RAOC Gazette - page 303
Image details
| Corps | RAOC |
|---|---|
| Material type | Journals |
| Book page | |
| Chapter head | |
| Chapter key | |
| Chapter number | |
| Full title | RAOC Gazette |
| Page number | |
| Publication date | 1983 |
| Real page | |
| Colour | Yes |
| Grey | No |
| Early date | 1983 |
| Late date | 1983 |
| Transcription |
SMIKES REVENGE MANY is the time, whilst leaning over the garden fence sharing a beer with my neighbour, that I have pulled his leg as he recovered from yet another exercise. " Huh, you schoolies have it easy," he would reply. Thus the germ of an idea formed in my mind and came to fruition with the aid of Captain Mike Wilcox and CSM Daniel of 12 Ordnance Company, neither of whom had seen eye to eye with their teachers in the dim and distant past! They both threw themselves into the organisation of Exercise Smikes Revenge (they say revenge is sweet) and so on Friday 8th July 1983 twenty slightly nervous teachers assembled at Scarborough Barracks, Osnabruck, to commence the exercise. There they were met by Captain Bill Wiseman who had taken over from Captain Mike Wilcox, CSM Daniel and the Directing Staff. To sum up the exercise I can only quote the recollections of a member of the exercise who suffered under ' Smikes Revenge.' We had been briefed! So as we gathered on the square of Scarborough Barracks (mindful that it was here that the Colditz series had been filmed) although somewhat unsure about what would actually happen we were at least slightly smug about the contents of our rucksacks. Sleeping bags, spare clothing, torch, matches—all wrapped in poly bags because Captain Bill Wiseman had said we might get wet why had the subalterns sniggered at that point I wondered. Personally I had my reserve rations, chocolates, nuts, scotch and a few good cigars. Even if the food was terrible I reckoned I'd enough to get me through the thirty six hours and if things got really bad the contents of my flask would make me pretty numb for a good twenty four hours. We assembled for a last briefing in an upper room. We were welcomed and felt reassured. Then there was a bang! The previously charming CSM Daniel had fired a blank into the ceiling and was ordering us against the wall, hands on heads. We watched helpless as first of all our rucksacks and then all our personal possessions were removed. As a clanking ruck- sack was dragged away I saw a Glaswegian tear strike the dust. In return we were given haversacks, one per team of five and whilst in a lorry rattling out of the city and into the gathering gloom we discovered we had a map, compass, knife, one litre water, two tins of NAAFI style food, some sweets, salt, sugar, two teabags, a stove, two blankets and two bivi sheets. That was all! In a forest on the edge of Achmer ranges we were given a map reference. " Get there as quickly as possible," we were told. When we arrived we discovered that not only mosquitoes but also horse flies and a number of other nasty flying things were on Smikes side as we made our ' basher.' This was our first test of cooperation. However, we had excellent cooperation as every- body agreed with me! It was not a good night. The whine of millions of mosquitoes and the hard ground was bad enough but then there was the thunder storm. Raindrops as big as marbles crashed from the low clouds, hammering on our basher. Slowly there was a lightening in the east—dawn inched up. We used our last half litre of water and one of our two tea bags to brew up and awaited instructions. The exercise planners had contrived a series of tasks which each team tackled in turn. In between we had to move across country avoiding patrols arriving at the RV within five minutes of the allotted time. A very nasty set of tasks they were too. The first for us was to get a supposedly injured scientist down a cliff face by means of a death slide whilst wearing full NBC kit. Then we swam lakes, built rafts, rescued vehicles from nuclear polluted areas, crossed gorges on rope bridges, tackled assault courses and all the while avoided patrols and clung desperately to our valuables. It was a great day for discovering oneself and ones friends, strengths and weaknesses, hidden talents and areas of incompetence. Hunger at the middle of the day drove us to sacrifice our tin of goulash on our stove which we then gobbled using bits of card from the ditch as spoons. By early evening we were all but exhausted and were told there was only one task left. Imagine our joy to discover it was simply to bivi for the night and prepare for a barbeque. Grown adults giggled to find their rucksacks intact and behaved like children at Christmas to get their hands on their tooth- brushes and razors (gents only). 12 Ordnance Company provided a great evening. The enter- tainment was commenced by Captain Wiseman's introduction to survival cooking and included a talk on the relative merits of various insects as protein. His finale was the concoction of a worm omelette which we were obliged to sample. We enter- — 252 — So much for equality. The lake crossing. |
| Book number | R0406 |