J ( Sidi Rezegh ) Battery Royal Horse Artillery
I
joined 17th Training Regiment Royal
Artillery on 19th January 1971 at Woolwich. After the usual training I
was posted to 3rd RHA in Kirkee Barracks,
Colchester. The regiment was on exercise at Westdown Camp, Salisbury
Plain at the time. The following morning I was trucked down and stuck
out of the way on the OP, I wanted to be a Surveyor. I
remember one night being on radio stag parked up with the BC's party. I
had awoken the next person on stag, an NCO and crawled into my green
maggot. As I lay there the radio burst into life " Hello 39
this Zero......" After a few repeat calls and some minutes I
went back to where I
had awoken the NCO to find him fast asleep. When the regiment returned
to Colchester I was called to see the RSM. Quaking in my boots I was
told that no matter what rank the next person on stag is make sure they
get out of their pit before you get into yours, Lesson One. There
were many more lessons to learn. I left J and the army in October 1978 while the Battery were in Paderborn as an independent Swingfire Battery. I saw service and visited the following :-
- Northern Ireland
- Hong Kong
- Brunei
- Cyprus
- Canada
- Germany
I returned the following year for Sidi Rezegh day. I had kept in contact with one or two mates for a while but it wasn't until Artillery Day 2000 that I bumped into Martin Coombes who although we never kept in touch I used to see occasionally on the road. He told me about the re-unions and that put me back in touch with a lot of old mates. Visit the J Battery link on the left to see some photos. Even more scary visit the link for photos of re-unions between 2000-2005