Page 274 - Demo

270something to eat and then a bath and bed. We were a cheerful crew now all with stories to tell for a bit. We had a bit of wrapping up to do before going home but there was something else. Some of the guys had worked out where we were each night and got a letter headed paper from a nearby pub once we had finished. This was made into a bill for so many evening meals, etc delivered to the various grid references. The last item announced that no-one had been found at the appointed place, this of course was where we had been caught. It had been addressed to the boss as the pub owner did not know where else it could go. He was initially furious but eventually saw the joke. The post of Station CSRO led on to a couple of other things on the same vein. I went To Ashford and did an interrogators course. This was interesting and included a certain amount of psychology. I therefor became a Tactical Questioner (TQ). This meant that I could interrogate prisoners more or less on the battle field I think before they would be given a proper interrogation by someone more qualified. We would disorientate prisoners but were only allowed to blindfold them when escorting them through sensitive areas. Once qualified we would interrogate our own members of the armed forces to train them to resist what might happen to them if caught by Soviet forces. This was what I had gone through at the end of the CSRO course. Sadly, some people thought that was how we should treat our prisoners. I spent several weekends interrogating over the next few years. I would get a list of dates and where they would take place and select which ones I wanted to do. I interrogated some RAF aircrew but that was a bit awkward as I had to ensure that they did not know me. I had one funny incident at Portsmouth. We were using an old Napoleon fort as the interrogation centre. Of course our prisoners had no idea where they were and were always moved about blindfolded. The fort was pretty decrepit and the room we were using was very tatty. The plan was that I would be a nice guy and chat to them in a friendly manner but after a while a colleague,