Yarns True ones

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Undried Plum
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Yarns True ones

#1 Post by Undried Plum » Sun May 23, 2021 11:27 am

This thread is for true stories which may sound like ***** but are actually true.

Swing that lamp and I'll tell ye a story. That sort of thing.



I'll kick off with one of my own.

Back in the depth of the Cold War I did a job on a civvy ship, for the German wumman's gumment, in the Southern Baltic. Our task, which was classified Secret at the time and had some elements which were classified as Top Secret, was to lay an array of hydrophones on the seabed and very precisely fix their positions. It was part of the subsequently infamous SOSUS system. Its purpose was to track Soviet submarines in four dimensions and to identify them individually.

Aboard we had two client representatives. One was a USN Captain, in civvies of course, and the other was a RN Lieutenant Commander. The Russkies knew what we were up to and constantly had a "research trawler" keeping us under observation from three or four miles away. We had a moonpool through which we did our stuff, so they couldn't see when we were doing dummy diversionary runs and when we were actually deploying the gear and measuring the as-laid positions.

When we were a few miles outside Latvian territorial waters there was a terrible explosion in the engine room. One killed and three others injured, one of whom was horribly burned and at the point of death. 50:50 chance of survival, according to the assessment.

In those days, without Satcom or cellphones, there was an HF and MF system of medical consultancy called Medico. The Captain obtained advice which required him to immediately proceed to the nearest port to discharge the patient for intensive care in an appropriate hospital. Where we were, at the time, there was a distant Swedish island which had a port on the Northern side and would take far too long to get to. We were under extremely strict instructions never to go into Soviet or Soviet-controlled territorial waters (12nm) under any circumstances. Nevertheless, he took the command decision to get his Chief Engineer to the closest hospital to save the guy's life.

That port was Ventspils. We went there at best speed, which was low because the propshaft bearings had been damaged in the explosion. We hid the most secret stuff quite cleverly in ways which I will not say here, knowing that we were liable to a rummage search by the Soviet-controlled Latvian authorities. The horribly injured Chief was whisked away to hospital and received truly magnificent medical care and subsequently survived his life-threatening injuries.

Problem was: the vibration of the propshaft and the incoming leakage of seawater through the damaged glands meant that the ship was not seaworthy and could not possibly sail to Denmark which was our base. Impromptu repairs were not feasible. It was a 'dockyard job'. That had to be done in Riga. We chugged the short distance around the coast at four knots and up the short length of the river Niva to berth on the civvy side of that river for repairs to be effected. The Russkies laid on a couple of very impressive tugs in case we got into difficulties during that short passage.

Our two client reps were wetting themselves at the Int opportunities. On the other side of the river was a Soviet naval base. Three submarines in plain view and two Kotlin class destroyers and a great big **** cruiser whose name I can't remember. The Septic was their navy's foremost expert on Soviet submarine stuff. His eyes were practically glued to his binos, other than writing down the tiniest details on movements on and off those subs. Meanwhile, we recorded hydrophone records on a Decca tape recorder (Store Seven?) so that every vessel movement could be tied to identified individual vessels, both sub and supra surface.

The Brit rep, whose name really was Lt Cdr Bond (I promise I'm not making any of this up), but was Steve, not Jim, from RN Int, was fascinated by the surroundings. He co-opted meself into helping him to do calcs on the volumes of oil in the numerous oiltanks around the naval base across the river. We had an IR camera for underwater work and we had it re-rigged onto the monkey island so that he could see the fuel levels within the tanks. He had me do the mensuration of the images and of the exact distances to each of those tanks and their volumes so that he could report back to Northwood what the fuel state was of that place.

We had a visit from the Brit Embassy. Very clever man. He had negotiated with the Latvian authorities for permission for us all to go for for what sailors call a run ashore. More of a crawl than a run from one pub to another, but that's what they call it in the navy. He brought huge stacks of the local currency, Lats, and we were each given enough Lats to buy a pub, never mind drink it dry.

Problem was: there were almost no consumer goods in the shops. Money is no good if you can't spend it.

We were allowed to go ashore and almost all of us did. One exception was the Septic. The Pentagon expressly forbad him to set foot on Soviet-controlled territory. He was their foremost expert on Soviet subs and it would have been so easy for the Sovs to arrange a traffic accident and take him and do the Scopolmine or whatever routine on him.

