Metz, France

After another leave to see my family I was off to RCAF Base Rockcliffe, Ottawa where I boarded a plane for France.

I recall we left after dark. That was probably so we would arrive in Europe during the day. The planes in those days are not like the airliners we ride in today. To start with we didn't have any jets, they were all propeller driven. The one I went on was known as a North Star. It is actually a cargo plane but that was as close as you got to an airliner in the Air Force in those days. The North Star was a four engine turboprop and the one I got into had seats at the front that are similar to those used in airliners but the back was open area for large cargo such as jeeps etc. On either side of this cargo area there were canvas seats known as jump seats. I guess they were also used in planes to parachute out of as well.

I sat in one of the jump seats along the side for the first part of the flight. This was not at all comfortable but it wouldn't have done any good to complain. The first leg of the journey was to Goose Bay, Labrador. I can still see the engines, two on each side, spitting great amounts of fire out the back. I guess this was normal as they continued to do so for the whole trip. During the day you didn't notice this but at night it was a real site. We offloaded some cargo and some of the passengers at Goose Bay and for the remainder of the trip we all had a seat in the front part of the plane where it was quite a bit more comfortable. I have to say the most memorable part of the trip was the noise. The old North Star was not in any way insulated so it was very cold near the outsides and the noise was almost unbearable. I don't recall whether we were issued ear protectors or not but I do know for six months after my arrival in Europe I could still feel that drumming in my ears.

When we departed from Goose Bay it was still dark and I finally fell asleep. I think we each had a pillow and a blanket and we slept in the seats. When I awoke it was daylight and we were over the North Atlantic. Another thought that stays in my mind is the movement of the wings on that plane. The North Star was quite a large plane and the wings were very long. Anyway, I am sure the wing tips moved up and down at least six feet. I think I was told after that this is true and quite normal. You have to remember this was my first airplane ride so I was a bit apprehensive about things like that.

Our first sight of land was Scotland and we landed somewhere for fuel. We then went on to an Air Force Base we had in England. I don't recall the name of the base anymore but do remember the breakfast that I had. The place we were taken to eat was run by British people or at least the cooks were British. I ordered a toasted bacon and tomato sandwich. To my surprise when it arrived the bread was not toasted but the tomato was. Not toasted actually but fried. I learned later that this is a regular dish, fried tomatoes, in England.

From England we continued on to Zweibrucken, Germany. Canada had four flying bases in Europe, 1 Wing (Marville, France), 2 Wing (Grostenquin France), 3 Wing (Zweibrucken, Germany) and 4 Wing (Baden Soelingen, Germany), plus Headquarters and 61 AC&W (Aircraft Control and Warning) Squadrons at Metz, France. We landed at Zweibrucken and changed planes there. From there we were put into a DC-3, Dakota. This was a considerably smaller plane, two engines and while on the ground sat at quite an angle, rising up from a small tail wheel to two large wheels under the wings. We stopped at 4 Wing and then on to 2 Wing. I don't recall how many were on the plane but what was on the plane was a load of frozen fish. That is it was frozen at one time but was not quite thawed. Anyway the smell was quite bad. I have always had quite a good stomach so it didn't bother me too much but some on board got quite sick.

I also remember the stop at 2 Wing. This was a flying station and normally there was only one or two Fighter Control Operators there to look after the switchboard. When we landed there, I was taken to the Orderly Room and interviewed by the Base Admin Officer. I learned then that someone in their wisdom decided they would leave me at 2 Wing to work on the Switchboard instead of going on to 61 AC&W Squadron at Metz. Well while I was being interviewed it became quite clear, although they thought my name was French, I couldn't speak a word of it. This bit of fate saved me from being left there to run a switchboard. I still thank heaven when I think of it as 2 Wing was the worst base we had in Europe I'm told. From 2 Wing to Metz we traveled by bus. Metz was Headquarters for the Canadian NATO contingent in Europe and 61 AC&W Squadron was there as well but there was no airstrip.

The bus ride gave the first view of some of the small farming towns in France. The small houses with manure piles beside them were something to behold. It was said that the bigger the manure pile the better off the farmer was. It meant he had more livestock than someone with a smaller pile. Don't get me wrong, there was some nice places in France but the small farming towns were like nothing I had ever seen before. They piled the manure over catch basins in the ground and the liquids that soaked through were eventually pumped out and spread over the farm lands as a fertilizer. The spreaders, "Honey Wagons", as they were called were two or four wheeled wagons with a large wooden tank on board and pulled by either cows or horses and sometimes one horse and one cow. The aroma in the area when this was taking place was something to behold.

