From November 1963 until July 1967 I was with the RCAF in Marville, France. We lived in the Maple Leaf Trailer park across the road from the station.
It cost ten dollars per month for lot rent; water, sewage and garbage pick up. We also paid for electricity and bought bottled gas for our stoves and water heaters. Oil for the furnace was hauled home in jerry cans from a storage facility on the station.
I recently heard from a lady who lived on "B" row, and she spoke of the things we didn’t have. Things like a telephone or a television or a Canadian newspaper. We got the American "Stars and Stripes", but I can’t remember ever seeing a current Canadian paper during the four years we lived there.
We did have a radio station and could hear "The One Wing Arrows" hockey team play their "away" games. The year they won the league championship the station went wild and some of the players didn’t show up for work until the ball season was well under way.
Some our children were of school age while others barely more than toddlers. Little Donnie was about four years old and lived with his parents on "B" row. His mother had purchased him a Batman costume at the American PX in Etaine and he spent most of his days riding his tricycle up and down the street playing make believe that he was Batman.
On a Saturday morning in late April 1965, just after the cold winter rains were over, "Little Donnie" was again patrolling the far end of "B" row on his tricycle, decked out in his cape and mask. A squadron of CF-104’s flew over the station at about one thousand feet. Those of us who were not on duty were preparing for a day shopping at the US army base near the city of Verdun. "Little Donnie" was engaged in fighting the evils of crime at the far edges of the trailers when a flight of 104’s passed over the trailer park.
I can still see him peddling his tricycle towards home with his little legs and feet a blur of motion as he peddled faster and faster. When he was about half way there he began to slow down from the exertion, his mouth was open, but no sound could be heard over the noise of the Starfighters. As the planes passed out of sight we could hear his screams, he seemed to get his second wind and picked up speed. With his cape flying out behind him and his mask askew, he jumped off his tricycle and ran to the safety of his mother’s arms.
We never saw "Little Donnie" the remainder of that weekend and it was well into the middle of the next week before he stepped outside again. He was so traumatized by the noise of the aircraft that he never again played that far away from home. He would scream and run inside whenever an aircraft approached the trailer park.
Little Donnie is over forty years old now!
Roger Cyr
January MM1V
Comments by Roger Cyr - I was never able to completely finish the "Little Donnie" story as there was something missing and I knew not what, so it just lay there unfinished. Recently while looking at the Marville web site I saw something that I had forgotten. Why were so many 104's in the air at the same time on that particular day so long ago? The detail in an issue of The Arrowhead Tribune with the cost of paving the roads in the trailer park jogged my memory. The answer - that was when the the runways were being resurfaced and the 104's flew off to Etain air base. If you agree, I believe it's a worth while yarn to include that depicts life in the trailer park. Surely someone will get a chuckle out of it.
Extract from 1 Wing Historical Report:
1-27 May 65
Exercise Blacktop - the flying operations of 1 Wing operated from the USAF base of Etain, Meuse, while the runway was being resurfaced. MSE with an augmentation of only three buses (no extra men) transported most of the CHE for the aircraft, all of the AMU traffic (personnel and material) and also ran the crews back and forth between the aircraft and the Wing. 109KU also ferried aircraft and equipment to Etain AFB. The 1 Wing taxiway was used for limited T-33 operations during the exercise.
Updated: March 19, 2004