Lt Cdr Bond wanted me to help him to get some Int ashore. He wanted to photograph the undersides of all of the several bridges over the Niva. Their sat and U2 photos could only show the tops of the bridges. What they wanted to know was the internal structure of those bridges. What sort of load could they carry? Septic army tanks are a hell of a lot heavier than the Sov ones of those days. Where were the weak points that could be whacked with precision guided munitions? That sort of thing. He wanted me to pose for his camera under each of those bridges as if we were tourists, of which there were none other than Soviet ones.

We were, of course, followed by men in identical suits. Each one of us had been assigned a follower from the Latvian secret police.

Now I should explain the background to the main part of this story. In those days there was no video on demand. Instead, we had 16mm film packages. Every ship had a 30 day ration of large brown boxes of film reels from a firm called Catermoul. In the Brit sector of the North Sea the batch would be replaced monthly, by helicopter, with another 30 movies. Outside the N Sea sector the deal was that one ship would swap with another ad hoc.

On that trip, one of the movies was a Michael Caine one called Billion Dollar Brain. The tale was partly set in Latvia, Riga specifically, but it starred a drop-dead **** gorgeous ffrench bint, Catherine Deneuve or somesuch. I later married her doppelganger, but that's another story and I know that I'll get a knee in the ribs or balls for saying so. That movie was endlessly repeated, partly because we were only a few dozen miles off the coast of Latvia, but mostly because of the girlie in the fur hat in that movie.

At the end of the first day in Riga one of the guys went to an optician's shop and ordered 24 pairs of plain glass spectacles with black frames which were pretty much identical to those worn by Michael Caine in those Harry Palmer movies. He handed them out to each of us. Almost all of us put them on at breakfast the following day and we all did that pathetic imitation of Michael Caine in that adenoidal/Cockney way: "Ullo, by name's Michael Caine. Not a lot of people know dat"

The second day, almost everybody wore the Michael Caine glasses on the run ashore. The septic didn't, but that's 'cos he wasn't allowed by his own side to go ashore. Commander Bond refused to wear them, saying "I don't want to look like a spy. I am a **** spy". Silly ****q. Of course the secret police noticed that the only one of us not wearing those silly fake glasses must be the Int guy and that his cohort must be involved too.

The usual routine had been that each one of us was assigned a secret police follower, They turned up on the quayside in little grey minibuses each morning and waited for us. Almost all of us had one secret policeman follower each. The day after Cdr Bond insisted on going ashore sans Caine glasses he was assigned two extra followers, as was I. So we went around town surrounded by secret policemen and could do **** other than going into pubs and getting plastered while he fed totally confusing ***** to the over-hearing English language trained secret coppers.

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Re: Yarns True ones

#2 Post by tango15 » Sun May 23, 2021 12:08 pm

Great story UP. As one who spent a fair amount of time behind the Iron Curtain, but in an entirely different capacity, I can relate to all of that. I shall post a story of my own later.

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Re: Yarns True ones

#3 Post by Undried Plum » Sun May 23, 2021 12:11 pm

Here's a linky to the fictional film. The one with the bloke in the black-rimmed glasses and the fur-hatted bint of whom I must not speak.



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Re: Yarns True ones

#4 Post by ian16th » Sun May 23, 2021 1:41 pm

The dolly bird wasn't Catherine Deneuve, it was her elder sister Francoise Dorleac. She died in a car accident at an early age.

I well remember the movie, SM lusted after the red fox fur outfit.

Me, I lusted after the contents!
Cynicism improves with age

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Re: Yarns True ones

#5 Post by tango15 » Sun May 23, 2021 3:41 pm

Back in the late 1960s, when aviation hadn't been very kind to me, I decided on a change of tack and went into the papermaking industry - well people will always need paper, won't they? (wrong!). After a course at the Robert Gordon Technical Institute (as it was then) in Aberdeen, followed by a few weeks working in paper mills, I was allowed to go out on the road and sell the company's papermaking products. My first stint was in what we used to call the 'Home Trade', which in my case meant everywhere between Fort William and Birmingham. After a spell of this and my employer discovering that I could speak Russian, I was asked to cover Russia and Eastern Europe, one of the countries being Romania. We had a guy who worked for us who lived in Romania. He was a Brit, who had gone out there to fit a paper machine, married a Romanian, and stayed there. Naturally, the Securitate, (Ceausescu's private army) were suspicious of him and he had been allocated his personal watcher. The joke of it was that the bloke was quite open about it and would often chat to my colleague. He wasn't just a watcher, either. He was the manager of a company which sold building materials.

