Black Eye Fridays

Just to prove that I am an old fart nowadays, being a Gunner I did my basic training on a 25 Pounder field gun, the same guns that were used in WW2. Below is an extract from my book about this fabulous artillery piece. It only seems like yesterday that I was pulling these monsters around the football pitch in Nuneaton with an NCOs boot up my arse and a black eye to remind me to lay the gun correctly. Happy days.


We didn’t know it then, but we were to be the last intake to learn our trade on 25 pounders, one of the best artillery pieces used by the British Army and a mainstay of our troops in the Second World War. This gun weighed 1.8 tonnes but that felt like twenty tonnes when you had to run around the football field pulling the bastard after f***ing up laying (aiming) the gun properly. Worst of all was if you were laying the gun in an anti-tank role in the gunnery hangar. There was a small wooden tank on the other side of the hangar and the idea was that you looked at it through the telescopic sight and lined it up, slap bang in the middle. Once you finished, you moved away so that your Number One (NCO) would apply his critical eye to the sight. This was a very nervous time and the nerves only increased as he pulled away and invited you to take another look. You would put your eye back to the sight, a large fist would then smash your head into it and stars would erupt all around you. Then you would set off around the football pitch, dragging your 25 pounder, nursing a black eye and wondering how far you’d been from the centre of that f****g wooden tank.

Extract from Watching Men Burn.





© Mack (RG) The thoughts of a Falklands War Veteran.
Rogue_gunner_32_alpha@yahoo.co.uk
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