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RAOC Gazette - page 311

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Publication date 1981
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Transcription Private Hovis Brown was granted field promotion and was
emoniously handed his tape before his assembled Section.
; e idea worked quite well and I believe he actually reached
hie rank of W02 at one stage!
The Headquarters element of the Platoon ticked over, well
Sergeant Charlie Ballinger ticked. Staff Sergeant Cradleton did
an excellent job as CSM and Resident Comedian and Sergeant
Ken Ryder kept adding different badges to his beret as he
received yet another title (UFO, MTO etc).
The FTX phase found the Platoon ready and waiting for
action. The first attack was by the Danish Home Army who were
promptly arrested by the Gate Guard. They asked if they could
• •-y again. This time they hit a trip flare and were met with a
til of fire, In their panic they hit another flare and fled,
t cwildered. We never saw them again.
The trip back was uneventful and it was a tired convoy
that drew up on the square at Ashchurch. It had been nice
being away, but it was good to be back.
VEHICLE DEPOT
LUDGERSHALL
STAFF SERGEANT BIUAN TOMLIN, Corporal Falconer,
Lance Corporals Brian Allan, Tony Devlin and Geordie Mounsey
should alt be counting sheep in Wales by now if 48 AMF(L)
'" ompany plans work out for pre arctic training,
The regimental training weekend is fortunately becoming
.1 hazy memory for most of us. They say that any fool can be
uncomfortable and we all felt a bit foolish at some time during
that exercise.
Exercise Live Log is an even hazier memory but Captain
John Barrow enjoyed the flash of publicity on television. He
claimed, in answer to any critics concerning dress regulations,
that the glare of arc lights, Chinook landing lights etc made
dark glasses essential equipment.
More recently we attended the Remembrance service at
Ludgershall Parish Church and paraded with other organisations
who gathered to honour the dead of two world wars.
Now the holiday social round is overtaking us, the dance this
year is on Friday, 11th December, but we trust that you all
have a peaceful Christmas and that this year it will be a meaning-
ful holy day.
VEHICLE DEPOT
HILTON
AT LAST! WO 1 Bob Harris' long awaited replacement has arrived
in the shape of Andy Simmons, ex Sailor, ex Navy Department
and straight off the Work Study Course. More to the point,
he rides a bike and plays the banjo. Welcome to Hilton,
Andy.
The Social and Welfare Club undertook a weekend tour to
the Lake District. The weather was foul but the company was
good. Gin and tonic certainly helped—David Lakin broke all
records and polished it off with a Blue Lagoon, whatever
that is. How nice to have Mrs Davy, looking very well in
retirement, and Mrs Ann Corsham,of Vanteen fame,on the trip.
Welcome to Lynn Peerless to Registry—Jane Winter moves
to DMAs Office on promotion to Clerical Officer, Jack Harrison
from Chilwell to Liaison, Ken East has moved to Light Group
and Steve Gray to Pay Office.
That man Bill Colbourne is never going to stop; not content
with raising four children himself he now has nine grand-
children.
Congratulations to Rachael Wooley on being offered a
Clerical Officer post in the Department of Employment, Burton-
on-Trent, but we will be sorry to see you go.
Central Ammunition Depot Kineton
THIS month has seen the return to Kine-
ton from Denmark of 45 (RS) Company
—or nearly, because on their return they
were deployed for ten days at Bramley
during Exercise Livelog.
Your scribe
can still hear the Company Choir singing
* Eskimo N e l l ' even now and often
wonders what the significance is.
Major Roger Mendham who during
* Livelog' acted as Ops Offr, Tourist
Guide, Telephone Operator and now as
our War Correspondent sends this report on the exercise: The
months of planning, studies, briefings and preparations were over
and at 0755 on Monday 12th October the first {jacket of sixteen
Tonners rolled through the front gate. Exercise Livelog had
started! Nine days later the last vehicle returning ammo was
processed and a total of over eight thousand tons had been
issued and received during the first major mobilization exercise
in twenty five years.
Ammunition was issued by air and sea. with aircraft and
ships taking real issues to the depots in BAOR. and by road to
a temporary site in the old ammunition depot at BramJey manned
by the 45 R Shadow Company personnel; 156 Regiment RCT,
a 'volunteer 1 unit based in Liverpool, provided the outloading
vehicles, and 18 Squadron RAF provided three Chinook Heli-
copters for an issue and receipt lift to Bramley.
The
DCOS with W / Private
Kineton on
Barnes during his visit to
Exercise Livelog.
CAD
The four day outloading phase was followed by five days of
receiving stocks back from Bramley. The memories of Exercise
Livelog in Kineton include:
The Noduff landslide north of Crewe, delaying the trains
from Longtown by six hours.
The * volunteer' driver wandering through the explosives
area, washing kit in hand, looking for the showers.
The sound of Terry Wogan blaring out of a drivers cab
whilst loading took place.
The two loaded sixteen Tonners which became trapped in
the fun fair in Banbury.
The sight of three Generals, two Brigadiers and other
visitors queueing up for lunch in the Central Mess.
Congratulations are due to W02 McCoy, the Master Chef,
for feeding the large number of drivers and escorts who came
through the depot, and to everyone involved for completing the
recovery phase one day ahead of schedule. One final question,
who was the attractive young Australian lady Lieutenant seen
in the Felix Centre on the recovery phase?
The WRAC have started the hockey season well with both
their \A' and TT teams coming fifth and twenty seventh in the
Army six-a-side competition held at Aldershot.
W/Lance
Corporals Hunt, Edgcombe and W/Private Ridge have been
selected to train with and possibly represent the WRAC in the
service match to be held later in the year.
The last piece of news from Kineton is the fact that our
modest QM Captain Connelly has stopped smoking and it is
rumoured that he is going to sponsor a IJnit Snooker Champion-
ship out of his savings,
— 259
Central Ammunition Depot Longtown
EXERCISE LIVE LOG, as most will know, was a mobilisation
exercise to test the ability of the UK depots and supporting move-
ments systems, to outload large amounts of ammo and other
stores to BAOR in a short time. Longtown's contribution was
about one thousand six hundred tonnes of * saved up * BAOR
issues, issued by rail through CAD Kineton on seven special
trains. At Kineton the ammo was crossloaded on to road
vehicles for despatch to Marchwood Military Port and shipment
to BAOR.
Fortunately, all went to plan, even the MHE breakdown
level was reasonable and despite discovery of a few overloaded
railway wagons that had to be re-loaded at the eleventh
hour, all the trains were despatched on schedule.
Book number R0250