Regimental Histories - Year 1960-1985 - Brockbank - Page 0122
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A Short Hirtory aft/1e 9rh/12rh Lancer: were the easily found friendships with nearby regiments and the sporting and social Opportunities that these provided. Instead there was an attractive and friendly town nearby, good playing fields, the Harz mountains an hour away, Berlin only a bit further and numbers of friendly landowners and farmers nearby. The sparsely inhabited countryside provided an adequate training ground for the light tracked vehicles and transport existed to take teams to as many away matches as they liked. The Regiment made the best of all this. It was sad that it had hardly settled in before the news arrived of the death of Sergeant Oram Whilst in Ulster. He had received a Mention in Despatches after his first tour of duty in the Province and this was followed by the very rare distinction of the award of a Military Medal during his second tour. Mrs Oram received his award posthumously from The Queen. Early in 1984 Captain Rutledge took over as Adjutanti He was soon involved with the preparation of the interesting annual exercise called “Probex”. This was a hangover from the Berlin airlift when land access to west Berlin had been severed. National contingents from the British, United States and French forces gathered at Wolfenbuttel to train for a future crisis which might necessitate an effort to re-open autobahn and rail routes to Berlin. It was always a jolly international gathering hosted by the Regiment. For the first time since returning to BAOR the sabre squadv runs were now equipped identically. This made possible a healthy rivalry on training and in competitions. Four sabre squadrons each of only three recce troops limited the frontage that could be covered by the Regiment and so a good deal of time was wisely devoted to training in half troops, rather than on extensive regimental exercises, to remedy this. It was excel~ lent training for junior NCOs. 1984 was a year without a summer in Germany. The Mons/Moy weekend at the end of May was lucky with the weather and brought back to Wolfenbuttcl many old 12th Lancers who had left it in 1959. An unusual foray was the trip to Rome in August to commemorate the audience given by Pope Pius the VI in 1793 to three officers of the 12th Light 118 |
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