The Soviet Union My part in it's Downfall [Part 1]
by
24314100 L/Cpl. Stanley M.D. E [HSF] Coy . 3rd Royal Regiment of Wales (24th/41st Foot) retd.

I have already admitted/confessed / owned up to being a closet pongo.

I had first joined the Territorial Army {TA} in 1972 when I enlisted for a 2-year spell in the 2nd Battalion of The Wessex Regiment. I was one of the few privates in the company to have had any previous military training (I was also one of the oldest at 34); the SNCOs and officers had mostly been National Servicemen, although the Company Sgt Major was an ex Grenadier Guardsman and we had a couple of ex regulars who were doing their reserve time.
The battalion was not NATO Assigned, which meant they didn't have to rush off to Germany to help hold back the Red Hordes when the balloon went up. We were Home Defence and were equipped at a lower scale than the 1st Battalion, which was NATO Assigned. We had no General Purpose Machine Guns {Jimpy}, for which we gave much thanks, but did have the old 37 Pattern webbing rather than the 'sexier' 58 Pattern.
The termination of my TA service came at the same time as I was moving back to Wales and so I didn't re engage. As far as I was concerned that was that, I had got the khaki out of my system.
I learnt two things whilst with the 2nd Wessex that has stood me in good stead in later life which I will pass on to you.
" Cover from view is not cover from fire.
" Never wear a red shirt to a protest gathering and stand near a bushy topped tree.

Cast your mind back to the mid 80's. The Miner's Strike was still on going; the fallout from the civil unrest that it had generated, and that from the earlier Inner City Riots [Brixton; Toxteth; Handsworth] was rampant. There was other industrial action taking place (I was standing on a picket line about this time), all together it was giving The Great and The Good the Heebie Jeebies. Although the Met. had the Special Patrol Group, and other police forces had riot trained units, formed to combat the flying pickets and the like during The Strike, there was talk of forming some thing like the French CRS as a Para military back up.
In the event a typical British fudge/compromise came about. It was decided to raise a special force based on the existing units of the TA. It was a sop to those who saw anarchy raising its head, and a cheapo way to fill some gaps in the military.

The Home Service Force [HSF] was open to all those men who had at least 2 years military training and were between 18 and 60 years old.
Hardly ' Street Fighting Man'!
The idea being that ex HM Forces with some military training would not need so much, expensive, training to bring them up to a fit standard; it was also hoped that those who had served in the TA and were now past their sell by date (I think 40 was the upper limit for junior ranks) would flock to join. The amount of training that the HSF were committed to do was one night per fortnight, and 6 days during the year. Each company would be attached to a parent unit, usually, but not always, an infantry battalion that was NATO Assigned.

It would have been political suicide to admit that this force was raised specifically to combat anarchy on the streets of Britain, and ludicrous to think that this bunch of old men would be a physical match for the drink fuelled and drug crazed rioters (Oops! A bit of Daily Mailspeek there!) The reason given for the formation of the HSF was that they would stay behind [and look after the women?] when their parent unit went off to Germany to fight the foe. The HSF would guard Key Points (KPs) and Vulnerable Points (VP's)[I used to know what the difference between them was in those days]; set up roadblocks and Vehicle Check Points [VCP] and generally do all Internal Security [IS] tasks, leaving the more professional units to be gainfully employed.
The fact that those TA battalions NOT assigned to NATO were supposed to do these tasks seemed to have slipped the memory of MoD.
Another task given to the HSF was to combat sabotage; the rationale being that the locally recruited men of the HSF would be aware of strangers on their patch (some hopes in a city the size of Cardiff!) In a wartime situation the units committing sabotage would be the Soviet Special Forces, the Spetzna. It seems a bit optimistic to expect the Grey Grenadiers of the HSF to take on the Kremlin's Ninjas.

