Author Archives: Barrybloke
This incident occured at the live firing ranges at Putlos, on the Baltic coast, where Support Company were spending a rather exciting few weeks. The barracks in which we were housed served as the temporary home for any unit using the ranges. The Champs of M.M.G. platoon and the Humbers of the Mortar Platoon had […]
From time to time we would go to the live firing ranges, for training purposes with the mortars. This was sometimes carried out in conjunction with the Royal Artillery, who operated a mortar location system, which I believe to have been the forerunner of Green Archer. This device was radar-based and enabled the gunners to […]
This incident also took place at Putlos and has given me a chuckle each time I recall it! The garages for our trucks were near one of the camp gates. Beside this gate was a house, the back garden of which was accessible from the camp. I was with my truck one morning when I […]
It was a Sunday morning on the training area, and we were having a well-earned break from rushing around, practising our role of providing mortar cover to the footsloggers. Suddenly we were called upon to drive up to the heath and help in extinguishing a fire which had broken out in the gorse and scrubby […]
I cannot remember the exact location of this next tale, save to say that it was in one of the training areas to the north of our base at Minden. It was probably on Luneburg Heath, or somewhere in that area. We were camped in woodland and from our position we took part in what […]
Our company commander had a fixation with camouflaging the vehicles, so that they were not visible from either the ground or the air. Accordingly, we had to make hessian windscreen covers, which could be rolled down to prevent reflections from betraying our hiding place. We also had to cut long wooden poles, which were carried […]
In September of 1955 we Mortar Platoon drivers, along with our trucks, were told we would be attached, for the purposes of a coming exercise, one to each of the rifle companies. I was assigned to “B” company and duly reported for a company briefing. I was told that I would be required to provide […]
When on guard duty, patrolling the camp areas, one was equipped with a whistle, a torch and a pick-axe handle. This last item was known in military parlance as a “pick-helve” and was painted an army dark-green. It will not be difficult to understand that to patrol the camp area in the small hours, when […]
The Battalion Provost Sergeant was an Irishman who went by the name of Paddy Hannafin. It is true to say that he was an even more unpleasant and unpopular man than one could reasonably expect, even of the Battalion’s policeman. Although I never heard it for myself, his greatest claim to fame was his instruction […]
Whilst on the R.A.F. Escape exercise, I came to know a chap whose surname was Dixon. He was at that time employed in “B” company as an officer’s batman and, as is often the case with men assigned to that task, was a young man of a shy and rather timid nature. I found him […]