Incident on Red Alert
By Bob Bowden
In recent times it is a rarity that British troops have opened fire and killed someone even on active service let alone a peacetime posting somewhere. There are also certain rules to be observed before the discharge of a weapon within the vicinity of a person, such as the 'yellow card' set of rules on active service whereby a challenge must be given to a perpetrator, or potential perpetrator, of a violent act that directly endangers life there and then by whatever means. The challenge given would be something like, "Halt! Army! Stop or I fire!", which is quickly followed up by a 7.62mm round going down the barrel and into the centre of the target.
Then there is the 'green card' set of rules for opening fire, which is a much 'milder form' of the 'yellow card' but still outlines the basic rules of engagement i.e. a challenge must be issued to a person who is about to endanger life but not as direct as the yellow card set of rules, depending of course on the security state at the time.
It was such a time that the security state went from amber to red whilst we were on exercise during freezing weather in Germany where we were in fact posted. I was driving the P.O.L wagon full of petrol and diesel to replenish the tanks and vehicles ready for the next morning.
We established a safe harbour area, cammed up the vehicles and then we were issued with ten rounds of 9mm live ammunition that was to be fitted to our Sterling sub machine guns due to the security state. At the time I could not remember the last time that we had been issued with live ammo apart from the ranges of course. To be frank, it was rare to issue soldiers with live ammunition for a Germany posting. We were to act in accordance with the 'green card' set of instructions for 'opening fire' should such an occasion rise. As you can imagine we were all on a state of high alertness.
We had sentries posted around
the harbour area who were to initiate a general roving patrol through the
evening and into the night until 06:00 hrs. My 'stag' duty was at 20:00hrs
and 02:00 hours for a two hour stint.
The first guard 'stag' went
without incident. There was just the usual thing of lads having some scoff,
talking quietly under canvas, officers and NCOs planning the next day's
tank movements and preparing for a night's rest as best they
could. The Sgt. Major came up and reminded me to make sure that I woke
up my guard relief five minutes before I was due off. I can assure you
I didn't need reminding! It was cold and snowing. I knew I'd be ready for
my pit come ten o'clock.
"Bob, get up mate." One of
the lads on previous 'stag' duty was waking me for my 02:00hrs guard 'stag'.
I got up and rubbed my face, as the cold night air hit me head on. "Anything
I need to know?" I said. "Just the odd few drunks about from the nearby
village, Bob, so keep your eyes peeled, oh and goodnight. See you in the
morning."
He jumped into his 'doss'
bag and was asleep in seconds. I loaded up my weapon and began a thorough
patrol of my area responsibilities checking every nook and cranny.
Some time later I could hear voices that were getting closer. I moved into the shadows and I could scarcely make out through the darkness and snow some four or five human figures walking up towards where we were harboured. As they got closer they seemed to be swaying, shouting in German and laughing, obviously under the influence. I could now make out five men, possibly in their twenties, walking directly towards me. Two of the men were smoking. I made my presence known, as by now they were some twenty feet away from me. I was standing at the side of my POL wagon and I knew I had some leaking jerry cans on the 4 tonner.
One of the men shouted in German, "Pol ya. Blow up ya" and he began to walk towards me, I shouted back, "Nein, nein. Go back. Raus, raus!" [The Germans know most of the army sayings and abbreviations]. He carried on walking towards me with a lighted cigarette, as he could obviously smell the leaking fuel. I again warned him to back off as best I could. By this time he was about ten feet away from me. He raised his smoking hand in the air ready to flick his lighted fag onto the back of my 4 tonner. I had to protect the men I was guarding. If he flicked that fag end onto my 4 tonner it would invariably explode killing dozens of my colleagues, including myself. I was thinking about the 'green card' rules. He was, without doubt, endangering life but how could I shoot a civilian. I would create an international incident. I could see the morning headline, "British soldier goes on gun riot killing one civilian" but none the less he was creating a situation in which I had to do something in accordance with the 'green card'.
I shouted at him, "No, no, no! roust roust." It was all I could think of to say to him. By this time his hand was fully raised and aimed ready to throw and flick the cigarette simultaneously at the 4 tonner. He had the look of a madman about him and I realized he was going to throw the lighted cigarette onto my truck despite my protests at him not to do so.
I lifted my Sterling sub machine gun into the firing position and cocked the weapon. I aimed the weapon at point blank range at his face and screamed, "ROUST F**KIN NAZI ROUST!"
I quickly knocked the weapon safety catch to 'automatic fire' and shoved the end of the SMG barrel into his eye. I was about to squeeze the trigger when I noticed that his smoking hand was down by his side and that the cigarette was lying on the floor burning harmlessly. Two or three of the other guard 'stag' had run over to my location and were gently reassuring me to move away from the man whom I was about to kill. The man was severely trembling. He had urinated and defecated himself and the smell was awful.
The other four German civilian
men were just stunned, looking at me in absolute horror. I stepped back
about two or three feet away from the man whom I'd just nearly killed keeping
my gun trained at his head.
I finally lowered the weapon.
My colleagues ran up to the poor shocked man and tried to comfort
him, walking him over to his friends and away from the harbour area. I
cleared my weapon and continued my patrol observing my colleagues' return.
"One lucky bastard, that
boxhead. Crazy fucker Bob."
We kept the incident to
ourselves. No one knew and the rest of the night passed without incident.
No one knew that we were all nearly part of an international incident.
That is, all except the guard 'stag' of 02:00-04:00hrs on that cold January
night.
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story, limerick or song that you remember from your service, we would like
to publish it.
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