I joined 47 in November 1959 and our first major exercise was in the spring of 1960 on Luneburg Heath. I was assigned to go with the recovery Scammel we had borrowed from 1 BR Corps. Our first job was to re-right a crane that had toppled over while trying to lift a missile can due to the operator forgetting to pin the stabiliser legs properly. It was situated in a farm yard with no room to get our vehicle in to get a straight pull, but directly opposite was a barn with doors on both sides so we decided to winch through the barn. Just then the Colonel turned up and asked to be briefed on the situation. As I explained they opened the doors to the barn and it was full of potatoes; he took one look and said "Good. Mashed potatoes tonight!".
We completed the operation with ease, he asked my name and left. We were then called to a command vehicle that had driven into a ditch in the middle of a field and when we got there the battery people were trying to pull it out with no success, so we just stood back and watched. Then the Colonel turned up, came over to me and said "What's the problem Corporal?"
"Too many people trying to tell us how to do our job, Sir".
He called over the Battery Commander and said "Haven't your men got anything better to do? Let 'Bluebell' get on with the job they are trained to do." Within minutes every one had disappeared and we extracted the vehicle from the ditch with ease.
The aftermath of this is that the Colonel never forgot my name and I was often called out after hours for a recovery job when he couldn't locate anyone else.