Maggie - RAF slang for a Miles Magister aircraft
MO - medical officer
M/T - motor transport
O4 - German divisional general staff officer
OC - Officer Commanding
OCTU - Officer Cadet Training Unit
On the peg -under arrest
OP - observation post
ORs - other ranks (i.e. not commissioned officers)
puggled - drunk
QA - Queen Alexandra Imperial Military Nursing Service
RASC - Royal Army Service Corps
RTR - Royal Tank Regiment
R/T - radio transmitter
RV - rendezvous
sitrep - situation report
Spandau - German light machine-gun; in May 1940, most were MG34s, but British troops tended to call all such weapons 'Spandaus' after the location stamp marked on the German Maxim guns of the First World War
Snowdrops - RAF Military Police
Stonk – a sustained artillery barrage
vic – V-shaped formation of three aircraft, with the lead plane at the point of the ‘V’
Acknowledgments
My thanks to the following: Roger Baker, Oliver Barnham, Dr Peter Caddick-Adams, Clive Denney, Rob Dinsdale, Richard Dixon, Phil Harding, Professor Rick Hillum, Lalla Hitchings, Staff Sergeant Steve Hurst, Steve Lamonby, Peta Nightingale, Hazel Orme, Bill Scott-Kerr and all at Bantam, Lieutenant-Colonel John Starling, Jake Smith-Bosanquet, Patrick Walsh, Guy Walters, Major Steve White, Rachel, Ned and Daisy.