I usually stayed in the Hotel Continental, (as opposed to the Intercontinental which languished a few blocks down the road). It was an old hotel, but had been fully refurbished to a high standard and walking distance from my colleague's house. One morning I got up and went for a shower. The shower was inside a bath and of course there were no grip strips in the bath and as I went to get out, I slipped and put my hand on the top of the toilet cistern to steady myself. This being Romania, it had not been attached properly and it crashed onto the tiled floor and broke into several pieces. I mentioned this to the reception staff when I handed in my key later, but they seemed disinterested and I thought no more about it. We went off on our rounds of the Romanian papermills and I came back to find the manager waiting for me, with a bill for the Romanian equivalent of about £45. (Bear in mind that this was about 1975). I explained that it was a complete accident and that in any case the top of the cistern was loose, but he was having none of that. I then went round to my colleague's house and explained what had happened. We both went back to the hotel and my colleague had a heated discussion with the manager in Romanian, the result of which was that he threatened to call the police.

Over dinner that evening, my colleague suddenly remembered that his watcher had a builder's merchants, and suggested we went round there the next day. He explained the situation to him, to which he replied "Well my company supplied the materials for that building, so maybe I have something still." We went into a dusty corner of the warehouse and after several minutes of digging around in hay and dust, found an exact replacement for the damaged cistern top. After paying the watcher the equivalent of a fiver, (which was probably about five times what he paid for it, but what the hell), we went back to the hotel. My colleague found the manager and showed him the item. "It won't fit", was his immediate response. Eventually, we went up to my room, and of course it fitted perfectly. To say that he was disappointed and angry would be considerably understating his reaction. For the next few visits I stayed in another hotel, but several months later I discovered that my colleague had booked me back into the Continental. He explained that the watcher had told him that the manager had been changed and 'It was better that I stayed there'. Apparently, the watcher lived close to the Continental and it was much easier to keep an eye on us both while I was staying there. The manager had been moved to another hotel in rural Romania apparently, such was the power of the watcher.

I visited again, not long after the 7.1 Richter Vrancea Earthquake struck Bucharest in March 1977. The Continental had taken a hit, but remained upright, unlike many other buildings at the time. There were several huge cracks in the walls, but the building surveyors had apparently declared it safe, so it stayed open. The Intercontinental was not so fortunate. A massive crack about 10m long appeared on the outside of the building between the 7th and 8th floors and the hotel had to be closed. I only went back a couple of times after that, but I couldn't help wondering whether the fortunes of the 'builders merchant' had flourished after the earthquake...

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Re: Yarns True ones

#6 Post by Pontius Navigator » Sun May 23, 2021 4:16 pm

Returning to UP's Russian theme and submarines:
In the 1970s the general purpose Soviet diesel submarine was the venerable Foxtrot but their newest submarine was the Tango which was built in the Crimea. As first of class it was tested extensively in the Black Sea for about two years at least. It was common practice at the time to man a new ship with new sailors and a very small cadre of experienced personnel, maybe just the Captain and one of two others. Eventually came the time for the submarine to transfer to the Baltic Fleet and this it did transiting the whole way on the surface. After a Channel passage it made its way up the North Sea towards the Skaw.

Our mission was to locate the submarine and lay a line of sonobuoys across its course and record it diesel signature and of course its sound propagation diagram. All went well. We dropped a line of 8 spaced about a mile apart, and sat back and waited. Now it was one of those brilliant days. A slight sea, no wind and the water a brilliant blue in bright sunshine. We gained contact on all 8 buoys and were getting excellent recording of its engines when it slowed as it approached the barrier and eventually hove too between two of our buoys.

For some reason our buoys were beautifully painted, a pale sea green at the bottom and brilliant dayglo orange on the top. We closed to take some happy snaps and watched as a party assembled on the after deck, and one matelot, stripped to just his pants, was lowered down the side to retrieve one of our buoys. Now the buoy is a cannister, about 3 feet long, 5 inches in diameter, and a whip antennae on the top. Below the buoy, on a 50 foot line, was the hydrophone. So far so good; they laid the buoy on the casing and hauled the hydrophone up from the depths. The audio was getting better and better. Next, to our astonishment, the left the buoy on the casing and took the hydrophone up into the sail before lowering it into the ops room. We then heard words to the effect "look what we have here, it will make a fine trophy on the wardroom bulkhead.". This was followed by noises off as the Captain burst into the ops room "expletives deleted" and the sound was abruptly cut off.

The Master Race strikes again.

