (if your shift standby was during the day you were not allowed to kip in the guardroom bunks and were not allowed to leave the place either!!!) at 16 : 00 I had 12hrs standdown and went to my pit to crash for as long as poss. Anyhow ladf is punching out ZZZZZ's only to be rudely awakened by one of the FLM's bursting into my room as the siren blared out and being told to get my @rse to work pronto, it was 18:45 Monday evening. Being on ECPG I had to get to the guardroom, and got there as a steady stream of day shifters who had probably only left a couple of hours earlier re entered the camp. The SWO (the legendary Bernie) had me black out all the windows then sent me back to my room so more ZZZZ's ensued. However with the entire station blacked out,and just as I arrived at my block I could hear a Herc landing. But I went to kip blissfully unaware of the carnage about to be unleashed on the unit. I went to work at 06:30 (thanks to the SWO) the next morning and the stories of the previous nights exercise were staring to filter round the station (with usual embellishment). Apparently the Stn Cdr thought it would be a good idea to enhance the realism of the exercise by getting proper intruders in. The Herc I had heard landing had a group of 20-30 Para's on board with the instructions to create havoc. And so they did. The first people to confront them were the SRF (Station Reaction Force) including a mate of mine who was well into all this sort of stuff (even buying his own webbing and other adornments) they were summarily given a Fcuking good hiding, 2 hospitalised, my mate had all his Gucci equipment liberated by the pongo's, and all their vehicles were nicked. having spread out in all directions the Para's got to 27 Sqn where the F/S painter and finisher was guarding one end of the site. he issued a challenge and got sparked out. Any SLR's that were liberated were stripped and thrown to the four winds. another painter went to his F/S's aid only to be knocked to the floor and being told "don't move" looked around at his assailant and said "what" whereby they danced on his hands breaking several fingers. sotries such as this came from across the unit, a lad on 57 challenged and got a rifle butt in the mouth and then 57's JEngO confronted the Para's with the challenge "Stop I am an RAF Officer" which resulted in him being dragged through the barbed wire ankle traps by his feet. The SEngO on 57 sensing things were beyond control got all his boys back in to prevent further casualties. Any vehicles which were left outside were disabled, all the Victors on the flight line had chalked "X" on their nose wheels where the Para's claimed them destroyed. The Wraf's in the tower were hiding under their desks as the Para's came up the fire escape and were trying to get at them. The Tornado Sqn's were somewhat better off having HAS's but they still got brutalised when the chance arose. The end result of the Stn Cdr's "good idea was that the next day he had reports of 20 personnel needing medical treatment (5 in hospital). The Station could not operate until a complete Fod sweep had been carried out (thousands of items from weapons parts, bits of MT, spent cases and links were recovered) this closed the unit for Tuesday (job done by the Para's) But MTSS and the armoury had to work all the hours god created to fix the MT fleet and reunite the serialised components of each SLR. And I slept through this. All of what I have written here is second hand but knowing guys in most of the sections and seeing a large number of black eyes, swollen lips and crooked noses in the mess the next day seemed to bear out what had happened. For his part the Stn Cdr tannoyed the Station later on the Tuesday highlighting his outrage at what had happened and stating that the Para's would never be allowed on this unit again(a bit late). And that was my first experience of an Exercise in the RAF!!!! I thought if they are all like this I want to stay in the fcuking guardroom!!!! (and not a ham and egg banjo in sight!!!!)
- it was the JNCO Cadre from one of the Para Regts (and they arrived by chinook...) - they took ATC that evening - but were twarted a bit by a FS on the roof by the Local room with a flare pistol - the Para did smack him in the mouth though! 
