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SOLDIER OF THE MONTH
Rifleman J. Ballantyne
1st Battalion Scottish Rifles
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Rifleman Ballantyne served as a regimental cook with Alpha Company 1st Battalion for 9 years. His friend Jim Kane who served with him in BAOR takes up the story... 'If there was a difficult way to do any task then he would find it! But he always produced the goods when required. When Alpha comapny were on exercise and using compo rations (standard basic rations), Bally (Ballantyne) would take a tin of Pom (Mashed Potato Powder) or a tin of chocolates or sweets and do a trade with the German farmers and always came off best. On one exercise on the Austrian border, after about ten days of living off compo rations, C/Sgt. Robertson gave Bally a tin of chocolate and sweets and sent him to a village about two miles from camp at 0930 hours. |
After two and a half to three hours a mobile vehicle drove into the camp site and Bally fell out of the passenger side, drunk. Clasped in his hand was his tin of chocolate and sweets. Bally spoke to the driver of the vehicle, then proceeded to unload the goods that he was carrying - fresh vegetables, fruit, bread, eggs, meat and fish. There was enough to feed about two hundred. I don't know how he did it but from then for on any deals like this, Bally was our man.'
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Photograph and information courtesy of Jim Kane