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Re: Yarns True ones

#7 Post by Undried Plum » Sun May 23, 2021 6:33 pm

On the Trans-Med pipeline project, which involved laying three large pipelines across the choke-point between Tunisia and SouthWest Sicily at the back end of the 1970s, we found dozens of sonobuoys of all sorts of nationalities. Our tech guys, several of whom were ex-RN and ex-RAF, dismantled all of them and put the bits up on the bulkheads of the Survey Room in a wonderful display.

There were Russkie ones; Septic ones; Brit ones; ffrench ones; Chinky ones; and a few of very indeterminate origin which were made from components of all of the others.

I later heard that the display, together with its very expansive explanatory notes, was subsequently removed and taken to a naval base in Englandshire and is now a major exhibit in a place where baby submariners and sub-hunters are trained.

We also found dozens of munitions on the seabed along the pipe route. Mostly WW2 stuff, such as spent torpedoes and mines and aerial bombs. We had a tech who was an ex-RN Clearance Diver who knew how flush out the explosivie stuff and de-activate the detonators, so we also had a world-class exhibition of that sort of stuff too.

Our ship was, in effect, a floating museum.

Not off-topic and not a story, but a relevant addendum to the fascinating posts made here so far.

Crack on.

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Re: Yarns True ones

#8 Post by Undried Plum » Sun May 23, 2021 6:36 pm

ian16th wrote:
Sun May 23, 2021 1:41 pm
The dolly bird wasn't Catherine Deneuve, it was her elder sister Francoise Dorleac. She died in a car accident at an early age.

I well remember the movie, SM lusted after the red fox fur outfit.

Me, I lusted after the contents!

That's the one.

I must say no more, 'cos I just know that I'll get a gooly punishment if I do.

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Re: Yarns True ones

#9 Post by Pontius Navigator » Sun May 23, 2021 6:41 pm

We had a Russian sonobuoy painted all over red like fire engine red. It had a warning that it contained explosive for scuttling or anti handling - it didn't.

OTOH our Anti Submarine Target Indicator was beautifully engineered aluminium and contained one or two CE charges that operated with hydrostatic functions. They were painted a dark sea green. Some washed up in Madeira. One youth lost two fingers dismantling a dud.

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Re: Yarns True ones

#10 Post by ExSp33db1rd » Mon May 24, 2021 12:46 am

On my first trip to Moscow, at the post flight crew social gathering, we were discussing how to best make use of the local Rouble voucher we had been given for meals in the hotel, to wit .. tomorrows’ breakfast ? We knew that despite the company voucher, the waiter would deposit an empty soup bowl on the table, covered with a knapkin, into which we were expected to deposit only U.S.A. dollars, and failure to do so would impact unfavourably on the standard of food and service. No problem, said our senior stewardess, a more “mature” lady who had been to Moscow on a previous trip and was being pumped for vital procedures to adopt to enable our eventual escape unscathed, “I have breakfast in my room”, she said. Nonsense, we exclaimed, no one in Moscow can expect such egalitarian service entombed as we are in this Communist State. Follow me, she replied, and led us down the corridor to engage the resident Dragon Lady guarding our floor. ( Hotel reception only issued a floor number on arrival, rooms and keys were allocated by each floors’ Guardian sitting by the lift.) It was reminiscent of that Joyce Grenfell song describing two Matronly ladies dancing bust to bust, as they parried each other, but eventually our champion declared ... “I want breakfast in room XXX at 8.30 am, cereal with fresh milk, two fried eggs and bacon, toasted wheat bread and butter, and tea with milk.” ( or words to that effect ) This was all written down by the D.L., who then slid open a drawer, inserted her note and slammed it shut again. “See”, said our girl, “s’easy.”

At this one of the stewards stepped forward and said .... (repeat the above, with a different room number of course ) “Niet” ! was the immediate response. “08.40”, then she pointed to us all in turn and said 08.50 08.10, 08.20 etc. until we had all received our allotted time, no chance to change the menu of course, we all got the now fixed selection.

