Spectacles, Testicles, Fags & Matches

Spectacles, testicles, fags and matches was a ritual used by Servicing Commandos after doing anything they called ‘hairy’. It was a completely non-religious act, but strangely comforting.

From the jungles of Burma to the foggy plains of Germany, the RAF Servicing Commandos were the men who kept the most advanced aircraft of the RAF flying. Yet there has been very little written about them. Historians, up to today, are surprised to learn of their existence and astonished to learn of their activities. But without those Units the RAF would have had great difficulty in providing close cover for the forward troops and the fighter planes would have spent less time in action.

These elite Units serviced and maintained, re-armed and re-fuelled, repaired and recovered the front line aircraft on which so much depended, and did it all immediately behind the most forward troops. Fully trained in the techniques of Combined Operations they could land from the seas on any hostile territory and establish new airstrips almost instantaneously. Equipped to be highly mobile, and to defend themselves and their airstrips, they would be ready to service the fighter squadrons within minutes, and service them quicker than they had ever been serviced before.

They are, surprisingly, the Forgotten Men. This is their story told by the men themselves.