Posted on 07/26/2016 1:53:50 PM PDT by naturalman1975
Two junior officers managed to set fire to their mess after allegedly having a duel with flare guns after a boozy formal dinner.
The 2nd lieutenants apparently climbed into kayaks in the outdoor swimming pool at Allenby Barracks in Bovington and began firing at each other on Friday night.
But one of the flares, designed to call for help at sea, managed to start a major fire in the seven-storey mess, which has been badly damaged.
The Royal Military Police is now investigating how a flare fight apparently started outside the building managed to cause a fire in its top floor.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Flare gun fights in kayaks on the next Whorealdo!
Let me get this straight. The title says barracks. Yet the story calls it a 7 story mess? That’s a big mess!
That silly stuff just seems to go hand in hand with young, stupid, testosterone filled guys in the military. LOL, I was one of them.
When I served on the USS JFK back in the Seventies, there was a sailor on watch one night on the Port Quarter (Left side of the ship, all the way towards the back, for you lubbers out there...:)
It was about 0300, the sailor was sitting in a chair, peacoat on, soundpowered phones on, looking out at the ocean and...he fell asleep. A couple of his buddies came down to say hello, saw he was sleeping, and had a great idea for a prank.
They crawled over and tied the shoelaces on his boondockers together. They retreated back into the hatch and then called out in semi-hushed tones “Man Overboard! Man Overboard!”
Well, it had the desired effect. The sleeping sailor jumped to his feet and fell flat on his face.
Unfortunately, someone on a catwalk above heard them, and raised the alarm. The entire battlegroup came alive, 6000 men on the carrier, and thousands on the destroyers, cruisers and support ships were rousted from their beds and ran to their battle stations to report in as the ships maneuvered in unison to come about.
Needless to say, the men were court martialed.
I have always been a little leery of pranks, because they can go sideways. We had a guy sleepily drowsing in our shop one boring day at sea, his elbow resting on a table the side of his head in the palm. While the rest of us watched silently, his buddy crept over, pulled out his cigarette lighter, and proceeded to put it a few inches under the guys armpit to give him the equivalent of a “hotfoot” in his armpit. He meant no harm, and we all thought it would be funny, so we all watched, stifling our laughter.
What the guy didn’t know was his buddy had a small hole worn through in the armpit of his flight deck jersey, and the flame went right up through the hole and lit his armpit hair on fire.
The guy awoke with a bloodcurdling scream as the rancid smell of burning hair filled the air...the guy wasn’t seriously hurt, but...it definitely made me think long and hard about doing pranks.
One of the questions to be answered is how a flare gun fight outside in the pool set fire to rooms at the top of the building. Either shots went astray or the duel spread out away from the pool. Either seems entirely possible.
just damn... yup, things can sure go sideways at mach-1 when you least expect it
“Hey Alfie, some day we’re gonna look back on this and laugh.”
I called back to the pumproom and when he answered I used my DCA voice a guy many feared and said you don't talk that way over a US Navy phone. Now report to Central on the double. The pumproom was far aft and I had plenty of time to get from the shop below the fwd mess decks to the passageway he would be using. I saw him running up the passageway and ducked back and yelled his name in DCA's voice again. He turned around and I asked what's wrong did you abuse a phone? He was too relieved to kill me LOL.
Mess cooking I drove the Filipino cooks crazy. Garbage would be piled up and I'd do a fake 1MC "Now Sponson Six is now open for dumping of trash and garbage." They'd tell us take the garbage out Sponson 6. As soon as they were walking away I'd announce "Now Sponson Six is closed hold all trash and garbage on station". They never caught on LOL.
Gun fights with flares though? We weren't suicidal or stupid. IIRC one major carrier fire was started by someone lighting a flare then tossing in in a locker on the FD.
What architect would put a mess on a top floor??!! And I’m still not sure you get it. I’ve never seen an upstairs mess except at the USAF Museum in Dayton OH. Everything on base was stand alone.
I don’t know the structure of Bovington - but it doesn’t seem odd to me. It’s also possible the entire building is the Officers Mess, although that’s not how I read the article originally. In the British Army, it isn’t uncommon for an Officers Mess to be large because it often includes accommodation for unmarried officers living on base - the term doesn’t just refer to the bar/dining facility area. Looking at the photos, it does look like it was built as an accommodation block.
OK - done a bit more checking - yes, the Officers Mess at Bovington is such a structure that includes accommodation: http://www.army.mod.uk/documents/general/LO-Bovington-Dec14.pdf (Page 3)
That was the Oriskany fire...a bad one.
We had that one time initation ordeal as well that used that thick, sticky, black molybdenum based grease for a initiation “greasing” of new guys that would land you in the brig and get a dishonorable discharge today, I am certain of it.
I was walking down a passageway one day, and saw this same ritual “greasing” in another part of the ship, where several guys had one guy, wrestling him through a hatch, pulling his legs and torso while he hung on in vain to the edge of the hatch...the thing I remember about was that they were all grinning madly, and even the guy who was about to get greased was laughing too, before he was swept from sight into the compartment! As I recall, the thing was, you had to resist. If you just got passive, they would smear you with the grease, and you would be greased again at some point until you fought back.
Man, you must have been crazy! I know exactly the “DCA voice” that you referenced...I can hear it in my head as I read your account! Us airedales laughed about it, as we assumed the training in that voice must have been part of a class at your “A” school! Hehehehehe...”NOW HEAR THIS...THE SMOKING LAMP IS OUT!”
I think those guys who played that prank on the sailor who fell asleep on watch must have tried to imitate that exact tone of voice, though much less in volume, when they said “MAN OVERBOARD! MAN OVERBOARD!”
Too funny. I would never thought have using that in a prank. I can’t remember where I read it, but there was an Army infantryman in Europe that his buddies said could imitate the sound of an incoming Nazi 88 shell to perfection, and nearly incited fisticuffs more than once when he used it to wake some guy up who nearly crapped his pants!
Nobody ever got hurt during that initiation ritual, but...I am amazed nobody ever did. There would be up to eight guys wrestling one guy (who was sometimes very strong, very big, or both) who would put up a spirited defense, tables and chairs being upended.
It amazes me nobody ever got hurt, with all the metal structures, bulkheads, etc. because it sometimes turned into a mini-melee!
We did have a famous non-initation incident, though. We had a new guy who reported to the squadron, and his arrival had been heralded by rumors that he was very accomplished in Tai Kwan Do (the rumor was, a “10th Degree”, though I have no idea if that is true or if there is even a “10th degree” black belt in any martial art!)
Well, he went up to the flight deck the day after we left the states, and when he came back down, everyone was waiting for him in the line shack. He opened the hatch and walked in wearing his flight deck gear, goggles still down, and surveyed everyone waiting to jump him and said: “You can do what you want, but I won’t be responsible if anyone goes to Sick Bay.”
Hehehehe...nobody moved to touch him! He was only about 5’4” very slight of build to the appearance, but...it turned out later when we saw him sparring in the hangar bay with a Marine who was well over 6 feet tall, and it was clear that the guy did know his art. He was the only guy I ever knew who got out of the greasing initiation!
We took extra care and used a rope hog tieing the person over a water pipe by his feet LOL. Then all you had to control was the arms. It was a dreaded fear much like the needle rumors in Basic. The hype was much worse than the ordeal.
Due to going mess cooking first I went through Shellback initiation before my shop finally got me down in a pumproom. Shellback was actually rougher physically and it was Navy wide sanctioned although my guess is things like The Royal Baby and other parts are now off limits.
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