13 Dec 23.  Alf Allen.  A Warrie

75SQN BUT c1973

Bombing program WSD 42 (off east coast, south of Mersing).

Garry Gent leading the 4-ship. I was behind Steve Low in the bombing pattern.

The local fishermen had ‘read the notam’ and were circling the rock in anticipation of a harvest of stunned fish. They were too close for comfort, even after a LL high speed pass to get them moving. In desperation GG instructed Steve to make a live pass, biasing his delivery in the direction of the nearest boat. 

Being next on attack heading, I had the best view of the outcome. The impact was certainly biased towards the nearest boat, which took off at a speed I had never before witnessed in a local fishing boat. I do not recall whether we were carrying HE or HE/S, but judging by my memory of the explosion I suspect the former.

Note Steve copied, to confirm or deny all knowledge!

Seasons greetings

 

 

Fozzy Recalls

Whilst I was running the 3 Sqn Flight Line at Butterworth on a gunnery program, this  vertical stunted  guy came into the flight line office, I didn't know him at the time and he was wearing a cotton flying suit and the flying gear undone. He bludged a cigarette off one of the troops and lit up. I politely asked 'who he was' as he wasn't displaying any badges, rank or name tag! He replied, Wing Commander Meissner!! So I apologised for keeping him waiting and gave him his allocated Jet. On his return he checked the banner and by golly he assassinated it and when one of the other pilots complained about a faulty gunsight and not hitting it MICE said take my Jet I don't use it anyway, on the first pass he fires 3 rounds and sees where they go and then draws marks on the windscreen with china graph....that's his sighting . If he was taking the same Jet again he told the ground crew doing the turn- around not to clean the screen LOL. After that we used to put crap on each other as I was ex rotary wing and we used to swap stories and jokes. One was  about the drag with the lambo and he said that he was just to stop as the fuel load was critically low for flight but in the excitement he took off and did a short circuit and when he landed he run out of fuel  5 lbs left not only that he wasn't strapped in just casually sitting in the chair!!!! 

Boaty Birthday,

A Mirage beatup was organised, Mice was the Pilot, he did a scorching low level run over the water sending up a rooster tail high into the air then pulled up vertical doing rotating spins.. I counted 7 then lost him in the cloud. On his return I asked him how many rotations did he do and he said Fuck knows Fozzy I counted 9, got dizzy and lost count....hahaha Boy what a character.