The Flamethrower

The training became rather intensive and highly specialized. For instance at one point somebody had the bright idea that a carrier load of flame throwers could be a very good offensive weapon. So they gave the, and of course the largest number of carriers to be found in any unit would have been in a reconnaissance unit, so they picked the 17th or the 7th Recce and they gave us flame thrower mounted carriers. And we trained at a place called Wokingham. We did that training for two or three weeks I guess it was, and we rapidly came to the conclusion that it was, the flame thrower was more a terror weapon than an act of, than a killer weapon, because we'd had accidents. People would get sprayed by the flame and you could brush it off. Your first idea when you got sprayed by the flame was now what's going to happen, but it became obvious that you could brush it off your clothing, it's a terror weapon really, once you understood it you didn't worry too much about it.