I was transferred from the Air Force Fire Hall at Camp Borden, Ontario to No 2 Fighter Wing HQ at Grostenquin, France, in the autumn of l954. Following a disembarkment leave in St. Thomas, Newfoundland, with my parents and siblings in November, l954, I was exempted from having to travel to Montreal, PQ, to join the draft leaving that point via CN passenger train to Halifax, Nova Scotia. I was permitted by Training Command, Trenton, Ontario, to travel directly to Halifax from St.John's and which I did via rail and ferry. I was housed at the transient barracks at South Station at Halifax, NS, untill 1 December, l954, when I met the draft and boarded the liner "Neptunia" of the Royal Greek Lines and leaving there on that date, we arrived nine days later at Cherbourg, France. I met LAC Burbidge of Pincer Creek, Alberta, another airman posted to #2 Wing also. He was a veteran of WW II and appeared to me to be an old man though less than 30 years of age and single.
The Air Force put on a dinner of several main courses for us at Cherbourg and we were given a bus tour of the battlefields nearby and at the coast sites since it was early in the day and the Paris train did not leave Cherbourg, till 5:00 p.m. Though some people avoided the bus tour, Burbidge and I went on it and boarded the train for Paris, France at the appointed time. We were housed overnight at the Hotel Papillion at that point. There, I met an LAC Lawrence who was from St. John's, NF and beginning his second tour of duty in Europe. He and I escaped the eyes of the AF police posted at the doorways of the hotel, and via the fire escape got out and saw some of the sites of "gay Paree" and which Lawrence seemed to be a pro. We got back into the hotel undetected via the same iron ladder fastened to the building, and were ready to take the train the next morning at 7:00 a.m., for Metz, France.
We arrived there in due course and then went on to the fighter base (F-86 and T-33 trainers in those days along with all the prop aircraft from WW II including the Halifax). It was a Saturday and almost suppertime when we arrived there, only to be informed by the Orderly Officer that both Burbidge and I had been while enroute, re-posted to #1 Air Division HQ at Metz. We took another train back (about 30 kms if memory serves me well now), and we were met at the "Gare" at Metz by a Duty NCO, a corporal Pete (?) who was a Ukranian-Canadian from Winnipeg, Manitoba. Pete informed us there was nothing at the base which serviced the Chateau de Mercy and whose Commanding Officer was of the rank of a Flight Lieutenant. He informed us moreover, that we would be staying at a downtown hotel since the male barracks on base, was used for the duty fire picket, the firefighters on duty, and by defaulters particularly.
We had no problem staying at a hotel in which he recommended. Its name slips my mind now, but its foyer had glass cages of love birds which one night an Airman whose name we all immediately forgot, opened the sliding glass doors of these cages and the birds flew about the public areas of the hotel including the adjoining bar, much to the ire of the management. An ensuing investigation never revealed the name of the perpetrator of this incident. The RCAF paid the sum of 13 mille francs (old francs at the time were 280 for a dollar and at that time Canadian and US dollars were at par, I think - A British pound was $2.80 Canadian at that time).
We had a Deputy Fire Chief Collins at #2 Fighter Wing and who was adamant that we at #1 Air Div HQ in Metz, France, be rotated to the continously flying base at #2 Fighter Wing which to us was living out in the "boonies" and in barracks undergoing a pay cut. Notwithstanding our faith in W01 Lefebvre, the then Fire Chief of #2 Fighter Base at Grostenquin, (we all know the WO who was in our time the boss of the fire-fighting school at RCAF station at Aylmer, Ontario -- a World War II vet who initially came from Sudbury, Ontario, a very fatherly Catholic gentleman who drove a rather large for European paved roads, a green l955 Pontiac and whose first family visit was to the Vatican that year), Collins succeeded in my transfer from the good life of Metz, with one old fire truck bought in England and which needed three gallons of oil to drive from Calais to Metz, and a indeterminate number of 15 gallon water-filled extinguishers situated around the Castle (Chateau de Mercy HQ) and outlying buildings thereof, to the continuous flying station of Base Arienne, Grostenquin, France, with the village of Lelling and "Ma Hemerings" establishment with a pile of horse manure fronting her establishment as the best cafe/bar in town.
I went to Grostenquin in May, l955 and with Corporals Bedard and Mason, we were on the crew of the T-l00 which seemed to stay always at the fire shack on the airfield itself and pilots continued to do their "bumps and grinds" while practising "take off" and "landing" techniques with their newly-found jets for NATO. (I was mailed via ordinary mail from Ottawa, the special service medal for NATO, 39 years after I was repatriated -- that is the antithesis of ceremony) and cumulatively, we were responsible for our area of the airfield inasmuch as we had an ack-ack gun to man as well. Since Bedard was too fat to fit into the gun's seat of straps, I took his position as being next in line seniority-wise. The gun was loaded with cameras and mock battles with the French and American air forces were fairly regular. We must have done okay because we received no complaints from the office of the TTO at the administration building.
The rule at the time for staying overseas was: married men who left their families in Canada and single airman could be repatriated after one year's service while married members whose families accompanied them to continental Europe (perhaps those at RCAF Langar, Notts. England as well), remained overseas for three years. Accordingly, being single and mad to join the police, I returned to Canada via North Star plane arriving at RCAF Lachine, Quebec,on December 7th l955 thanks to WO LeFebvre. I obtained my release four days later and boarded the CN train for St. John's, Newfoundland. I joined the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary one week after returning to Newfoundland on my birthday of that year (December l5, l955 when I was 21 years of age). I did not like street patrol in uniform after seeing "gay Paree" so I applied and was accepted to the RCM Police and begun recruit training including swimming and equitation at Depot Division, Regina, Saskatchewan in May, l957.
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