nogard

I was running around The Far East at that time. I heard the midshipman tipped the round out and it hit the deck and went off?

Domino

not the way I read the death report
fired itself, just late, took the guy's head off, no one else was killed or injured, no damage to ship that I recall

part of a number of things that happened whilst we were supporting Malaysia in their fight against Indonesian insurgents.
the 40mm Bofors incident I referred to similar, a couple of bodies were never found - too much lead flying at the time, but they did pull out of the water the hollowed out log they were in, their fault for paddling against the tide.
God, I was 17 at the time, can still remember the tanker that ran aground whilst the tracer was flying around the lighthouse.


swing those lamps me hearties

Dick Dasterdly

Yeh, well Andrew comes in for quite a bit of stick and maybe deservedly so, but I will always remember the part he played flying dangerous nightime missions during the Falklands War.
I don't think everyone does.

notacontrathinker

I was in Singapore at the time and remember the RAF fly past.

As a show of force the RAF put up everything they had in the region, it was marvellous, wave after wave. We didn't think we had that many aircraft in the entire RAF never mind Singapore.

Turns out, I was told years later, they flew over the island very slow, flew out to sea, dashed round the island, and joined on to the back for another pass, several times over. Had the desired effect.

Film of it somewhere, but copied on VHS.

I wasn't in the forces, but tip of the hat to those of you who were.

Domino

It seems to be the thing for the monarch's second son to do all the hazardous stuff, first Andrew then Harry.
But then Wills has been keen to prove himself to what will be his subjects by 12hr shifts on Air Sea Rescue - having seen some of the work chopper pilots do first hand and the videos of ASR on tele then he isnt that slow coming forward.

Have always been a monarchist, brought up that way, mum would never hear a bad word said against them. There have been times I have wanted to throttle them but the current crop are proving that they are worthy of the 60p a day or whatever they cost me. (so long as Harry keeps on dropping his pants on his own money and not mine )

`

bobd22

Dom I am sure that there are many people that have been rescued that are glad the likes of William and his colleagues are doing what they do.

Like you I am in favour of the Royals (most of them), also I agree ones coming up are doing a great job of it so far.

Found this clip for the Matelots I don't think I would have fancied doing this landing, in fact just the shots of the ship bouncing about tells me why I never fancied a life in the Navy, I get sea sick just going boat fishing.

http://www.helifanatics.com/2012/04/...r-landing.html

Domino

yeah thats good, it shows the nature of the problem, what it can never ever show is the teamwork, from the captain on the bridge ensuring a straight and steady course giving the lowest pitch and roll, thru to the landing officer with his flags. The pilot has to have perfect confidence in "the team" before committing, knowing full well he may only have a small amount of fuel left in his tanks, and he has to sit there and get into "the flow" and the regular movement of the ship.
what it doesn't show is the 2 guys (usually) who rush out and secure the copter to the deck to prevent sliding off.

we had a guy take off in worse than that shown, then make about 5 pickups of sailors from a grounded freighter and landing them on our small flightdeck, all with a typhoon blowing around us.

its the difference between service and civvy team work - someones life is lost if you get it wrong, but even then it does go wrong.