Ref ; USS Ponce.

 

Funny reading about the "Ponce". I was a WAFU back in the day.

 

One fine Sunday morning in 1990; I was at home enjoying a Sunday roast with my Mum & Dad, when the phone rings. My Mum answers it and its the OOD from Portland telling me to "Get my arse back to the airstation first thing Monday".

 

Theres me, a young AEM(WL) on my first squadron (815 NAS) wondering why the OOD needs me back so quick. Imagine my surprise when I walks into the Flight office to find all of 233 Flt (HMS Alacrity) waiting to see what was occurring. The SMR had no Idea, nor did the Boss (Pilot).

 

Anyway, we didn't have to wonder for long as we were informed in short order that the warring factions in Sierra Leone had not seen the line on the map and had accidentally crossed into Liberia. As we were the only Lynx flight available (The Alacrity was in AMP in Guz) we were to stop loafing in Portland and fly out to aid the war effort......

 

Long story short, we arrived in Freeport, Sierra Leone after a hell of a drinking session aboard a British Airways Jumbo Jet (Club class all the way so the Jack Daniels started at breakfast and didn't stop all day). There was the Gibraltar flight lynx waiting on the hardstanding to whisk us off to RFA Tidespring, which would be our home for the operation. We were to fly a bunch of long-haired pongoes from Hereford ashore every day to do Army stuff until it was time for tea and medals.

 

The ship we were RASing every few days was....yes you guessed it, The "Ponce" - a medium sized Helicopter assault ship similar to HMS Ocean (only bigger!! - Bloody yanks!!) They were doing the same as us, but instead of one poxy Lynx with a couple of Hereford hooligans, they had a squadron of Sea Knights and an entire US Marine Regiment...

 

We had a great time during our RAS's hanging "Pooftah" signs over the side of the Tidespring for the US Sailors and Marines on board - funny how some things never get old... Especially when we would cross-deck to give them S**t about it.

 

Anyway, fast forward 12 years and I find myself out of the Andrew and living in Florida. In a town called St Augustine which was discovered (As rightly mentioned in a previous dit) by a Spanish Geezer named Ponce de Leon, looking for the Fountain Of Youth.

 

We have a waterway nearby called "Ponce Inlet"...... It's a natural exit from the Inter Coastal Waterway (A kind of canal system) out to the Atlantic. Problem is I'm the only one who laughs when yachties talk about "coming through Ponce Inlet" - "entering the Ponce" etc

 

It's a crying shame that there are no other Matelots around here to share the gag.

 

Barry "Red" Raw