Brushes With The Law
Brushes With The Law
There was only one other incidence which was caused by the armourers and that was when another armourer and I were loading 25lb practice bombs on a Venom. We carried the bombs out to the plane with bomb hooks which carried two bombs and he attached them to the release mechanism under one wing and I did the other wing. We signed off the plane and a short time later the pilot took off. There was an alert from air traffic control to say that the pilot of the following plane had reported that one of the bombs had fallen off onto the runway. All flights were stopped until the bomb had been found. But it wasn’t a bomb that had fallen off but a bomb hook which had been left on the wing, not much difference but still dangerous. We were called into the flight office and asked which wing we each had connected our bombs to. I said the port wing and the other armourer agreed that he had done the starboard wing. The officers said that the following pilot had stated that the object had fallen from the starboard wing. The other armourer was put on a charge and he got a weeks’ “jankers” which meant he had to attend the guardroom each morning and evening with full kit on and was confined to camp for one week.

One of the nearest times I came to getting into trouble was when I was billet orderly. The billet orderly stayed behind after everybody had gone to work and made sure everyone had completed their housekeeping duties. He then went to work 30 minutes later. One of the times I was the orderly coincided with the camp C.O.s inspection which only happened once a month. I had barely started my inspection when the Armoury Squadron Leader came into the room and told me to “f... off back to work”. I explained I was billet orderly and was in the middle of tidying up but he wouldn’t listen and I had to leave. Later, a corporal came and told me I was on a charge for leaving my bedspace in an untidy manner, namely one duster on top of my locker, my locker unlocked and the padlock lying on top of my bed. I was marched into the Squadron Leader’s  office where a few other officers and NCOs were present. The charge was read out then I was asked if I had anything to say. I stated that I had been billet orderly and had been doing my inspection before leaving for work. The Squadron Leader had arrived early and had ordered me to “f... off”. At this there was many sharp intakes of breath from those present but I saw the beginnings of a smile coming to the face of the Squadron Leader. He just said “Admonished but that doesn’t mean you have got off”. The story went round the armourers later. 

The one other time I had a narrow escape was when I was helping at night in the camp close-circuit radio station which played music in the evening throughout the camp. There was a civilian tradesman employed by an outside company to make alterations to speakers, etc. throughout the camp. He was going to dispose of the equipment he had removed and asked me if I wanted one or two items and I said OK and put it in my locker. The next time I was going on leave I put it into a bag and was walking up to the gatehouse to get the bus to the railway station when a mate met me and said I was going to have a wait as the Camp Police were searching everyone’s bags as someone had been selling flying boots from the camp stores. I went back to the billet and put the equipment back into my locker then went back to the gatehouse and my bags were searched. I don’t know what would have happened if the equipment had been found in my bag as it did not exactly belong to the RAF. Incidently, the flying boot seller got off because quite a few officers had been among his customers.
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