Page 21 - KRH Year of 2021 CREST

The Regimental Journal of The King’s Royal Hussars 19
Morale ran high off the back of live firing and the Squadron con- tinued to train hard in preparation for the exercise. The virtual battlefields of CATT UK and the Wessex plains played host to numerous events for the KRH BG. Major Lambert revealed his true competitive nature as he inadvertently went head-to-head with the outgoing Regimental 2ic in a tank dual akin to the infa- mous action at the Valley of the Tears, and Cpl Quayle was briefly left in a field as Mr Cavendish forgot how many individuals made up the crew of a Challenger 2.
Returning from their summer leave the Squadron once again deployed to the Pembroke coast. The intensity was ramped up as a whole battlegroup squeezed onto ‘mega ranges’ for a month of live firing: no more Stackpole or overpriced Fosters. The situa- tion teetered precariously in the grey space of semi-non-tac, cam cream on and a PED policy that changed like a broken traffic light. The fatigue affected some more than others, and the Squadron 2ic was caught battling it out with a particularly stubborn cot bed one morning – taking a vicious blow to the head in his efforts to pack away his nemesis. Fortunately, Sgt Bates gleefully documented the whole experience for the sake of posterity. Others suffered too; LCpl Taylor became a prisoner of geography as it dawned on him that the [Welsh] Castlemartin training estate did not border directly onto [English] SPTA, and that the battlegroup would not in fact be driving straight onto the plain for the final part of the exercise as he had previously imagined.
Our time on SPTA was cut short with the BG parking up the vehi- cles and rapidly deploying into CATT(UK) over a 48hr period. With the freedom to fight over any terrain in SW England, the Sqn looked forward to finally achieving BATUS esque sweep- ing manoeuvre and large-scale armoured action. Of course, we then conducted three days constrained fighting on a simulated SPTA. Fortunately, the powers that be then released the beast, with A Sqn securing the top three kill counts of the BG, with Sgt Kingston and Tpr Nuamah in 11B scoring Top Gun (and revel- ling in taking the ‘old’ CO’s callsign).
Although this year has primarily revolved around becom- ing the lead armoured battlegroup, the officers and soldiers of A Squadron still made time to carry out other critical activities. Sports and AT were abundant. EX IRON STRIDE saw many of the Squadron travel to the dampest parts of the UK and take part in everything from Kayaking to Sky Diving. SSgt Lees organ- ised an epic charity challenge, which saw a small team complete the Three Peaks and the Welsh 3000 back-to-back in under 48 hours. This was no mean feat and raised several thousand pounds for Combat Stress UK. Braving the perils of Grib Goch and liv- ing off an endless supply of easy peelers (dutifully provided by Cpl Brown and his G4 machine), the team deliriously finished an event only completed once before and set an unofficial world record in the process.
After boring everyone about it for a whole year Lt Cavendish and Sgt Kingston finally organised EX WHITE KNIGHT and pre- cariously lead the team out to Switzerland in a battered fleet of white vans before sadly having to return to the UK in the face of growing COVID restrictions.
All in all, it has been a roller coaster of a year for the Squadron, battling through numerous tasks in support of the COVID response before returning to life as a mounted Sabre Squadron. Next year promises to be even busier as Pte Manners dusts off everyone’s passports in preparation for a year on the continent and a rather lengthy holiday in the Baltic.
AWN