Military blunders with a twist

[jrhume]

Bien Hoa, Vietnam, 1967

In my helicopter company we had a captain assigned as maintenance officer. The lad was convinced he knew everything there was to know about aviation maintenance -- and then some.

A crew working at night replaced an engine on one of our Chinooks. Our hero showed up in the wee hours and decided it would be dandy to test run the new engine, even though the maintenance inspector hadn‘t checked it over yet.

Someone had left a small bolt lying loose in the intake. Just the sort of thing an inspection is designed to catch -- right? An $80,000 engine soon began a return trip to the depot.

We called him Captain Mechanic after that.

Jim

 

[birdgunner]

Our platoon was Guard Platoon at the famous Banja Luka Metal Factory when we were informed that the Commander SFOR was coming for a visit. Three hours before his aerial arrival, a convoy of four big, black suburbean‘s pulled up to the gate. A rather large and menecing individual walked up and started to talk about making security arragments for the visit. Being only two gunners, we pointed him to the guard house to speak to the shift commander. Just then, the platoon commander (an odd fellow anyway) came around the corner. We yelled to the American that that man was the OIC of security. the officer, feeling proud of the position, stuck his thumbs into the upper pockets of his cbt shirt and began shouting, "YEP! I‘M THE KING OF BANJA LUKA!!" The American turned to see both of us drop our heads in shame at the sight! He said to us, "So that‘s the guard platoon commander? Maybe I should talk to you guys!"

 

[pvandoremalen]

June 6 1944 the allied airborne invasion was set to begin all the drop zones had been confirmed and pathfinders already on the ground. Three airborne divisions were tasked with laying a airborne carpet across Normandy in preperation for the naval landings. Everything was good to go except when the air force was on approach to the DZ‘s they started to floor it and before long the lead planes with the signal beacons that homed in on the pathfinders beacons had over exceeded the rest of the air armada. Now the planes were flying blind into well defended air space and commenced getting shot to crap by German flak defences. Now if that wasn‘t bad enough the planes started to fly low and at high speed when the green light came on. It had the effect of scattering the paratroopers all over the contentin peninsula those that survived the jump that is. Some were dropped to low and were crushed to death on impact with the ground after their chutes failed to open. Others lost their leg bags with weapons when they jumped due to the force of the prop blast. So all in all the mission was fubar due to the poor performance of subordinate officers who completely ruined months of planning and preperation and cost the lives of a good many Canadian, British, and American paratroopers. :akimbo:

 

[Michael Dorosh]

I‘m enjoying the war stories by our leading posters far too much to try and intrude with some historical examples, though I will mention one from the US Civil War.

After routing a Union army by catching it in the rear after a long flanking march and surprise attack, General Thomas Jackson (known by this time as "Stonewall") - one of the most beloved and quite possibly one of the most gifted commanders in the CSA - was killed by fire from night piquets while out reconnoitering for the next day‘s battles.

A subaltern had ordered the piquets to fire, and as it turned out, they were Confederate soldiers who seriously wounded their own commanding general. Stuff happens in war. Jackson died of pneumonia while he recovered from the bullet wounds (including the amputation of one of his arms, which was given a hero‘s grave seperate from his other wordly remains which were interred at Virginia Military Institute, where he had lectured before the war).

I only wish I had my own stories to tell, but this poor old reservist really hasn‘t seen much in the way of sheer incompetence on as grand a scale as some of our "luckier" posters.

If something comes to mind, I‘ll post it, but look forward to some other stories from the vets here.