On our arrival at Metz, I recall being taken to the Orderly Room where our signing in commenced. The buildings here were nothing like I had been used to at the radar stations in Canada. The buildings seemed to all have been originally used for something else and turned into what ever they wanted them for. Some of these had been used during the Second World War. Canada had built the Mess Hall and some barracks but the rest I think were all old barracks from the war that they fixed up as Orderly Room, MIR, Fire Hall and some offices. There was one large stately stone building known as the Chateau where a lot of offices were housed. You could see some war damage to the outside from machine gun fire - that is small chips in the stone but on the whole it was a beautiful building. Not too nice to work in I am told though as it was very hard to heat during the winter. Although I never worked in it I am told it was quite cold and damp.

In my signing process I was told that there wasn't any space left in the barracks so I would be billeted in a hotel in the city of Metz until new barracks were completed. For about one year I lived in the Regina Hotel and traveled back and forth to the base by bus. I still ate most of my meals at the mess hall on the base but quite often had breakfast at the hotel. There was a bar on the ground floor of the hotel also that I used to spend quite a bit of time in. It was altogether much too handy and the beer much too cheap. Actually we signed a slip from the till each time we had a drink and on payday we would pay what we owed for the past two weeks. Quite a bit sometimes to be sure.

Although we didn't get paid all that much we did get a bit extra called overseas pay and on the whole were quite well off in comparison to the local people. Anything we purchased on the base, beer, cigarettes or anything in the base store (PX, Post Exchange) was of course free of Canadian tax and we weren't subject to French tax on the base either. Canadian cigarettes I recall were 10 cents a pack, 40 ounces of Canadian Whiskey I believe $2.80 and the like. It sure wasn't hard to take up some bad habits. Our pay was in US dollars and given to us in script. This was all paper money down as low as 5 cents. No one used pennies. You could request a certain amount of your pay to be given to you in French francs to spend in town or there was a bit of a black market in Luxembourg where you could get a better rate of francs to the dollar. I know of at least one fellow who used to make a lot of money by buying it up in Luxembourg and reselling it on the base for more than he paid for it. The franc when I was there was worth approximately 25 cents.

The part of the base that I worked on was 61 AC&W Squadron. It was located on the same property as Headquarters but away off to one end. It was also fenced in so that you had to go through a Guardhouse to enter the area. The security was quite high around most radar stations.

The radar site at Metz was also very different from those back in Canada. Instead of the big five storey building it was contained in a Quonset Hut. That is a steel building, one story high and had a round steel roof. The radar antenna was not covered by a radome. It was positioned on top of a fixed metal base. The whole thing was said to be mobile. I guess there were technicians there that were told how to disassemble it and mount it on trucks. I sure didn't know how, but in our trade there were so many of us that were taught to drive the large trucks that were to carry it away if that became necessary. The trucks were the regular large Army trucks that were referred to as 6X6's. I don't know why they were called that. They were dual tandem at the rear and there was a gearbox in the front as well. This made them able to go most anywhere. To get our licence to drive these vehicles we had to take a course given by the London England Police Force. The course was one week and called Driving Safely with Speed. This is one of the better courses that I got during my career. We spent the week driving through that part of France and Germany, working the skid courses, etc. There was a bit of classroom work but most was on the road.

The operational part of the job was not too much different from that in Canada. One thing that did stand out was that the plotting tables were not the large flat horizontal tables but vertical, made of plexiglass, and lighted from the sides so that when you wrote on it with a Grease Pencil it stood out real well. So we now had to learn to print backwards as all the plotting was done on the rear of the board. It took a little while but wasn't too long before it became quite natural. While back in Canada we had large modern buildings, this place was extremely small.

Everything took place in one room. The radar scopes, height finders, plotting and aircraft control was all done in the one semi-darkened room. Back in Canada, all of the aircraft we plotted were also forwarded to an Air Defense Centre station where things were coordinated. This station may be thousands of miles from where we were on the radar base. This was all done on a telephone system. Well in Europe we did similar things but our Air Defense Station was a French station. The people on the other end I understand did understand what we said as we plotted aircraft but they only acknowledged with "oui". I guess they got it all or at least we were led to believe that they did.