It was in April 1984 that I joined a crowd of like minded men at Maindy Barracks in Cardiff, to sign on in E (HSF) Company 3rd (Volunteer) Battalion, Royal Regiment of Wales {3RRW} for an initial period of three years.
The men of the unit comprised a heady mix of former National Servicemen (NS), ex TA and ex Regular Army, with a sprinkling of ex RN and ex RAF. The experiences of these men ranged from Korea, Malaya through Suez, Kenya, Cyprus, Borneo, South Arabia and Northern Ireland. There were former Para's and Marines; men from the RRW, and those who had been in the predecessor regiments (South Wales Borderers and The Welch Regiment) Real fighting men from The Sharp End, with some artillery and signals chaps also from the army. As for the RAF…. well I had been an armourer, there was an ex Sgt. radar finger, we also had an Officers Mess steward and an AC2who had taken round the internal mail at RAF Compton Basset.
The level of experience was quite wide, (ignoring some of the RAF contingent who wouldn't know one end of a musket from the other). Some of the company had been N. S in the 50/60's when the weapon of choice was the Short Magazine Lee Enfield .303" rifle. The rifle currently in use in the 80's was the 7.62mm Self Loading Rifle (SLR).
Military terminology had also changed in the intervening years; rifle group and gun group (so beloved of the Rock Apes at Halton, remember 'Rommel' and 'Jungle Jim'?) were now Fire Teams Alpha and Bravo,' Pepper Potting' was now Skirmishing or Fighting Through (sorry to bore you with this pongo talk!) However the basics were the same, some poor sod had to advance towards the enemy position whilst others kept firing to (hopefully) keep the said enemy's head down.

The company was given the services of a Regular Army instructor to whip us in to shape. He was a young sergeant from The Royal Welch Fusiliers (RWF) attached to 3RWW. He was a Cardiff boy, in fact one member of our company had taught him at junior school, and the young dog certainly enjoyed teaching us old dogs new tricks!
Initially 3RRW were not best pleased to be lumbered with this bunch of wheezy old men. They assumed most of us had joined for the après parade, i.e. all night boozing in the subsidized club at Maindy Barracks, the Battalion HQ. Or else they thought that those of the company who had been former SNCOs of the TA and Regular Army would not take too kindly to being commanded by men young enough to be their sons.

We were formed in April 1984 and in June of that year 3 RRW was visited by HRH the Prince of Wales {Colonel in Chief of the Regiment} up on the training area at Sennybridge, prior to the battalion being granted the Freedom of Llandiloes
I don't really think that ' E ' company had been invited to the junket. At that time we had about 40 enlisted but few of us had a full set of uniform (bit like Dad's Army) This didn't stop our Company Commander (OC) from muscling in on the 'do with about a dozen of us, proudly wearing our new camouflaged combat suits and' flying saucer' berets.
Various inter company competitions had been set up on the training area so that HRH could wander round and observe. One such was a Falling Plate shooting competition, into which our Gung Ho OC had entered us. The competition consists of a section (8 men) firing at a number of lead plates stuck in the sand at the end of a 100-metre range. The winners being the section quickest to knock them all down, using the least number of rounds. We had had a few lessons in weapon handling since being formed, which was OK for those who had recent experience with the SLR, however several of the 8 men section hadn't actually fired a weapon since Adam was a lad. The last weapon that some had fired was the Lee Enfield; the bloke who had taken the internal mail around Compton Basset had probably never fired a weapon.
Needless to say we didn't win, but we did manage to knock all the plates over. It was whilst we were clearing our weapons that the internal mail deliverer let off a round! (More by luck than judgment his rifle was pointing down range) Now that in itself would have been bad enough but with 'The Heir to The Throne' barely 50 yards away it was REALLY REALLY bad. The company was tagged with this unprofessional act for the next year.

Incidentally HRH came over to chat to us later in the day; whether he knew about the round being fired I don't know, however he seemed genuinely interested in his latest military acquisitions (us)

Of course he may be a consummate actor.

To be continued