Don and I had decided to take the kids to my old stomping grounds at 2Wing Grotenquin. I had heard the French took over the base after it was closed in 1963. I was curious to see it and to visit the PMQ’S, the apartments where we lived which were located 17 kilometres from the base. I wondered if the farm would still be there with the chickens and rabbits. It was still vivid in my memory.
We found the base and it looked so different. Trees had grown up everywhere and no longer could the relentless sun burn the sidewalks and roads. The guard house was still there; and, much to my surprise, there was a guard in it. I wondered what he was guarding as the base looked completely deserted and dilapidated. Apparently the French had assumed the runway and the rest of the base was left to rot. I tried to convince the guard to let me go onto the base to have a look. But his job was to ‘protect’ the base and I could not soften his resolve. We had to be content to see it from the fence that bordered it and gaze over the barrier that blocked me from my past.
There was a large metal sign outside the base indicating this was a RCAF base. It had a CF100 painted on it and ‘RCAF 2Wing’ in big letters on a sky blue background. It measured six feet by twelve. It graced the grounds just outside of the guard house on the civilian side. It had been there for thirty years and, although we didn’t know it at the time, we were about to steal it away and return it back to Canada.
We left the base to visit the PMQ’s and the old farm.
The PMQ’s had been updated and looked pretty good. The hill rolling down to the farm was all built up with homes, all close together, as were my forest and ravine, save for the forest around the water tower. I ran into the woods with great anticipation to see my fantasy palaces, the bunkers. I searched and searched and finally had to come to the conclusion that they had all been removed. I was crestfallen.
I was sad to see that the farm had been deserted and it loomed dark and gloomy. What could express abandonment better that a large, empty, neglected house? I wondered what had happened to the girls. We did manage to track down one of them. We had a wonderful visit catching up on the family news, over a cafe au lait, sitting in the sun at an outdoor cafe in St. Avold.
My curiosity had been assuaged by revisiting my childhood haunts, the base, the PMQ’s, the farm and the forest. I thought things might have been more the same as I remembered them, but they were not.
On our way back home to Boinville, we stopped to visit military friends in Lahr, Germany. We were discussing the fact that all the signs at the Canadian military bases in Europe had disappeared.. Since we had just come from 2Wing, we shared that this one was still there. Our friend said he’d arrange a posse to steal it, or rescue it, as he preferred to call it. Don said, ‘Give us ten days.”
Instead of going home, we went back to Grotenquin.
We stopped off at a hardware store to get some tools, like a hammer, a screw driver, a lever and a pair of gloves and headed for the base once again but this time we had a mission. We were going to get that sign away from the French and back into Canadian hands where it belonged.
When we arrived at the guard house, we did have a little conversation with the guard at the gate to clarify what area the French had jurisdiction over. Well, it wasn’t outside the base, so we figured the coast was clear.
The looming sign located off side of the guard house. There were tall cypress trees bordering it which helped hide us from the guard’s view as we performed our nefarious deed. I set up a picnic beside the sign in full view of the guard. He didn’t leave his little window. It seemed he was facing us the whole time. We casually sat and ate our meal, chatting and looking over the rolling fields as if nothing was going on. But something was going on. Don was gripped onto the sign like Spider Man, disengaging the screws, one by one, releasing each six by three foot panel and letting them fall to the ground in front of the sign and out of sight of the guard.
Don had to now get the panels into the station wagon without being seen. My job was to divert the attention of the guard so Don could fulfill his mission. When we had finished eating, I collected the garbage and went into the guard house to ask where we could put our refuse. The guard obliged and we started to chit chat. It turned out that he was on the base the day the CFG100’s crashed and landed in the hospital. I was across the street sitting on the church steps and he was working in the building next to the doomed hospital. We established a rapport and I ventured to ask again if I could go on the base. It was a different guard and a different situation and he acquiesced.
Just as we were finalizing the deal, Don came into the scene, his white shirt covered in blue chips of paint, looking like the cheshire cat who swallowed the canary. We were all looking up at the ceiling and whistling in an imaginary way. Please don’t notice that the blue on his shirt matches the blue on the sign!
The question became, do we take a chance and take a 45 minute tour of the base, or high tail it before some senior officer drives up and sees the sign is gone? Well, I had to take a tour of the base. The old swimming pool was more than deserted, it was in ruins, as was the rest of the base. There was only a wall and steps remaining of the church and practically nothing of the hospital and PX. The trees had overgrown everywhere. It looked like a jungle.
I was anxious to return to the car and get out of there before things got complicated. The metal panels went from the front of the station wagon to the back and there was no place for the kids to sit except on the floor, sort of. We drove a few kilometres away and reorganized so we could make the 4 hour trip back home.
Don alerted the authorities at the Canadian Embassy of our treasure. They arranged for a Hercules transport plane to come and pick it up. One evening after dark, we drove the sign into Paris into the back yard of the Canadian Embassy. The large security doors opened to let us in. We felt rather ‘impo’tant’. The sign was delivered to Trenton, Ontario, where it waits to be put on display at the Trenton Military Museum.
Daniel and Martine were shocked and asked us what kind of example we were setting for our kids. It was a difficult question to answer since we all thought we’d accomplished a great deed. Their reaction made me feel a bit guilty and I hoped the French army wouldn’t be marching in to arrest us.
We went back one more time to the base, and this time ran into some French soldiers who were recounting the story of how Canadian soldiers from Germany had come and stolen the sign in the middle of the night. Actually, they had come and taken the wooden base the sign was on. I didn’t have the nerve to tell him that the sign had actually been taken by my little family in broad daylight. I thought it better not to find out how he’d react at having been had by a couple and their kids instead of by trained military personnel.