I retired to bed, and double locked my door, but at my allotted time, still in bed, the door burst open and an obviously put upon bulky Russian matron dumped my breakfast tray down and I gave her my voucher, which I had placed on the bedside ledge, but she held her hand out, obviously expecting some dollar tip. Being undressed, and my wallet on the other side of the room, I just pointed to my upturned hat into which I had emptied my pockets, expecting her to give me my wallet, but instead she ferreted around and picked up a then English two shilling coin, and looked at my quizzically, I nodded and she flounced out slamming the door firmly behind her. I never repeated the exercise.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On another trip the Captain had been the Pilot’s Union President, and had visited on some previous, Red Flag, All Comrades Together, Union Conference, and “knew someone”, whom he contacted. One of the Politburo, named Mishenken, having control of Aeroflot of the time turned up with “companions”, one of whom was a senior Aeroflot Captain, and they offered to take us ( the flight deck crew ) out to dinner, and not the usual Moscow dinner of crew experience, but fine dining combined with plenty of Vodka toasts to celebrate the mixing of the fine minds of the oppressed minions of BOAC subjected to the Capitalist Experience, with the glorious freedom of their Aeroflot comrades of the USSR. There was an interpreter who could have easily stood in for Andy Capp, of Daily Express fame, complete with flat cap and muffler. (Andy Capp was a strip cartoon of the day, a sort of precursor of Bart Simpson, with a working class overlay. ) During the dinner our Flt. Eng. kept asking how the progress of the TU 144 Concorde copy was coming along, knowing full well that the project had been scrapped in a less than glorious debacle. The assembled Russians denied all knowledge of anything remotely resembling the TU 144, but the F.Eng. persisted with his questioning, so we took to kicking him under the table to be quiet, knowing that prolonged embarrassment of our hosts would cause the source of Vodka to dry up.

We were all asked our first impressions of Moscow, and in my answer I made some amusing comment, forget what now, but I noticed the Russians smiling before the interpreter had done his bit. Big Brother Is Always Watching You, I think that the interpreter was more for show than actual necessity ?

An interesting evening finished by them pouring us into the Bolshoi Ballet theatre, to watch an Opera. They claimed that even they couldn’t manage to seat us all together at such short notice, and “seeded” the four of us around the theatre. Nevertheless I was sat with the F.Eng. and during the first interval I mentioned that I was enjoying the performance, but what was it all about, being a Russian tale not a familiar Western one. At that a very attractive young lady sat on the other side of me said “ I’ll tell you what it’s all about” and proceeded to describe the plot. I commented on her good English, and she admitted that she had spent time in London. I commented on the unlikely event of Russians being allowed to live in London, and she replied “ For me there is no problem”

Next day I related this encounter to our local BOAC manager, and he said, “Well, of course you don’t think that the persons you named couldn’t have thrown 4 customers out and given you four seats together, you were deliberately placed next to “plants” who recorded all you said.” I explained that there was little of International importance that I could have accidentally divulged, he said no matter, all will have been considered and digested, you might have mentioned to your friend that you had ridden on a blue London bus recently, and they would have then asked their contacts in the UK why London Transport had re-painted their buses, for instance, they do it all the time.

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Re: Yarns True ones

#11 Post by Rossian » Tue May 25, 2021 7:40 pm

Back in Shackledrone days getting anywhere took forever. Bodo in north Norway in the winter time was not the first choice for a nice det but it was what we had to deal with.
The sortie was a loooooooong way further north past Svaalbard (why I have no idea I was v junior pilot officer so I did what I was told). For some other reason we had along an ancient S/L nav who wanted to do the return leg to Bodo. We (he) were using Lamberts Conformal charts where all the lines of longitude come together very closely towards the pole. When we came to the end of our mission (whatever that was) Said AS/L said to 1st nav OK I'll take over from here. He then proceeded to take up the routine plot chart and set about realigning it on the Ground Position indicator ( a light projected arrow which moved with our ground speed over the stuck down chart). So far so good.
Food was produced, coffe was passed around and we settled down for the transit home to Bodo.
After a few hours the radar op piped up "Land on track 105 miles capt". Lots of ?? thinks bubbles.
"Absolute rubbish" says ancient nav "nowhere near our track". I trust the op more than the nav so I moseyed over to take a look myself. Sure enough there it was and we were able to use a topo to pick out 3 identifiable land features - it was North Cape! The op called it again and I joined in with my treehap'en worth. "What the **** does he know" says ancient nav "he's only been on the squadron for 3 weeks". Capt looks at me I give him thumbs up "Yes it's North cape and getting clearer".
Real first nav gets off the bunk and comes forward and after a careful replot it was found that ancient nav had reset the arrow three degrees east of the line we were supposed to be going down. Now, way north 3 degrees wasn't a lot but of course the further south we

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Re: Yarns True ones

#12 Post by Rossian » Tue May 25, 2021 9:06 pm

Part two the second. (My keyboard stopped working and had to look out a back-up)
as I was saying, the distance between the lines of longitude widened as we went south. The ancient S/L blustered but was then sent down the back by the captain.
Shackletons went everywhere at 1000feet and North Cape is higher than that. It was continuous darkness at that time of year and we would have been an unexplained CFIT incident. We later discovered that in order to stay awake and keep up with what was going on he was using Benzedrine as a "sharpener". He didn't stay much longer on the squadron.
The remainder of the trip was a rather subdued affair. All kudos to the radar op.

