Tom Balfour recently contacted me about the time he beat up Meppen Range when I was bored stiff as Range Safety Officer.  It was the longest, most boring, week of my RAF career.  The only RAF highlights were one day's live rocket firing and Tommy Balfour's low level visit.  Other memories were of me hanging on to a post for dear life when I was caught in a mini tornado which sent the dust bins, copious quantities of grit and muck, and other loose articles sky high.

Meppen had been Krupps munitions testing ground and, apart from blown-up power houses and control buildings there were large quantities of unexploded shells, mines, bombs, and other nasties in the heather.  One had to keep to paths or risk one's life.  There were a couple of Germans who 'worked' the area, picking up and defusing some of the ammo, then burning out the explosive before selling the metal for scrap.  Dangerous work.   [Click to see F540 report on the Range Opening.]

One afternoon there was an enormous bang and, a few minutes later, one of these chaps came staggering up streaming blood, and with torn clothing, and clearly about to pass out.  The range SNCO and I saw him coming and immediately started up our ambulance and took him, with the Medical Orderly, to the local hospital in Meppen.  The Krankenhaus was run by Nuns, with one Doctor present who, fortunately spoke a little English.  The patient was placed on a stretcher and taken indoors and I was bidden to follow.  There, without anaesthetic, the doctor pulled out a huge piece of shrapnel from the man's thigh.  I nearly passed out, and quickly moved away.  I explained to the doctor what had happened, the Polizei were informed, and that was that.

The airmen at the range grew vegetables for something to do in their plentiful spare time.  They had a large allotment which they had dug near to the accommodation block and office.  One was digging and struck metal.  He called me and I went to investigate.  It was apparent that he had found some Bazooka (or similar) bombs.  They were dangerously close to the buildings.  Action had to be taken.  Foolishly, rather than inform Oldenburg, Meppen's mother station, and call out a Bomb Disposal Unit, I took the matter into my own hands.  After ensuring that all personnel were a distance away I carefully dug round the offending objects and was able to hook a garden fork through the fins of the three of them at the same time.  Even more carefully I raised them out of the shallow hole and carried them what I judged to be a safe distance away into some trees and carefully lowered them in a hollow in the ground.  Job done.

Near that spot were trenches and in them were Wehrmacht helmets and water bottles with bullet holes through them and several heavily rusted small arms - clearly the scene of a wartime firefight.  I have other memories, too.  The strongest one was that of being bored to the point of sinking low enough to read MAFL and QRs & ACIs as a form of amusement to fill time.  I suppose it did some good because I found the Law paper reasonably easy in my Promotion Exams!

Ken Senar reports in February 2008 that he had recently watched a video about the new German experimental mag-lev trains.   By coincidence I also shortly afterwards was studying a map of North Germany and there, at the old Meppen Range area near the village of Lathen, was the extensive mag-lev experimental track.   The unexploded ammo and mines from that area must have been cleared and the erstwhile highly dangerous heathland would have become 'available'.   Being level and alongside the, (in his day under construction), Dortmund-Ems canal there would be good communications.