We were close enough to the Iron Curtain - that was the border of free Europe and that controlled by Soviet Russia, that our radar picked up aircraft on the Soviet side. Should they venture across we would scramble fighters to send them back. This did not happen very often but there was a time or two where one did venture over due to a navigation error. I believe also on one or two occasions a Mig fighter did defect to one of the western bases. I also had occasion to see the U-2 reconnaissance planes go over. They use to fly so high that they disappeared off our height finders as they went across the border. The work there was made a little more interesting as we knew when an aircraft came across the Iron Curtain that it was an enemy. Our planes were always kept well away from that area.

We also had a lot more exercises in Europe than we did in Canada. By exercises, I mean mock wars and the like. I recall on more than one occasion where we moved the whole base out of buildings and into tents. We then operated out of the tents. We would then have people from other bases, even American service men, try to infiltrate and leave mock bombs, etc. These exercises would be anywhere from one day to a couple of weeks in length. We did have some at various bases in Canada as well but they never seemed to be as real as those in Europe.

I have to say that the most memorable experience while I was in Europe was getting married. If I recall correctly, I met Shirley (Loveridge was her name then), in the Airmen's Canteen. That is where most people meet on those bases. It was probably at a dance or at least some sort of occasion. Shirley had come overseas about a year after I did and was Clerk Typist by trade. Since she was of a different trade we never did work together. She didn't work at 61 AC&W Sqn. but on the Headquarters part of the base. I don't recall the exact section but had something to do with the Air Force Police. Anyway I was smitten as they say and after going together for about one year we were married on November 5th and 8th, 1958.

The reason for the two dates was that if you married in France you had to be legally married by a French official and then if you wished you could have a church wedding. So our civil wedding took place on November 5th. It was done by the mayor of a real small town nearest the base. This mayor was actually a farmer as well as his mayor type duties. We had one of our fellow workers who spoke French, accompany us as an interpreter and it all took about 20 minutes. The farmer came in out of the field, tied a big cummerbund around his middle, uttered a few words to me, my friend Joe, said "say oui" and I did, then he said something similar to Shirley, Joe said "say oui", she did and that was that.

I think in all there were probably five questions to which we each had to respond "oui" and the whole thing was over. We were issued a wedding certificate that is all in French of course and in the form of a small hard covered book. Our names of course are entered and the date of the event and then about 15 pages for us to record names of children that were supposed to follow. I've wished since we would have had someone come along to take some pictures. I don't recall but it may have been forbidden. I know Joe was quite a photographer and he didn't take any so I expect there was a reason at the time.

Our church wedding and reception on November 8th were of course a bit more elaborate. The wedding took place in a very large old church in Metz called Temple Neuf. It was a beautiful old stone structure and situated on a island in the Moselle river. There were large bridges leading to it and away to the other side of the river so that when on the site it didn't appear you were on an island. The view from the river was very beautiful and I have a few coloured slides that will bear this out. The inside of the church was quite dark as are a lot of old buildings in Europe. The ceiling, as I recall, exaggerating a bit, must have been 100 feet high and the aisle, as I waited for my bride to be walked down it, felt like about two miles long. In all, everything was quite old but quite beautiful. I expect it is still standing today as it was built of large stone and was probably 100 years old when we were married.

As I recall, my bride to be was a bit late arriving. I was informed later that this was quite normal and expected. Well I hadn't heard this before and have to tell you I wondered a bit as to whether she had changed her mind. The worry was for naught anyway as she did arrive and walked down the isle on the arm of F/L Quixley, a man she worked for and agreed to give her away. You have to realize we were in France and neither my parents or Shirley's were able to attend. The only relatives that were able to attend was Opal and Tommy Koch. Tommy was also in the Air Force and at that time was stationed at #1 Fighter Wing at Marville, France. The service, I have to say, I don't recall a lot about. I did worry a bit about whether she was going to arrive, being a bit late and I do recall the long walk as she walked the long isle towards the alter. I also recall that a good friend of Shirley's, Ruth, sang and of course there were hymns, a service and a lot of rice and confetti when it was over.