The Ancient Mariner

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Re: Yarns True ones

#13 Post by tango15 » Tue May 25, 2021 10:22 pm

And another tale involving Moscow and BOAC... Russia (USSR) - Red Faces in Red Square, By Bernard Garvie (1970) Credit: Better on a Camel website:-

I was a cabin crew member on the third BOAC flight into Moscow, having set out some ten days earlier from London, flying over the Polar route via Anchorage and Tokyo. I remember eventually arriving into Moscow in the depths of winter and having to present my passport at the bottom of the steps to a rather surly border guard brandishing an AK 47. He certainly took some time to let us through. Remember, we were in the middle of the politically sensitive 'cold war' period and mutual suspicions of 'the other side' were rife.

The Russians were very suspicious of foreign crews - their own Aeroflot crews always included a KGB officer and they always tried to decide which one of us was their counterpart. Laughable now, but quite stressful in those days. Once we had been cleared by the border guard, we then had a half-mile walk to the terminal. I don't think I have ever been so cold as that first night with the bitter, damp wind blowing across the icy and slippery tarmac. The temperature was around -25 degrees Centigrade.

As we neared the terminal building, we met the outbound crew, who appeared very happy and decidedly relieved to see us. They had been the second BOAC crew into Moscow. I remember them saying, "Don't try that game called hunt the bug". To put things into perspective, at that time the first James Bond movie 'Dr. No' had just been released, and it was all the rage and a definite hit with everyone. Incidentally, one of our flight numbers was 007.

They went on to explain that when they arrived at the hotel they decided to meet in the captain's room for something to eat. The Bond movie had encouraged them to look for hidden listening devices, which they thought must be secreted somewhere. Having nearly exhausted their search, one bright spark suggested it was under the carpet, so they shifted some furniture and pulled the carpet back. This revealed a suspicious looking large bolt hidden under a grille. The grille and bolt were duly investigated and removed. Simultaneously a bright shaft of light shone up through the bolthole. A crew member then looked down through the hole and in consternation exclaimed that there were lots of people looking up at the ceiling and in particular at the hole. Apparently this bolt had been the main fixing for a large, glass chandelier that had been hanging from the main dining room ceiling. The latter had just crashed over twenty feet to the floor, thankfully missing everyone in the dining room.

I recall the outbound crew's comments about the hotel's reaction. They said the staff initially thought it had been some sort of unfortunate accident and were rushing around to ascertain what exactly had happened. When the truth suddenly dawned, security staff were dispatched to the offending hotel room. All the poor crew could do was wait and hope that a suitable explanation would be acceptable. Security duly listened, at first displaying incredulity, then consternation followed by anger and then started to berate them in Russian. The crew, as has sometimes been suggested, was not ejected from the hotel; they just received a severe 'ticking off'.

However, the next day, the atmosphere had calmed down and the funny side of the story was evident to both sides. As far as I am aware, there were no official complaints, no official reaction from either side and as per 'cold war' era, a healthy respect developed on both sides. It could have turned into a political hot potato, but was regarded more as a bit of good humour. Following a report by Reuters, it drew cheerful publicity on the worldwide networks in the midst of a rather drab cold war scene.

After a long drive on a decidedly rickety bus, we, as the third BOAC crew, duly arrived at the hotel, whose management lined us up and collected our passports saying, "You British don't trust us Russians, do you?" We all looked at each other and then back at them and waved our heads left to right acknowledging the correctness of their sentiments. They warned us to refrain from removing any hotel fixtures and assured us there were no microphones in the rooms. We desperately tried to keep straight faces and started to smile. They too began to smile and then started to laugh loudly; they just couldn't contain themselves any longer and thought it very funny.

Thankfully, the incident was dismissed with good humour and no hard feelings. They understood the irony of the situation. Because of Reuters' involvement, the story did become quite well known and was repeated over the years.

Russian visas were required for this route. In those days they were exceedingly difficult to obtain and cost the company a small fortune at about £800 per visa, so there were only 70 of us flying in and out of Moscow on a regular basis. We did get to know our long suffering Moscow Station colleagues very well. How they managed to keep their composure under such trying working conditions in such an era is beyond me. We were often asked for, and it was a pleasure to bring them, a couple of pounds of Walls' bacon from home. They were all super colleagues and that was the genuine spirit of BOAC and BEA. It was true teamwork.

