“Fight Against Stupidity
And Bureaucracy”
I’m sure
you have never heard of Col Dan Raschen. I would guess that very few have. I
only found out about him and his series of autobiographical works thanks to a
mention by Mr Stephen Pile in his Heroic Failures book. Born in 1925, Raschen
was in the British Army for thirty-three years and retired with the rank of
Colonel.
Whilst Col
Raschen cannot be classed as either stupid or a failure, he does nevertheless
rate a mention in the fasab blog because his journey through the military ranks
was not without a few bumps and bruises.
His four
books of autobiography are written with a self-effacing modest humour and if
you are interested in that kind of work, well worth a read.
They
include adventures such as…..
After
Wellington College and Peterhouse, Cambridge his service in the Royal Engineers
took him, at the end of World War II, first to a new campaign in the East
Indies then back to India for the country's partition from Pakistan (Book, “Wrong Again Dan!”).
When he was
on his way to India to join his regiment he lost all his underwear and his only
pair of pyjamas while washing them out of a porthole. All the ship’s cutlery
went the same way when he threw out a basin of dishwater. The troops had to eat
with their fingers for the rest of the voyage.
On arrival
he was instantly accused of murder. The case only foundered when he pointed at
his supposed victim grinning cheerfully in the growing crowd of onlookers.
So
enthusiastic was his performance during tests for a commission that after the
obstacle course he had to wait for other less interesting candidates to finish
so they could come back and rescue him from beneath a railway sleeper.
Whilst in
charge of three amphibious tanks, he lost all them in one week. Two got stuck
in a pond and one went through the wall of his own accommodation.
After
completing his degree at Cambridge, Dan volunteered for the Korean War, where
the pheasant shooting was of high repute. Because the pheasants lived in or
near minefields, which were Dan's particular concern, he managed to combine
pleasure with eighteen months of war (Book, “Send
Port & Pyjamas!”).
For one so
exquisitely disaster prone a career in explosives was the inevitable course.
Back in
England efforts were made to train Dan in military technology, and his
subsequent soldiering was unusually varied in scope. After a spell in a weapons
design team, he went to the Central Pacific to command an independent unit and
to advise on coral blasting (Book, “Don't
Step on a Stonefish!”).
After an
intense period of training he arrived at the South Pacific to blow up some
coral reef, never having attempted it before. His finest hour came when he
moored his own boat to the very bit of reef that was receiving his closest
attention.
In his own
words he says, ‘One likes to think that
there have been people who have been worse, but admittedly it does seem
unlikely’.
Home again,
Dan was an ammunition instructor before returning to Cambridge to command the
University Officers Training Corps. His second command was of a Royal Engineers
regiment in Germany. Then he and his wife, Judy, were delighted to spend three
years in Sweden with Dan being the British Military Attaché (Book, “Diplomatic Dan”).
On his
return to England Dan was Project Manager for Infantry Weapons, and then a
Colonel at the Royal Military College of Science, Shrivenham, Oxfordshire.
After retiring from the army in 1979, he continued to work at the College as a
scientific civil servant for a further twelve years. While there he invented "Raschen Bags", an
indestructible cushion for use under mortars.
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