# 4 FIGHTER WING BADEN - BADEN, GERMANY We arived just before Christmas and quickly adjusted. Germany was still occupied and our area was in the French Zone. The air base, (#4 Fighter Wing) had just been turned over to the RCAF by the French Air Force. Just before the official turn-over there was an RCAF advance party who spent most of their time unloading box cars full of Canadian equipment. The guards were all French draftees. A friend of mine who worked in communications got to recognize the principal guards at the gate and after awhile, greeted them with a smile, saying, "fuck-you" every time they drove in or out. The guards, also smiling, would answer back the same thing. All went well until one of the first Canadian wives to arrive decided to visit the station. She, of course, was welcomed by an innocent guard with the familiar "fuck-you" greeting. That's the last they ever saw of him. My friend swears he is probably still serving time in the Bastille. I quickly fell into a routine. I started a military band and a dance band. The military band was soon playing for station parades and funerals. We did lots of the latter. Some resulted from aircraft crashes but for the most part they were car accidents. We were good enough to be invited to play at beer fests and other occasions in German towns around our air base. We had lots of fun and brought a lot of credit to Canada and the RCAF. My dance band was also a huge success. It was very good. The piano player, guitarist, drummer and one sax player were airmen. The rest I hired from Kurt Edelhagen's band in Baden - Baden. He had one of the best bands in Europe and the musicians were great. We played for station dances and in messes and generally had a good time. It was a treat for the German musicians, not only for the money but for the meals served after a job. To them, these were real feasts compared to what they had been used to since the war. My wife and I soon realized how well off we were. Compared to Germans, we were rich. We had a car which we used every day to explore the countryside and go shopping. At the butchers, Jill would buy in standard Canadian quantities, say 500 grams (a bit more than a pound) of steak, or chops, or any kind of meat. The Germans would buy strictly by the slice and it soon was obvious that each purchase was planned beforehand. It was the same for everything. We were spoiled. We paid 12 cents for a gallon of gas, thanks to the American Army, 90 cents for a 26-ounce bottle of Canadian Club or VO, thanks to the absence of Canadian and provincial government taxes. The same went for Canadian cigarettes at 10 cents for a pack of 20s. We even had Canadian schools with Canadian teachers. Soon after arriving, I took my son, then six years old to school and his teacher turned out to be one who had taught me in Ottawa in Grade 4! I drew this to her attention and she remembered me but argued quite strongly that it was her older sister and not her who had been my teacher. I was part of the base entertainment committee, my job was to look after music. In 1955, we decided to have a station dance and I was detailed to get the orchestra. I phoned Ted Heath's agent and booked his band. We had one of our Bristol Freighters pick them up at London airport to play for the dance that night and return to London the next morning. The band was the best in Europe at that time and it was quite a treat to have them play for us. We did this again a year later, and the same terms applied. We picked them up in London and upon arrival, I gave the agent 1,000 US dollars which he promptly distributed amongst the musicians. I then took the whole crew to the PX where they spent all their money on duty free goods. Since this is, (I hope,) a collection of amusing tapes, I won't say much about our three years in Baden-Baden except to say that we had the best. The RCAF had the most up-to-date aircraft, the best pilots and ground crew of all NATO forces. Morale was high at all times. We had a job to do and did it well. Everybody knew it. The RCAF was respected by all. Every year, one of our three bands came to do a six-week tour and they were the best! They brought a new sound to Europe and everywhere they played Paris, Luxembourg, Amsterdam, London, Baden, Karlsruhe, Nottingham and dozens of other places. They drew huge crowds of music lovers and were received with great enthusiasm. One example serves to indicate how good we were. Beginning in 1955, the Fourth Allied Tactical Air Force, composed of the RCAF, the RAF, France and the United States had a contest for the most efficient air force. The trophy to be won was called the Leclair Trophy, the winner being the one getting the best score in shooting and aircraft serviceability. Every year the RCAF's score was more than the total scores of the other three air forces combined. The RAF, French and USAF's individual scores were always between 24% and 30% and the RCAF always above 80%. That had to mean something. The U.S. army had a tank battalion based at Karlsruhe not far away from our air base. The commanding officer of this battalion requested that our squadrons do dummy attack runs on his tanks so as to get their crews used to aircraft attacks. Our pilots took the challenge with great gusto and took particular delight in roaring in at ground level at over 600 miles per hour. The Americans soon called to cancel these dummy attacks because