Thread: Ballard Hut

@300Shortmag,heres a Sunday yarn about the Ballard longdrop.when I was working for the FS in the Kawekas we got an urgent SOS call from higher up.Told to go look for a squad of lost NZ Army troops in the depths of winter after an extended stint of shyte wx.Said to be in the Mohaka- Mangatarutu- Ballard general area.Waiouru hadn't heard on the radio net for several days and were getting extremely concerned.But this was a hush job not utilizing the conventional Police SAR system as the Army was highly embarrassed,because this had followed their fubar disaster on Ruapehu losing several troops to hypothermia.History repeating...
Me and one other starting humping in over the J in deep soft snow from Makuhu Base .Equipped with a heavy but grunty Codan single side band radio with unlimited coms out to Kaweka HQ to report our findings.A couple of days of sifting around we found them all lost,alivebedraggled,soaked to the skin in their issue cotton gear,cold and their radio us.They still had all their gear in their rucksacks,enuff 556 live Ammo to rid the Kaweka of the Japs and their M16's to burn the ammo.We duly informed HQ of their predicament,took them to the nearest hut (Ballard) to warm them up in front of the fire,etc.
Waioru via Kaweka HQ said where coming in with an Iroquois to drag their sorry arse out of their if the marginal flying conditions would allow.ETA a couple of hours.Nurse maid them til then.Replied the helipad ain't be enuff to put an Iroquois down.Repied we'll Winchester them out one at a time,but tell them to reduce the lift weight.So the squaddies started rifling thru their rucksacks,binning awesome brand new field kit down the dunny.Me and ol mate got down on as much as we could haul back over the J as we weren't getting a lift out- too heavy.
And that left the heaviest item- hundreds of rounds of 556.Easiest way to get rid of that problem was to fire it all off.Me and ol mate had only used bolt guns ,so it was a hello a thrill to get the job of blowing it away.
If you rat around the hut site ,there's probably still a great pile of brass there,anyd if you wanna go for a deep dive- a shit ton of mess gear,canteens,ratpacks,sleeping bags ,etc at the bottom of the long drop.
Photos of self doing the John Rambo pose with one of the M16's and the helilift back to Waioru in clearing wx