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Re: Yarns True ones

#14 Post by Undried Plum » Tue May 25, 2021 11:10 pm

That would be the Sheremtyevo Hotel.

I had exactly the same room, circa 1981.

I'll tell the tale another day.

The Russkies must think that we are all vandals.

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Re: Yarns True ones

#15 Post by Pontius Navigator » Wed May 26, 2021 7:01 am

Rossian, we had a similar cumulo granite incident west of the Shetlands. This was in the early 80s on the AEW variant and fortunately in broad daylight and VMC. Unlike your AS/L, ours was a BNav (baby Nav glorying in the nick name of ParrotStrangler). Tracking North, well cleared of land he cleared us down to a lower altitude.

When queried he assured us there was no land until the North Pole. Well there was no land on his en route chart, Foula was on the topo though. For his next flight we presented him with an atlas.

I have no idea what we were doing that low and in that direction.

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Re: Yarns True ones

#16 Post by tango15 » Wed May 26, 2021 9:03 am

Undried Plum wrote:
Tue May 25, 2021 11:10 pm
That would be the Sheremtyevo Hotel.

I had exactly the same room, circa 1981.

I'll tell the tale another day.

The Russkies must think that we are all vandals.
A perfectly reasonable thought UP, (I too have been incarcerated in the Sheremetyevo Hotel in the past - a thought which still sends a shiver through me), but in fact it was the Metropol, not far from Red Square. The reason I know this is because I first heard this story many years ago, and it was attributed to the Metropol then. In fact the chandelier was in the main reception area (there is still one there) and because it happened in the early hours, no-one was hurt. Inevitably, numerous versions of the story have appeared since, with one claiming it was a Canadian hockey team. It so happened that I was often billeted in the Metropol in the early 90s and I got to know the manager quite well and asked him about it. He confirmed the story (though of course he was not the manager at the time), and I also checked with someone at the embassy, who confirmed that he had seen a file of the incident. His take was that the Soviets didn't say too much because they didn't want to be openly accused of spying and BOAC agreed to pay for a new chandelier through the good offices of the embassy, so an international scandal and bad publicity for both sides was avoided.
As an aside, the guy in the embassy told me that they had been asked about the incident by the writers of 'Only Fools and Horses' and it may well have been the inspiration for the 'chandelier' episode.

The other hotel of some notoriety in Moscow was the Rossiya Hotel on the other side of Red Square. Once the largest hotel in the world, a fire broke out in one of the rooms in February 1977 because someone was ironing clothes in their room, when a friend called from reception to say they were in the hotel. The iron was left on, with inevitable consequences, since Soviet irons lacked any form of temperature control. It is said that 42 people were killed in the fire, though the real death toll is believed to be double that. The emergency exits were blocked to prevent people from leaving without paying, and also to ensure that people were channelled into areas where they could be watched. I found myself billeted there about a month or two after the fire. They had simply boarded up the affected area and left it, which made for a very eerie experience. The hotel has now been demolished and the site turned into a park by the Moscow River.

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Re: Yarns True ones

#17 Post by CharlieOneSix » Wed May 26, 2021 4:11 pm

Nowhere near as interesting as those 'behind the Iron Curtain' stories but here goes. When the fuel crisis hit in 1973 I was the personal pilot to the owner of a large property company in the UK - flying probably the first twin engined, privately operated, IFR helicopter in the UK. The boss didn't want to be seen in his fuel guzzling machine at that time due to the bad press so to save the job I had to find work elsewhere. Firstly I did some feature film work (Juggernaut) for a few weeks with a ship off the Hebrides and elsewhere round the UK. Then we were approached for some offshore work in the toe of Italy. Apparently there was a gas production rig just three miles off the coast. It was resupplied by boat, not by helicopter. Sadly during a storm one night a worker was injured and the boat could not get to the rig and he died before he could be rescued. The unions demanded helicopter cover and we were approached by Elitos Helicopters based in Florence.

To cut a long story short I flew the helicopter to Crotone airfield in February 74. At that time it was a relief airfield for the Italian Air Force and only had one civvy flight a day with an Itavia F28 from Rome. There were no other aircraft based there apart from our helicopter which sat on dispersal 24/7 as there was no hangarage. My engineer and I stayed in a nearby hotel and it was all very boring with just 3 or 4 six mile return flights every week and many hours of standby duty!! There were some Agip personnel, some Yanks and one or two Brits, all offshore gas industry related, staying in the hotel and one of the Brits and I ran a disco every Saturday night which the locals appreciated.