our pilots were coming in closer and closer to the ground and in some cases were at eye level to the tank crews. The pilots thought it was great fun while it lasted. One morning I went to the sergeant's mess for a cup of coffee and sat down with a USAF staff sergeant who told me that they were down to pick up the pieces of one of their jets which had crashed the day before in the mountains behind Baden-Baden. He said that their helicopter was losing manifold pressure and that they had to hedge-hop to our base. As we were talking, his officer came in and said that he had been in contact with their headquarters and their repair truck would arrive that afternoon. I mentioned that we flew the same make of helicopter and that maybe our mechanics could fix it. The officer explained to me that this maintenance truck came with five mechanics who were real experts and would fix it right away. Since their base was 150 miles away I suggested we gave our guys a try. He agreed, although I am sure he didn't expect us to do very much, but did so to be polite. In any case, I took the staff sergeant to the flight line and spoke to the corporal in charge of servicing transient aircraft. He asked the staff sergeant what the problem was and then turned around to one of his men and said, "you know how to fix a drop in manifold pressure, take a screw- driver and a pair of pliers with you and fix it." A few minutes later the mechanic came back and said "she's O.K. now, all ready to go." The staff sergeant couldn't believe it, went and rewed up the chopper and came back shaking his head, and thanked us. Since the draft still existed in the United States, the U.S. Air Force was only assured of having most of their ground crew personnel for 20 months or so. They couldn't waste time over-training them, so they broke down maintenance tasks into very basic components and trained their personnel accordingly. That is why it took more personnel to do maintenance work than the RCAF whose personnel were enlisted for a minimum of five years, and who, generally, made it a lifetime career. We decided to put on a revue and soon had a respectable show together complete with an eight- piece band. We had a variety of talents: musical soloists, comedians, dancers, etc., and were good enough to be asked to tour the other RCAF bases in France and Germany. At #1 Fighter Wing in Marville, I got into trouble. We got to Marville at suppertime and were all billeted in the same transient barrack block. I went to the sergeants' mess for supper, met a few old friends and had a few drinks. It was a pay night and eventually a small-stake crap game started. I got in to pass the time and, hopefully, make a few bucks. Towards 11 p.m. there were only four of us left in the mess, still playing crap. One of the players was a corporal who was the bartender. One of the members of our show was Mike McDade, the airman who had taught the gendarmes at #4 Wing the "Canadian" greeting mentioned earlier. He was coming back from town and spotted me through the mess window and came in to tell me that I had left my raincoat on the bus and that he had taken it into the barracks. I thanked him and asked him to wait a few seconds while I finished my pass. Mike went into the darkened lounge and sat there listening to Radio Luxembourg while waiting for me. Apparently, the orderly sergeant came in and not recognizing him, asked him who he was. Mike, realizing that he was out of bounds and not wanting to get me into trouble, told him he was Sergeant McDade with the show from #4 Fighter Wing and was waiting for me. Since Mike was in civilian clothes, the orderly sergeant brought him in to me and asked me to identify him saying, "this chap says he's with you and that his name's Sergeant McDade." I answered, "yeah, sure," picked up my money and we left together. All hell broke loose the next morning. The P.A. system which covered the whole air base started calling for Sergeant McDade and Sergeant Fortier to report to the station warrant officer. This was repeated every half hour until 11 a.m. when the call changed to Sergeant Fortier and LAC McDade. The jig was up and Mike and I decided to report. I phoned in and we were told to be in the station warrant officer's office at 1 p.m. At the meeting, (it was more like a court) there was the officer in charge of our show, ( a pilot who had " simply refused to fly one day), the station warrant officer (SWO), the orderly sergeant, McDade and I. The SWO turned to McDade and simply said, "McDade, you know better, now get out of here." He left immediately. The pilot then turned to me and said, "The SWO and I have talked it over and we decided that you'll wear the badge for a few days when we return to 4 Wing," the badge being that of the orderly sergeant, to which I quickly replied, 'Tm not wearing any god- damned badge!" The officer shouted, "Shut up! You'll do what you're told! I've talked it over with the SWO and that's it!" I then turned around to the SWO and said, "Can I talk to you alone?" He indicated for the others to leave. I then said that if I was forced to wear the badge, I would have no alternative but to lay a charge against the orderly sergeant for negligently performing a military duty in that he allowed gambling in the sergeants' mess while orderly sergeant, and a charge of gambling against the corporal plus keeping the bar open after hours? The SWO just stared