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Editor’s Note: Former BW Commanding Officer (1980-83) Hal Klepak has contributed some anecdotes for our reader’s enjoyment ...
HAL’S ANECDOTES
By LCol (Ret) Harold P. Klepak, CM, CD
Having commanded the battalion myself at one time, I hope I may be forgiven by other former commanding officers, not to mention the current one, if I tell a story, perhaps known to some of you, about another regiment in the First World War. During that dreadful conflict, senior and especially staff officers gained a terrible reputation, which only a relatively few deserved, of preferring to stay well away from the front-line trenches and danger. While this calumny has been disproved by modern historical research (see the very useful Bloody Red Tabs for solid proof of its falsehood), it gave rise to many stories some of which were even true.
Well, in this regiment, an especially ferocious German counter- attack had driven the few remaining lead elements of the unit into a disorganised retreat. During that unfortunate fracas, one particular soldier stumbled past in the confusion the commanding officer’s dug-out. The CO rallied the man who promptly said to him, in his disarray, ‘Sorry, sergeant, I lost my head. I’ll get right back into the line.’ The colonel, pleased and displeased at the same instant, replied, ‘You do that, and I’m not a sergeant, I’m the Colonel.’ To this the astonished soldier blurted out, ‘Gosh, I didn’t realise I had run that far!’
In fact, casualty rates among senior officers were very high indeed in that war. Ah, officer/other rank relations. They’re always good for a laugh. As are relations between the Guards regiments and the rest of the infantry. I lived one fun incident when attached to the Parachute Regiment in London in the early 1970s. My OC (I was a mere platoon commander) was a mad Australian named ‘Ron’ Schulz, a truly fine major later to become a good friend of the Canadian Black Watch.
To the surprise of all, a young Guards lieutenant appeared at the Company all ranks mess one day, anxious for an attachment to the famous regiment. As a Guards officer he was of course accustomed to the long-standing tradition of ‘Christian names only in the mess’ (except for the CO, naturally), the practice in all Guards regiments here and in the mother country. Time passed smoothly enough until at one briefing for all ranks, this young officer addressed the OC as ‘Ron’ in front of all the troops. The horrified CSM, a giant of a man with a frequently-deployed withering stare, stepped in immediately with the phrase, ‘Sir, you are addressing the officer commanding.’ Shaken, the offending youth smiled sheepishly at the OC and enquired softly, “Sorry. Shall I call you ‘Ronald’?”
So many anecdotes I remember are about the Royal Family and especially our late Colonel-in-Chief that I wonder if I can try your patience with yet another. As some veterans of the occasion perhaps will remember, at the 1974 Presentation of the New Queen’s Colour (one based on the then new Maple Leaf flag then replacing that with the Union Jack) to the Regiment, the Queen Mother’s party arrived rather late for the occasion. Thus, the parade was delayed a bit as well (it could hardly start without her!).
Her Majesty, after the parade, unruffled by the time, spent a very long time indeed with the other ranks of the Regiment before moving on to meet the Senior NCOs and finally the officers, meaning of course she was even more behind schedule by the time she arrived to meet the RSM and his happy group, fresh from the rigours of a major parade. After even more time with these gentlemen, the Colonel-in-Chief, showing great pleasure at being with ‘her’ regiment, moved on to meet her officers.
By this time, her Royal Air Force helicopter pilot, desperate to get going to the next event, said rather too loudly to the Queen Mother’s equerry, ‘we simply must get a move-on. We’re hopelessly late as it is,’ a comment overheard by the Colonel-in-Chief. She turned on the long-suffering young officer, smiled broadly and regally, and said softly but with determination, ‘” Oh, you’ll think of something.” She then carried on with her time with the officers. Of this sort of thing lasting loyalty is made.
One of the Regiment’s mainstays in the difficult and lean years of the1970s was a very large Russian bear of an officer, the famous Alex Malashenko. Alex was brilliant as leader, tactician, administrator, and planner and saved more than one commanding officer (including me) from coming to grief at times of inspections by higher headquarters. But Alex did not suffer fools gladly. On one training weekend with another regiment which at that time suffered from the presence in its ranks of some subalterns whose behaviour left more than a little to be desired, there was a joint mess dinner to celebrate the occasion. The offending subalterns of this Regiment did their best to make the evening a shambles.
The next day, after more range work, the Commanding Officer of the other regiment remarked to Alex, then a captain, ‘I think next time we have a weekend training together, we should include some time for mess etiquette for the subalterns. Alex smiled wryly and replied. ‘Don’t think so, sir. As for ours, they don’t need it. And as for yours, it’s too late.” That was Alex. He is missed by all who knew him.
Shortly before Alex joined the Regiment, another legend in the Officers’ Mess, had already arrived with us. This was Mike Boire, a simply splendid officer whom the troops adored and the other officers, myself included, admired greatly. Mike was what is called, rightly, a born soldier. He looked the part of an officer and was the part. Fearless, determined, a great instructor, a tactical whizz, a real leader, and a gentleman. Soon married to the model of a soldier’s wife, Catherine, Mike marked the Regiment from the first day. On parade he was seriousness itself. Well, until one day, he also could be seen smiling wryly and indeed unable to quite control a slight laugh when the CO, the redoubtable Leonard ‘Len’ Ferdon, found the battalion on parade a bit slovenly, and shouted out, ‘I want to see you all erect.’ Even now, 47 years later, I can still see Mike trying to stifle his chortle before it came out too loudly. He barely succeeded but succeed he did.
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