Every military base I’ve ever been to has had displays of equipment. I can still remember the directions I was given the first time I went to Pax River – “turn right at the plane on a stick.” And when I got there, I turned right at the plane on a stick to visit the Armament hanger. Sometimes, things are exactly what they seem:
Apparently when Lincolnshire County Council were widening the road past RAF Scampton’s main gate in about 1958, the ‘gate guards’ there had to be moved to make way for the new carriageway. Scampton was the WWII home of 617 Sqn, and said “gate guards” were a Lancaster…and a Grand Slam bomb.When they went to lift the Grand Slam, thought for years to just be an empty casing, with an RAF 8 Ton Coles Crane, it wouldn’t budge.
Read the rest if you can’t figure out what happened or want to find out just how big a 22,000 lb bomb is.
I’m reminded of the story my old english teacher, Mr. Felling, used to tell of when he was assigned to a destroyer in the Navy. He went aboard, and noticed the sailors would sit and smoke on the depth charges- the live depth carges that is. At first, he thought they were crazy, but within a couple of weeks he too was lounging and smoking on the depth charges.