One Thursday night we heard a couple of loud explosions. Next day on arriving at the airfield it was apparent that two vehicles, owned by a Milan company who were renovating the runway, had been blown up. It didn't take long to establish that the 'Ndrangheta*, the local Mafia, were responsible and they objected to the 'Arabs' in the north of Italy being awarded the contract rather than a local firm. Another vehicle was blown up on the Friday night. I was really concerned the helicopter could be next.

We were aware that a local Mafia boss and his heavies used to come to our Saturday disco so I managed to have a word with him and share my concerns. Not to worry, he said, you employ a local cleaner for your helicopter, it will not be harmed. That night another vehicle was blasted to smithereens. I think at this point a local company took over the runway renovation! I never thought I'd ever be grateful to the Mafia!

*The 'Ndrangheta carried out the 1973 kidnapping of John Paul Getty III, who had his severed ear mailed to a newspaper in November. A ransom of $2.2million was paid for his release. Not people to be trifled with!
The helicopter pilots' mantra: If it hasn't gone wrong then it's just about to...
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Re: Yarns True ones

#18 Post by G-CPTN » Wed May 26, 2021 4:24 pm

Which story justifies when we were driving around Reggio di Calabria in 1979 with experimental trucks, our 'wagon master' contacted the local 'Ndrangheta to employ guards for our vehicles parked overnight so that the vehicle spares and items such as wheels and tyres, batteries and fuel and oil didn't go astray.

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Re: Yarns True ones

#19 Post by tango15 » Thu May 27, 2021 9:09 am

The road to Baghdad: Part 1

One of my weirder adventures took place in the Middle East. This was in 1975 when I was working in the paper industry and I was in Kuwait to discuss the setting up of a paper mill, though given Kuwait's lack of rainfall and therefore rivers, I saw no chance of the plans coming to fruition.

I arrived back at the hotel after one of these sessions to find a telex from the office waiting for me. The telex suggested that I go next to Iraq, where there was a good possibility of business. I had never visited there before, and of course I needed a visa. My contact in Baghdad, since we had no agent there, was to be the Ministry of Industry and full details were on the telex. I took it along to the Iraqi embassy in Kuwait, where I was interviewed by their equivalent of Head of Chancery (HoC). He said he could not issue a standard visa, even with the 'invitation' telex, but he could issue a 'Pilgrimage Visa' which would be good for five days. He took out some forms from a drawer, scribbled something on them and gave them to me. They were all in Arabic, and he told me to go round to the back of the embassy, where a 'scribe' would complete them.

The scene was biblical. There were a number of trestle tables at which bearded old gentlemen were seated. With the Arab dislike of queueing, chaos reigned. After a few minutes of this, I decided to wave my passport in the air over the baying mob. A voice shouted "English, come!" and suddenly I was at the front of the melee. About ten minutes later, all the forms were completed, I paid a token amount to the scribe and went back to the Embassy. The HoC said everything was in order, and sent for someone from the visa department, meanwhile inviting me to join him in a cup of coffee. (I reckon he was probably just sizing me up to make sure that such an infidel was deemed suitable to set foot on the holy ground of Iraq). Nevertheless, he was pleasant enough and when the passport was returned to his office, I asked him how much it would cost. "The visa is free because it is a Pilgrimage Visa," he said, "but please present me with $20 as a contribution to the PLO." I had noticed that there was a PLO calendar hanging up behind his desk. I had no option, though I did ask him politely if the $20 included a calendar, but apparently it didn't.

"I suggest you travel at night," he said. "The border is less busy then." I did as he suggested, but what I had not counted on was that there was a strip of no man's land between the two countries. The taxi driver took me to the Kuwaiti border and then I had to deal with the border guards. I asked them how I could cross and they said, "you can walk, but it is better to wait for a vehicle and go with them." About an hour later, a German(!) lorry turned up and he was quite happy to take me across the +/- 1 mile strip to the Iraqi border. Entry into Iraq was simple and there was an ancient Lada taxi available to take me into Basra.

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Re: Yarns True ones

#20 Post by Ex-Ascot » Fri May 28, 2021 10:57 am

Rossiya Hotel
Yep had the unfortunate experience to do that place a few times with the horrible little cafes on every corner of each floor. Ever so pleased when the Kempinski opened.

This thread can't continue without this:

'Yes, Madam, I am drunk, but in the morning I shall be sober and you will still be ugly.' Sir Winston Churchill.

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