Dale Johnson

Stripped down, topless and covered in mud - all ready for a dirty weekend in Goodwood. The body work is not bad for a 40 year old either, and she was raring to show it off at that special event. But you can see her most days as she purrs back and forth from Longham to Christchurch.

Dale Johnson bought his pride and joy - an Austin Champ - for £1,500 and displayed her charms at an event where fellow enthusiasts drooled over 3,000 ex-military vehicles.

Now 61, Dale was one of the last people to be conscripted into the British Army and led 150 colleagues in the parade at the Cenotaph on Sunday. "I wore my 40 yr old National Service beret and marched past very proudly," he said.

Commissioned into the Royal Artillery 40 years ago, Dale served in the British Army of the Rhine in a barracks which had once been Goering's Luftwaffe HQ.

"I was assistant adjutant and my office had been Goering's wine cellar," he said.

His hairiest moment came when "World War III" broke out at the height of the cold war. He was the duty officer on exercise in the Netherlands in 1962, when the signal came through in the middle of the night. Checking a code word in the Top Secret book, Dale discovered that "hostilities" had broken out.
Should he send the unit back into Germany to defend its bridge over the River Weser?

"At that point, I decided to wake up the Colonel, who checked it out", said Dale. "Somebody had used the wrong code word but for about 20 muntes we actually thought WWIII had started - the adrenaline was running very high."

Since demob, Dale has worked in retail, as a sheep farmer, and run a motel in New Zealand. These days the grandfather-of-two lives in Ham Lane with his wife Bridgette and works as a care assistant at Christchurch Hospital. But for 20 years he has nurtured a love for ex-military vehicles.

"I was indoctrinated when I did my National Service," he said. He once owned an amphibious DUKW and drove it onto the French shore during an exercise in 1984 to commemorate the Normandy landings.

"My real love is the Champ - like many a National Serviceman, I drove it as part of my every day work. It's very rugged and dependable, built to do a specialist job." Astonishingly, the one he owns was produced only a few spaces on the production line from the one he drove as a subaltern.

Although Bridgette finds it "a bit hard on the bottom", they use it every day. "If you have got an old vehicle, the best thing is to drive it regularly - it'll probably be going strong for the next 40 years," said Dale.

"There's just something about ex-military vehicles; the Jeep is so glamorous - it's part of the romantic image of World War II."

Article by Sharen Green, in the "Daily Echo", Saturday November 18th 2000