Although most people who read this will never meet or know the people in the wedding party I will name a few. The Maid of Honour was Joey Olafson, Shirley's best friend. My Best Man was Gary Goodfellow, a fellow I had went through boot camp and trade school with. We had then been apart for a few years but were reunited again in France. I later was Best Man for Gary at his wedding and Shirley and I were also God Parents to Gary and Fran's first born twins. The Minister, Padre Pippy, was the Protestant Padre from the base. The ushers, again friends and work mates, Lou MacInness, Pete Zetillo and Norm (Burt) Burton. Lou and I worked on the same crew at 61 AC&W Squadron and had taken a few trips together to Spain and Holland. Except for Opal and Tommy, all the people that attended were friends and work mates from the base.

After the Wedding service we went for pictures to be taken and then to a reception in the Airwomen's Lounge on the Base. This place was filled with our friends, had a big beautiful wedding cake, lots to eat and most probably had too much to drink. The wedding cake by the way was made by Gary Goodfellow's father. He was a Sgt. Cook in the Airmen's Mess Hall at that time. The food was provided by the Airmen's mess at a very reasonable cost, if I recall, and the booze was all tax free so weddings there were quite a bit less costly than those here. I think we had quite a few cases of French champagne and a good time was had by all.

Our honeymoon was spent on the French Riviera, Nice, Marseille and Monaco. At the time of our wedding, I had a 1954 Oldsmobile, a nice big car but since parts and service were not available in very many places, I traded with one of my friends for his Volkswagen Beetle for the trip. We didn't have any car trouble as it turned out so were thankful for that. I guess no one writes a whole lot about their Honeymoon, at least I'm not going to. The areas we traveled were very nice but the weather in southern France in November is not what you might wish for. It was quite cold and rainy a lot of the time but we did see a lot of new country and spent a lot of time indoors.

On our arrival back in Metz we lived in a very small apartment in downtown Metz. It was called Place St. Jacques and we were on the top floor, the seventh I think, and there was no elevator. Mind you we were young and in good shape in those days but it was a real hassle to carry everything that far up. I don't recall how long we lived there but when we moved it was to the second floor of a house. The owner here was an old woman and a daughter also lived with her. It was comfortable enough by the standards in Metz but not what we are used to now. There was no central heating so we used kerosene heaters in each room. You sort of moved them about to the rooms that you were occupying at the time. This apartment had a kitchen, living room, bedroom and a bath, much better than at place St. Jacques where the bathroom was outside the apartment and the living room and bedroom were one.

I recall one Sunday morning we were sitting in the living room listening to records I think and there was quite a crash and sound of glass breaking outside. We looked out the window and a small Frenchman's car had run into the back of ours as it sat on the street. He had been lighting a cigarette at the time he said didn't see our car in front of him. He wasn't hurt but there was quite a bit of damage to both cars. We had a new Volkswagen at that time.

The new Volkswagen, that had been damaged came to us in a bit of an unusual way. Normally you have to order a new car from Volkswagen and have to wait up to six months for it to arrive. This is of course if it is one that you wish to take back to Canada. The lights, signal lights and quite a few other things had to be put on special if it was going to be exported to Canada. Anyway, everyone who intended to bring one back when they returned to Canada had to order it at least six months before they came back to ensure they would get it on time. An officer that I worked with there had one on order and just before it arrived he was killed in a car accident. Anyway, his estate put it up for sale as he had already paid for it. We bought it and brought it back to Canada with us when we came. It was a Dark red beetle with a sun roof. You will probably not believe the price of a new Volkswagen. Since we were out of Canada we could buy it tax free if we owned it for a certain time before we left Europe and kept it for a certain time before we sold it back in Canada. Anyway the total price was $1212.00. A couple years after we returned to Canada I sold it to our landlord. The reason he wanted it was to shoot deer from it as he could stand up in it and his shoulders would be out through he sunroof. If I recall he also used it at night with a spot light which of course was quite illegal. This sale is something I am not real proud of now but I guess I really did nothing wrong, but I did know when I sold it to him what he intended to use it for.

We returned to Canada in the spring of 1960. We were transferred back to Foymount, Ontario, the same place I had left from. Shirley was pregnant when we returned and had quite a hard time of it. She had spent some time in the hospital in Europe and due to her condition she could not come back on the boat that I did. The rules were if you brought back a car you had to accompany it on the same ship. Because of this Shirley came back by air, a Comet, and I returned on the ship that our car was on. Of course she was back in a few hours and my trip took eight days.