RAOC Gazette - page 98
Image details
| Corps | RAOC |
|---|---|
| Material type | Journals |
| Book page | |
| Chapter head | |
| Chapter key | |
| Chapter number | |
| Full title | RAOC Gazette |
| Page number | |
| Publication date | 1980 |
| Real page | |
| Colour | Yes |
| Grey | No |
| Early date | 1980 |
| Late date | 1980 |
| Transcription |
ft RHODESIA A MID TERM REPORT MAJOR R. N. FROM ATKINS THE prospect of swopping the English Winter for a Rhodesian summer is enough to bring a smile to most soldiers faces and cause the PVR applications to return once again to the pend- ing tray. And so, after several weeks of intensive activity at South Cemey, twenty three members of 10 Ordnance Sup- port Battalion found themselves in Rhodesia a week before Christmas. The flight out by VC10 was uneventful enough—but I do wish Freddie Laker would have a word with Crab Air about trying to cram in too many rows of seats. Our arrival in Salisbury was spectacular because a gradual approach is avoided to reduce the missile threat, hence at something over thirty five thousand feet we began the rapid spiral descent. RAOC Staff of Headquarters Ceasefire Monitoring W02 Woods takes time off from Stores to catch up on news from home. The Ordnance Detachment soon found that the allocated hangar space was totally inadequate and six marquees were rapidly erected as Storehouses. For the Local Resources Section life was particularly difficult as they found themselves trying to make purchases at a time when businesses were closing down for the Christmas and New Year holiday. Despite this setback they spent over SI,000,000 in their first month. If the figure itself is not impressive some of the items were: " Yes please, 1 did say two thousand five hundred pairs of knickers, twenty thousand towels and twenty thousand mattresses." The next surprise came just as the shops were closing for the New Year holiday when the Group Ordnance Officer learned that he was responsible for feeding the twenty thousand Patriotic Front in the sixteen Assembly Places. Armed with a ration scale and an intelligence assessment of the numbers anti- cipated to be moving into the Assembly Places, plans were made for the procurement and distribution of the food. Alas Intelligence were wrong and I delivered two hundred and fifty rations to one place which received only five Patriotic Front and two thousand five hundred rations to another which received nearly six thousand! Perhaps we cracked this problem too easily, for the next task was to calculate the Camp Stores scale for the twenty thousand Patriotic Front. An unsual addition to the Ordnance Detachment came in the form of Captain John Perry, Sergeant Lee and Corporal Everest all from NAAFI and rapidly attested into the RAOC as regular members of the Corps. All hold promotion records! At the moment a further fifteen members of the Corps are serving in Rhodesia, mainly as Clerks in Government House and at the Headquarters Ceasefire Monitoring Group. Croup. Stores began to pour in—alas not fast enough for we found ourselves having to try and make issues before all our stocks were on the ground. Within a week some one thousand two hundred and sixty men and three hundred and fifty four thousand pounds of freight had been received and some five hundred men had deployed to the sixteen Assembly Places and twenty three RVs. The Local Resources Officer—Captain Peter Ball and Corporal Steve Parsons. — 309 Local Resources Section with their transport—and nice line in frilly knickers. a very By the time this report is published the elections will have just taken place. Let us hope that they are carried out in the spirit of the Lancaster House agreement and that the Ceasefire Monitoring Group returns home both speedily and safely.—Editor. |
| Book number | R0403a |