At least once every year each SNCO[ Senior Non-Commissioned Officer] Sgt [Sergeant] or F/S [Flight Sergeant] would have to be on duty for one day as DNCO [Duty NCO].
He was responsible for all discipline on base after hours. You slept on base and looked after anybody doing punishment.
At 5 pm the duty NCO would start with lowering the RNZAF standard from the main flagstaff outside headquarters.
The call “Stand Fast” would be given and everybody within sight would halt and face the flagstaff. The Orderly Officer would salute while you lowered the flag.
It was not to touch the ground, which in the wind was a challenge sometimes. When the flag was down and under control the call “Carry On” would be given and life could resume.
We had an aircraft from the USAF on a visit one weekend that I was on duty, and I strolled down to visit and welcome them to Ohakea.
They welcomed me aboard and did the guided tour through the aircraft. The code name for the aircraft was “Speckled Trout”, one of the top aircraft in the USAF, working for the Department Of State.
Would I like a coffee? Sure, so they poured me a coffee. Then they asked if I wanted milk, to which I replied ‘yes please’. The host spooned a spoon full of a white powder on top of the coffee and stirred it in.
The only powdered milk I had come across was dried milk powder. Full milk, but it sure didn’t mix into a coffee like that. It tasted pretty good and I had nothing to do so I stayed and talked some more.
One of the crew wanted to pinch the RNZAF ensign [our main flag] and was most insistent until I equated to his stars and bars [stripes].
I asked him what he would do if I pinched his flag, and he was most upset, threatening all sorts of painful happenings. When I explained that our ensign/flag was same as his, he realized the importance of it and promised to leave it alone.
However, he then asked about the various Squadron Leader, Wing Commander and the one Group Captain flags that were flying. He was told that as long as they were there on Sunday night, well after I had finished my shift, I didn’t care.
Squadron Leader usually has his squadron No engraveged on the flag
Wing commander [asusal 3 or more Squadrons to make a wing]
As thanks, he gave me a letter opener with the Department Of State logo on it that still lives in my desk.
About Wednesday, just after they had left there was a big commotion made about all the missing rank flags. Nobody knew where they could have gone.
On a different occasion, I was wandering down the road past 42 Squadron [Sqn], there was a group of about twenty people standing around trying to see into the hanger. I approached them and made some inquiries.
They were a group of World War Two Military Vehicle Enthusiasts. The duty crew Sgt had the key to open the hanger but didn’t know much about the Aircraft in 42 Sqn’s hanger. Again being free, I offered to help and spent the afternoon showing them around and explaining the aircraft. Having been on the Squadron it was no great hardship.
Part of the visit was into NZ 3551, the Queen’s Dakota, with the offer of sitting in the same place the Queen had sat - the toilet.[the offer was often taken, bare bum and all]
Two weeks later I was called into the Base W/O [Warrant Officer] [chief disciplinarian] office. He asked me what had happened on Saturday, I explained and said how much fun it had been to fill the boring afternoon in like that.
He reached down to the floor and passed a bottle of black label Johnnie Walker Whisky over and said the visitors had enjoyed themselves so much, then found out that I had been a spur of the moment guide they shouted me the bottle of whisky and hoped I liked it. It went down well.
Another part of the job was to close the Airman’s club bar at ten and close the Airman’s club at eleven pm. Normally as you approach you can hear how much noise is going on inside. I felt that they were big boys and why should I go there twice when I could do both jobs with one trip.
About a quarter to eleven I would walk in with the uniform hat on, I was in full dress and all powerful. A quick look around and see who I knew in there. If it was quiet the hat came off and draped over the shoulder, I was ease, behave and I will cooperate.
One night one of the guys was teaching a WAAF [Womans Air Force] how to play snooker, I thought. So I started to stroll over to see how he was going.
The girl looked up at me, “F,,, off he ain’t finished yet.” so I turned and went up to the bar where the duty barman had a beer waiting for me. Eventually, they left and I could close the club.
