Mick Smith - Times Online - WBLG

Will The Conservatives Really Support Defence? More to the Point, Does the Voter Really Care?

THE former head of Britain’s armed forces has said the government is to blame for the deaths of some of our servicemen and women killed in Iraq and Afghanistan because it failed to fund the armed forces properly. Lord Guthrie, who retired as Chief of Defence Staff in 2001, was reacting to a new poll which found that 70 per cent of population believe the government is “failing to give the Armed Forces the resources they need”.

It Wasn't Like That in My Day! Deal Loses The Marines and Gains an Army of Interior Designers

Our resident veteran Chuck Unsworth visits the scene of an IRA outrage and mourns the loss of its garrison

I motored over to Deal on the eastern coast of Kent a few days ago.  I like Deal.  It’s a typical slightly run-down coastal town with a long naval and military history.  The low, squat and small castle viewed from the air is the shape of a Tudor Rose.  It’s one of a chain of three such ‘device forts’, the others being Walmer – a favourite residence of the former Queen Mother, which also has some fine gardens – and Sandown, mostly demolished many years ago.  These were built by Henry VIII to house and support artillery, and Deal’s massive stone walls and bleak bastions were and still are a formidable challenge.  Today, cannons still sit on the solid roofs overlooking the shoreline, ready to savage any would-be invaders from Europe with direct fire.

No that isn't Deal! The Band of the Royal Marines hit Broadway.

It Wasn't Like That in My Day! The Obsession With Youth Has Robbed Us of Something of Value

Chuck, our resident veteran worries that the changing face of society has removed a major calming factor

Father-in-law’s birthday the other week was the occasion for a family convocation (or booze-up) on the luxurious Silver Sturgeon sailing down the Thames from central London to Greenwich and back.  Uncle Jim, a Queen’s Waterman, has spent most of his working life on the river and still works on the boats, ferrying the tourists up and down.  His son Jamie, now the Master of the Sturgeon, carries on the family associations.

The Real Reason Why Our Forces Will Never Have Everything They Need to Fight a War

The news that half of our army and navy have considered quitting over the failure to provide proper equipment will be no surprise to readers of this blog. What is more difficult to work out is how those responsible for the failures to provide sufficient supplies of adequate equipment can explain away such incompetence. I found a sort of an answer during a recent holiday in Greece. Re-reading a book, I first read long ago, I found it contained some very insightful writing on the failures that bedevil our military and it is worth sharing.

It Wasn't Like That in My Day! But These Wonderful Flying Machines Bring it All Back

Resident Veteran Chuck Unsworth looks back at some veteran aircraft, and he's not talking about the Nimrod! This wonderful contraption is an Avro triplane, the first all-British aircraft.

Last weekend the Shuttleworth Collection, based at Old Warden airfield in Bedfordshire, held one of its regular ‘Flying Days’. The Collection is a splendid display of vintage and veteran aircraft, in excellent condition.  Many have been restored to perfect flying condition.  The sight and sound of these aged aeroplanes as they taxi, take off and land is exhilarating.  The next Flying Day is on 3rd of August and promises to be a fine day out, but to me the static display, where you can get close to the magnificent craft and really scrutinise them, is the most interesting part.  Beautiful engineering and craftsmanship is everywhere.  Wood skeletons and canvas, steel wires, bronze, manganese, perspex, paper-thin sheet metal, machined steel, cast iron, copper, brass and so on.  It’s the sheer engineering and design effort that has gone into getting a man off the ground and, albeit precariously, into the air.

It Wasn't Like That in My Day! The Army is Losing its Best People

Following the call from the head of the army for better treatment for our troops, resident veteran Chuck Unsworth explains why the armed forces cannot afford to lose their best people

Walk into any organisation’s headquarters and within a few seconds you can sense its personality.  Glance at the state of the building, pass the time of day with one or two people and within a few short moments you’ll have a very clear view of how things are.  Some organisations are unwelcoming, demoralised and slapdash.  Others seem to be humming along, confident, cheerful and highly professional.   The same is true of most establishments, including those of the armed forces. When you arrive at a military garrison you get an immediate sense of the Regimental Sergeant Major’s character.  From the moment you are stopped by the sentry on the gate to the point where you find your quarters it’s an instant education.

