9th MCM Bahrain

[willhastie]

anyone out there remember the tons of the 9th mcm,i can only recall wiston beachhamton yarnton chilcompton ,what an awful bloody draft it was back in the 60s only jollies were to iran and india,went to the shahs coronation celebrations and was on shore patrol with an iranian officer who asked if we would like a freebee at a brothel if we would let the rest of the lads in,well my shorts had only just hit the mud floor when all hell broke loose,some local ponce had seen us enter the establisment and the plods had turned up and were not happy about their girls being porked by infidels,there was no mucking about with these guys they had the iranian officer up against a wall and would have given him some serious grief if we hadent convinced them that he was helping us to keep the girls pure,we lied.oh what a draft the gulf was.

[davep]

cant say its any better now having just spent 7 months out there last year on HMS Ramsay. we did get visits to dubai, abu dhabi though and they even allowed us ashore as far as the p/x in kuwait. the rest of the time was spent alongside in bahrain.
amazing thing was when we took over the ships in oman we had no vip's visiting us but as soon as we pitched up into dubai for a maintenance period you couldnt move for the brass that just had to come out and tell us how vital a job we were doing:)

[Blaydon]

Can't expect a senior officer to go anywhere he cannot get a gin, at least out of choice do you?:D

[willhastie]

seems that part of the world has not changed much sinse the late 60s,we had to bum movies off the uss valcour as the best we could hope for was a very unfunny "carry on whatever" supplied by the rn,food was awful as it was to hot for a rn chef so we carried a cook from goa but he only done lunch i had to knock up dinner and being a gunner that hadent prepared me for that at all.the aircon dident work so summer or winter was sad,when we went down to hormuz for a 2 week patrol it was water rationing all the way until our return to jufair,the showers were on for an hour in the morning and another in the evening,the jimmy was mad,the captain was ambitious ,what a draft nowonder the reg office staff at lochinvar laughed their stupid heads off when gleefully telling me i was to spend a year up the worlds arse.other tons (its coming back) appleton,chawton,dartington,:rolleyes:

[willhastie]

ah another comes back puncheston,at this rate i can recall the entire squadron .:p

[Jan Steer]

What memories! I was one of those poor unfortunates stuck in Jufair. At least the MCMs could get away from time to time. I remember when the RCT took our dog "Skidders" off for a jolly on their LCT. I think they went to Abu Dhabi but the "boy" nearly missed the return journey. Apparently he scuttled up the gangway at the last minute and then skulked down the mess as they got underway!

best wishes
Jan

[tonclass]

9th MSS at Bahrain in 1968.

[willhastie]

1968 was the year i was out there on the wiston,looks as though some ship is paying off and it could be chawton or wiston with that enclosed bridge,beside where those landing craft are was a sandy path to jufair and every morning standeasy a local would turn up with a cardboard carton containing cheese and tom rolls cost was 100 fils but they were covered in bloody flies which he waved away as soon as he saw a customer,how we never caught anything i dont know.thanks for the photo as its the only one i have ever seen of the 9th,its going into my album:rolleyes:

[willhastie]

the rct landing craft was the arrezo