We had some of the Provost Marshall [Police] that were carried away with their importance and job. The usual description of a
Provo was that they went in pairs, one that could read, and one that could write, you can’t teach aPProvo to do both.
There was a rash of doors being left unlocked at night, the key orderly that was supposed to lock up was charged. The Provo would give evidence of finding the door wide open at midnight and the key orderly was given seven days cleaning and polishing strange things after hours.
My section was done one night, in the misty winter morning there was a perfect imprint of a large boot imprint right by the lock. I got the school of photography, who were breaking their neck to take a picture of anything, anywhere, anytime, as it helped them pass their course.
When the key orderly was marched in I asked the Provo if he had found the door open, Yes he had.
Did you assist the door to open?
No, of course not.
What size boots do you wear and do they look like the pattern showed in this photo?
Silence was the reply.
He was posted to another base within the week. I had cream buns for the rest of the week, free.
Another good job was to do gate guard over Christmas break. There were two of you on at a time, eight-hour shifts three days on two days off, and you could bank your leave to be taken later, initially within the year, later when you retired.
With a bit of luck on the last day of work before Christmas, someone hadn’t waited for the gate to be opened before they tried to go through it. The gate broke and we didn’t even have to leave the chair to let people in or out.
There was one very old [70 at least]Maori who worked in the Radio section. He was the only person who could apply the covering to certain aerials fitted to some aircraft. When we were on the midnight to eight shift he would tell me to go to bed, “I’ll wake you up later”.
Over to Police Headquarters and go down to the cells. Get a pillow and stretch out for a quick nap. Next thing it was 7:15 and he is waking me up with fried eggs, sausages and bacon, a cup of coffee and some toast on the side. I never could get him to have a sleep when we worked together.
In the Sergeants mess there was a job for some barmen to work over the break. We would agree on the first shift [12 pm on Friday] to run a “No Change Day”. The guys would come in for a beer, put two shillings and sixpence [25c] on the bar, order a beer for six pence [5c] and moan because they got no change.
After their first purchase, all the other drinks were paid for out of the retained change. With the help of the chairman’s couple of shouts, we managed to make the fund last until 3rd January one year.
Again three on two off, and leave to be taken later.
Some mornings despite the bar supposed to be closed at ten pm, about 2 am and things are getting very quiet, you decide to close the bar, get off your seat to turn the taps off when there is a sudden influx, twenty or thirty new happy people that last until 4 am.
The bar had to be counted and restocked by nine o’clock the next morning. You can only do it while you are young.
The last day of the working year before the Christmas break the whole base shut down. Each section and Squadron had spent the previous couple of weeks designing and making a themed bar.
One of the Sqns had set theirs up as an onlookers stand for a motor race. The cars were replaced by special bikes, the seat was where the handlbars should be and the handlebars in place of the seat.
The bikes were steered by shifting the weight on the seat and took a bit of practice. Then just when you were going good someone would do an overtaking maneuver, and crash directly in front of you.
There was no way to avoid the resulting collision, but you got up, climbed back onto the seat, had a beer, and carried on.
The cheers from the crowd on the seats also would be deafening sometimes, when the right people crashed.
The girls did their lounge room up with U V [Ultra Violet] light, everything looked so different. The stitching on the uniforms really stood out, and some of the shirts had blotches on them. Why? I don’t know.
After setting up your section’s bar, everybody slowly wandered their way around the base, having a beer or two at each new place.
The following morning a quick look out the bedroom window to see if the car was there, and not scratched/bent from the night before, was also very common.
When we first moved into the married quarters area in Bulls there was a dairy on the same side of the road as our house.
Our house was where the RV is parked
The owner was used to little kids trying to make up their minds which lollies they really wanted, and just when he had counted them out, they changed their minds, and wanted those ones instead.
He had a ton of patience, I never heard him lose his cool at any of the kids. Being on the same side of the road our kids were allowed to go by themselves to get sixpence [5c] worth of lollies that would last them a couple of days.