The Winners and Losers from the MoD's £2bn Black Hole, or Do I Mean the Losers and the Losers?

The past six months has seen internecine fighting between the three services on a scale not seen for many years as the Royal Navy, the Army, and the RAF bickered over which programmes should be scrapped to save the cash needed to fill the £2bn black hole in the MoD’s budget over the next three years. Yes you're right, the whole point about black holes is you can't fill them and so it has proved. The service chiefs have agreed, if that is the right word, on a series of delays and salami-slicing, most of which simply postpone payments and move the black hole back a few years when it will re-emerge even larger than it is now. Don't expect a list of cuts out of the MoD, Gordon doesn't want the bad publicity over not properly funding the armed forces so that mantra about telling parliament everything has gone out of the window. But here for TimesOnline readers only, is a list of the winners and losers, or more accurately the losers and the losers:   

It Wasn't Like That in My Day! But Some Things Will Never Change

Our resident veteran Chuck Unsworth goes back to his Vietnam days to reflect that disengagement from military occupations like those in Iraq and Afghanistan are never easy.

It’s a couple of hours flying over the South China Sea on a Boeing 707 from Singapore to Tan Son Nhut airport at Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City).  My flight, just after the Tet Offensive in January ‘68, was notable for a couple of things.  One was the elegantly uniformed cabin crew of extremely blonde blue-eyed stewardesses from the American Mid-West.  The other was being told on presenting my boarding card that I could sit anywhere I wanted.  On the aircraft there were only six passengers.

It Wasn't Like That in My Day: The Continuing Allure of the Bluey

Our resident veteran Chuck Unsworth looks at the importance to forces of ensuring the mail gets through and the vexed issue of whether those who have never served can ever understand

A Replenishment At Sea (RAS) is a searching test of every aspect of Seamanship for vessels and crews of the Royal Navy (White Ensign) and its Royal Fleet Auxiliary (Blue Ensign) support ships.  The Fleet Auxiliary ships have traditionally been crewed by civilians.  They are a remarkable group of men.  The RAS involves two or more vessels sailing in close proximity, parallel with each other, transferring stores, fuel, sometimes personnel, and crucially, mail from home.  The congregation of large amounts of seriously expensive capital equipment at a single point in any Ocean is enough to concentrate minds on the task in hand.  Failure to pay close attention will, inevitably, lead to Boards of Inquiry, stupendous amounts of paperwork and acute all round personal embarrassment. Watching one of these operations in full swing is akin to watching an impressive white-knuckle fairground ride, although I’ve never witnessed true disaster, despite the best efforts of one or two Ratings. 

Fighting Behind the Wire, The View From the Serviceman

Over the past couple of months, this blog has been adding some new voices to the debate, including Mandy, the mother of a soldier serving in Afghanistan. Today we add another voice, no names, no pack drill, this is from an unnamed British serviceman, still serving, fighting from behind the wire and anonymous because of the infamous DIN (Defence Instruction and Notice) banning servicemen and women from giving their opinions.

It was reported a few months ago that The Parachute Regiment alone had lost nine officers in the past few months, all quitting in disgust at the lack of resources and poor treatment of soldiers and their families. One was the commanding officer of 3 PARA, Lt Col Stuart Tootal. The OBE officer, hotly-tipped to one day head the Army, highlighted poor pay,  a lack of equipment for training, appalling army housing and shoddy treatment by the health service. His letter to service personnel chiefs was described as a “devastating indictment” of the Government. Apart from a few news articles what impact did his actions or others before him really have, what good did they actually do for the forces?