at me for a minute and then knowing I had him, dismissed me indicating that we should just forget about it. This incident made all my previous training worthwhile? When I left the office, the flying officer was waiting for me. He said to me, "you'll do what you're told. You're not so big and I can handle you in any way, military or bodily." I just stared at him and said, "anytime and either way." He looked back and walked away in total defeat. I felt very sad and sorry for him. Here was a man who had stopped flying because he was scared and now had to be humiliated by a junior rank. We never saw him again and I have often looked back on the scene with shame. I could have explained and maybe even apologized but instead I probably took away what was left of his manliness. Not a nice thing to do. But when you're young, full of vigour and self- confidence, it's hard to be magnanimous especially in the military when all your training is the other way. I never did anything like that again. As a matter of fact the next time I acted smart, I volunteered to "wear the badge," but more about that later. In 1956, my station band took part in a music festival in Buhl, Germany. There were about a dozen bands from all over Bavaria and the wind-up was on a Sunday afternoon when each band played for 15 or 20 minutes in a huge beer tent. We were by far the best. We had lots of drums, glockenspiels, cymbals, trumpets and the beat really got to the Germans. One of the small local bands asked me to play trumpet with them, which I did. At the same time, Mike McDade kept looking longingly at one of their trombone players who, no doubt feeling embarrassed by McDade's silent but obvious pleading, asked him if he wanted to play the next march. Mike grabbed the horn and went into a huddle with the trombone player who explained the difficult passages in the march. Mike was all ears and when it came time to play, amazed everyone by playing the music perfectly, not missing a note and with much gusto. The Germans were impressed with this Canadian who could play so well and sight read music so splendidly. What they didn't know was that Old Comrades was a favourite march with the Saint John, New Brunswick, City Cornet Band where Mike had played trombone for years. I can still see him looking shy and humble when being congratulated. How I would have loved to kick him in the ass! Also In 1956, we were invited to participate in an international parade in Bondensee, I think it was to celebrate Germany's entry into NATO but I am not sure. In any case, the countries participating were Canada, Germany, France, the United States and Great Britain. We went by alphabetical order so Canada led the parade. This was a big deal for us, so I had the #1 Fighter Wing Pipe band from Marville come down and play with us. I had them in front but forming part of my band. We were a great hit. Got the most cheers and applause. When the parade was over, some of us were in a gasthaus having a beer when a German came up to me and said, "you have a wonderful band, and I want you to know that this is the first time that I was able to stand on the sidewalk and watch a bagpipe band go by. All the other times that I heard bagpipes, I had to run and hide!" There were many incidents during my stay at #4 Wing. We lost a lot of pilots. We lived through the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. It was tough on families but we were all proud of the job we were doing. We were well paid according to European standards and had lots of benefits cheap cigarettes, liquor, duty-free goods in the PX, access to American military stores and, if you had the nerve, to French Army stores where the finest Bordeaux wines sold for around 50 cents a bottle. There is one incident related to the Hungarian uprising which I should mention. A few nights after Russian tanks invaded Hungary, the NCO in charge of the base front gate called the commanding officer and said that there were about half a dozen Germans who said that they were ex-Luftwaffe pilots and insisted on being given aircraft to go and fight the Russians invading Hungary. Group Captain Bev Christmas, the CO immediately took them to one of our squadron's dispersal area, showed them the Sabre jets and explained the difference between them and the wartime aircraft which they had flown. They soon realized that they couldn't handle the jets without a considerable amount of conversion training and accepted the CO's invitation to go to the officer's mess and have a drink. This was in the early evening, and they were soon joined by pilots coming off duty and a great time was had by all..... ......... We left Germany on December 14, 1957 and boarded RMS Samaria, an up-to-date Cunard liner, in Cherbourg and docked in Halifax on December 23. I was transferred back to the Central Band which by now was at its peak. Since 1952, the band had been doing a lot of recruiting in the U.K. and whoever did the selection knew what he was doing. We had the best musicians coming over, many with lots of experience in the British Guards bands. Could these guys play! Not only that, but they were also of the same "breed" as the previous gang with which I had been associated. Most were veterans and had all kinds of stories to tell. Some funny and some poignant. ..... for more reading please contact Guy Fortier Copyright © All rights reserved. [ Baden Remembered | Forty Years ]