I was stationed at RCAF Station Winnipeg in June 1952 when I was first advised that I had been selected to proceed to 2 Fighter Wing in Grostenquin France. Later inquiries revealed that Canada had committed to NATO 12 fighter squadrons to be stationed in Europe. The first was to be in France and the aircraft were to be on the ground in September 1952. Within a year there would also be two RCAF bases in Germany.
In the mean time, back in Winnipeg, I was advised to open a Bank Account with a Royal Bank of Canada branch in Winnipeg and have it transferred to a Royal Bank account in Ottawa that had been opened under my name.
I departed Winnipeg for Ottawa on or about 5 August 1952 and spent two days in Ottawa being briefed on the posting. I would sail on the SS Atlantic departing Quebec City on the 8th or 9th of August 1952. As I was on Temporary Duty to the AFHQ Admin Unit a cheque for $540.00 was posted to my bank account in Ottawa as it was considered that two months pay would be adequate time for me to become settled in Europe both financially and residentially.
On the SS Atlantic I met with a few other RCAF personnel who also were on their way to Europe. Wing Commander Walsh, Wing Commander Jordan would become the Chief Admin Officer and the Chief Technical Services Officer respectively. Sgt. Ken Sutton, a cook, and myself who was to be the Fire Chief. Also in the group were LAC’s Moore, Nolan, Forestall and Richardson. This group of four airmen were to be the maintenance crew for servicing of the AOC’s DC-3 Dakota that was to be stationed at Orly airfield in Paris.
We had an excellent crossing on the SS Atlantic and I enjoyed all aspects of the ship. The ship was of Italian registry and had been chartered to bring refugees to Canada and was now returning to Europe for another load of passengers. It was a large ship and very fast for the day. Our journey took seven days. We landed in Le Havre and took the boat train to Paris where we were told some one would meet us at Gare du Nord.
We were soon settled in Paris. I found the Air Force HQ at 35 Avenue Montaigne which was off the Champs Elysses. A good number of us stayed at the Hotel Dore which was near the Gare St. Lazare. I soon learned to take the bus to Avenue Montagne each morning as taxis were too expensive. I reported to the HQ for about three weeks and spent most of the time doing trivial jobs or riding around Paris in a staff car. The HQ was adjacent to the Christian Dior Fashion House and each day at noon the models would come out to the grassed median and have lunch. I was required to wear my uniform to and from work and there were many occasions on the bus when people would jostle me as I made my way to the door. In some cases, I ended up getting off a stop or two past the spot where I was wanting to get off. I have often wondered if the fact that I did not have Canada shoulder patches on my uniform had anything to do with the jostling. I know there were many communists in and around Paris in those years and I saw many examples of "Yankee Go Home" graffiti.
I neglected to mention that one of the first duties on getting to Paris was to establish a bank account in some bank and advise my HQ of the account number and location of the bank. The crew for the AOC’s Dakota stayed at the Hotel Dore and they soon established themselves at Orly airfield. I saw little of them during my stay in Paris. Sgt. Ken Sutton (cook) and I were doing little and one day, W/C Walsh (Admin Officer) advised me that fire equipment was arriving at Grostenquin and I had better get out there.
A staff car was provided the next day and I and Sgt. Sutton departed for Metz. The driver told us Grostenquin was about 40 miles from Metz and that we would have to stay in a hotel in Metz. The first thing we did the next day was to open a bank account in Metz and we passed the information on to the driver who would take it back to Paris and pass this on to the appropriate clerks.
The next day the driver took us out to Grostenquin and what a shock we got. There was only one building standing and that was the Pont Chauses – the contractors small office building. There was a 10,000 foot runway and concrete pads here and there, but nothing else. About this time, five or six stake trucks arrived driven by a Sgt. and some airmen. These vehicles had come from the nearest raid head which turned out to be located at Faulquemont, a small town about seven miles from the airfield. I would be driving one of those trucks for the next two months, hauling material to our airbase that was due to rise in the not so distant future.
We would leave Metz about 7 am each morning, drive to Faulquemont, load up and deliver to the airfield, and haul all day until about 8 PM when we would get into a station wagon and return home to Metz. Every piece of equipment on that airfield came from Canada, even down to lawn mowers and grass seed. There was an Algerian labour crew of six at the rail head, and another six at the airfield to unload the trucks. All of the material was stored on concrete where the hangars were to be erected. Construction methods were different for the hangars. A roof would be built first, then they would hydraulically lift the roof, and then install the sides. Once the roof was up we would move the material from an uncovered concrete pad to the covered one to protect the items from the elements.
After driving the stake truck for some time a Supply WO1 called Wingate decided there were enough LAC drivers available and I should not be driving. I was put in charge of the rail head unloading boxcars crew. Then the fun began. I could not speak Algerian or French. They could not speak English. After much arm waving and gestures they got to comprehend what had to be done and I got to understand that lunch was a loaf of French bread and a bottle of wine plus the fact that lunch lasted two hours. By the time I finished that job, I was beginning to look and act like an Algerian.
By this time, there must have been 30 or so personnel at 2 Fighter Wing but where they all lived I do not know. One day we were directed to be at the airfield at a certain time in the afternoon. We were standing around (about 20 of us). We heard jet aircraft and lo and behold, what appeared but about 15 F-86 Sabres with RCAF markings. W/C Walsh, who just happened to be there, quickly lined us up in two rows and the pilots were requested to inspect the so called Guard of Honour. We were in our work duds and looked pretty grubby, but the aircraft had been officially received in Europe. The first RCAF contingent had made the NATO commitment as the Canadian government said it would. There were no finished buildings, no place to stay or eat, no food or fuel, no nothing, but a few F-86’s and pilots to man them and land and take-off on a concrete runway. The aircraft soon disappeared and I suspect that they used a USAF air base in the vicinity before returning to Grostenquin when there was something to return to.