To teach respect for money the kids were given a shilling per year they were old, per fortnight [my paydays]. The three girls would splurge their money and then turn to their more thrifty brother and ‘borrow’ from him until next payday. To hear him tell the story he should be a multi-millionaire if his sisters had repaid their debts.
One of the guys was having a ‘come as you are’ party at his house. I had known them from 1959 in Fiji. We had been neighbours when we were first married. I was coming down with a cold and stayed home and went to bed, while my wife attended.
About 9.30, just on the point of dropping off to sleep a couple of wives appeared alongside the bed insisting I join the party. I refused because I was not well. This wouldn’t do, so with a quick tug of the sheet and the wives could see that I saved a fortune in pajamas.
They did allow me to put on some clothes before dragging over to the party. It must have been a good one, I don’t remember much about it.
The same couple had a few problems with their neighbors previously. The husband had been away on a course in the south island for six weeks, he came home about five pm. They had had an early tea and just finished putting the kids to bed when some horrible neighbours knocked on the door, carrying a crate of beer.
When they opened the door to see who was knocking the neighbours pushed their way in and went into the lounge with a very jolly call of “Welcome home”.
After the first bottle we left them to themselves, the kids were still awake anyway.
One Christmas he had built a village, designed for toy cars, up in the ceiling where the kids couldn’t see or know anything about it. It was a magnificent job, unfortunately, the manhole in the ceiling wasn’t big enough to get the village down through.
It was a case of either cutting the village or removing some of the ceiling. It took a couple of days to repair the ceiling and repaint it so it looked like it should.
We had a concrete water tank outside the back door. All the rainwater that fell on the roof was led to this tank and the house water was drained off it.
We had an outside tap that was connected to the town water supply, normally only used for watering the garden and topping up the rainwater tank in times of drought.
For some reason, the neighbour had been looking into his tank and noticed the floor was level. There was a shed under the tank and the roof of this had an about eighteen inches high cone in it.
Logic said the bottom of the tank should also have a peak in it but it was flat. The reason must be the dust and rubbish sitting at the bottom. He found the drain plug and removed it.
The amount of brown stuff that came out the drain hole was enormous. Then he used the garden hose to wash everything that was mobile out the drain hole.
While he was in the middle of this a couple of wives visited, saw what was coming out the drain and went to their respective homes and all the husbands were soon draining and washing down their water tanks.
By end of the afternoon, we had all finished, put the drain plugs back in and had put the garden hose into the tank to refill them.
For the next two weeks, all the neighbourhood had a dose of the trots. We must have really disturbed all sorts of bugs that were happy as they were, or maybe it was the town water that was at fault.
A couple of weeks later we had all recuperated.
The water tower for the town is a very distinctive shape, known as ‘the mushroom’ it was at the edge of the married quarters, and we always said it was very appropriate, kept in the dark, fed on the other.
The wife of our next door neighbours just before I retired worked in IRD [Internal Revenue Department aka the tax man].
I don’t know whether the Squadron was late or it was a bad aim but shortly after we had moved out of the house before the next family moved in, 75 Squadron was doing practice bombing on Raumai Range.
As they flew over Bulls township on the way to the range two 25lb practice bombs fell off the bomb rack, sailed over the neighbour’s roof and into the roof above the kitchen in our old house.
No great structural damage, just a few tiles shattered and pieces of the ceiling strewn all over the floor.
[The white house, just past the back door porch]
Roughly where the Gnome is now standing used to be a self-sown tree. She who must be obeyed said to remove it, so with a few extra words I dug a trench around the base of the trunk, chopping off a few roots, but it wasn’t enough.
I needed a bit of grunt so Trevor had his first driving lesson. I tied a rope around the trunk to the tow bar on the back of the car, started the engine and put Trevor into the driver’s seat.
A 12 year old isn’t long enough to steer and do the clutch bit so he ended up mostly off the seat and slowly eased up on the clutch when told. Even then we must have been a good team, the tree came out without any further problems and the car stopped where it was wanted, without taking out the letterbox.
A quick lesson in how to cut the trunk into firewood sizes, pile all the scraps into a heap and a couple of days later, how to light a fire and the job was done.