In the mean time word was received in November 1952 that 14 white refueling tenders were at Le Havre and were awaiting pickup. Sixteen personnel were selected to go to Le Havre and drive these vehicles to Grostenquin. It was an uneventful trip except for a small car (quatre chevaux) running into the front right side of one of the tenders and disabling it. One thing I do remember to this day was that some of the windshield wiper blades had been stolen. A Sgt. Norm Burke, a heavy equipment operator, disappeared for an hour or so and returned with a bag of potatoes. Those of us with no wiper blades were told to cut a potato in half and rub the open part of the potato on the windshield. The starch in the potato makes the windshield shed water in the event of an encounter with rain.
I am enclosing a photo or two of the convoy and the drivers identifying as many as I can at this late date.
I am unable to give a date that we moved into the airfield from our hotel in Metz but I can tell you that in the fall of 1952 the place was a "mud hole". The buildings had very thin aluminum siding with maybe two inches of insulation and then one half inch of gyproc. A softball hitting the outside would puncture the aluminum as it was so soft. In the barracks, the water was not potable and each building had a 20 or 30 gallon vat with a tap on the bottom. Each morning the Med A’s would visit each building very early and drop one or two purification tablets in the vat to purify the water.
In addition, the power was continually going off. If you were in the Mess Hall and the power went off, the cooks would put an empty 1 liter milk carton on each table. Who ever sat at that table would ignite the wax carton and that would give you the light necessary to see. The only trouble with this approach was that half way through the meal hour the smoke would be down to within three or four feet of the floor. Under these circumstances, personnel soon learned to eat as early as possible. The residue from the milk cartons would soon burn your eyes and you had to leave or sit on the floor if you were that hungry. Issue overshoes was the wear of the day and all overshoes were to be left in the entrances. This made for some caustic remarks at the Mess Hall. I must have wore many different shoes as time went on.
Road building was another great surprise to Canadians as you will see in other photos I have provided. A heavy duty dump truck would unload a load of rocks. Then four or five Algerians would arrive with sledge hammers to proceed to make small stones out of the big ones. After two or three days of hammering a packer would come along and pack things into a rough road. Eventually, it would be paved but nothing seemed to move very fast at Grostenquin. The rocks in the this photo are a portion of the driveway to the fire hall. All the streets and the driveways were virtually made the same way and the only stone or rock crushers I ever saw in France were the Algerians.
Two events stick out in my mind when I think of 2 (F) Wing. In the spring of 1953, when most sections were up and running, the BTSO made a visit to each section on the weekend. He was accompanied by two or three military police. He talked to the personnel who were on weekend duty and got an overall opinion of how the station was operating. On Monday morning each section head reported for work as usual. Now in the Fire Hall, the washroom had no windows and during periods of power outage the washrooms were useless. We, consequently, took hand lanterns out of the crash trucks and had them in the washroom. There may have been four to six in use as the power outages were frequent and not always of short duration. By Monday afternoon, it was noted that the hand lamps were no where in sight or available. Someone in the Fire Hall must have hidden them, or was playing a practical joke. But they were not to be found. Things were getting desperate as this was where the Fire Fighters slept and did their morning ablutions. I wrote a Memorandum explaining that someone must have entered the Fire Hall at night and removed our hand lamps. As Inventory Holder, I was doing my duty on reporting a loss of inventory to the best of my ability. and why it happened. The Memo went to the Financial Officer and the AFPs. On Thursday morning a Memo was in the mail to the Fire Chief demanding to know what security measures were in place in the Fire Hall and how they could be improved upon. A Memo outlining the improved measures was to be in the BTSO’s hands within 48 hours, and at the end of the BTSO’s Memo, it just casually mentioned that the missing hand lamps could be retrieved from the Military Police.
That Memo sure started some scrambling and the first thing and the first thing to do was to get my hands on my Memo and tear it up. It turned out that over the weekend the BTSO had visited every section under his command and engaged whoever was in charge with light conversation while the military police removed inventory items to their vehicle. He had accumulated enough equipment to fill a jail cell. Each section head had to attend a security briefing and face a dressing down by the BTSO. It was truly a learning experience.
The other event that sticks in my mind relates to the first F-86 crash that occurred at 2 Wing. The pilot ejected at a low altitude about three or four miles from the airfield and the aircraft crashed into a small slough and disintegrated on hitting the water. The pilot was found in his ejection seat in a grain field. The slough was the sewage lagoon for a small nearby village. I volunteered to assist in the recovery of the aircraft and the recovery methods were less than ideal. A large three pronged grappling hook was manufactured at the airfield. A 4x4 truck with a 100 foot winch cable and a 100 foot rope was attached to the grappling hook. The hook was put in a 10 foot aluminum boat and rowed out to a point in the slough where it was put overboard. The truck would then back up 100 feet until the rope was on shore and then winch the cable in until the grapple would reveal its contents. The biggest piece of the aircraft that I saw come out of the slough was a landing gear strut. It was a thankless task and one of the most disgusting jobs I had ever been associated with. After two weeks, the recovery was abandoned and very little recognizable pieces of the aircraft came to light.
I departed Europe exactly one year from the day I had arrived. I left from 4 Wing, Germany, in a North Star that had all of the seats facing backwards. A prisoner with two escorts and myself were the only passengers. We eventually landed in Dorval and I was taken to Lachine. The Orderly Sgt. had no knowledge of my arrival. After much phoning, I was given a bed, in a cell in the MP Section at Lachine. But I was home and I slept like a baby.
