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Pushed Aside…
The summer of 45 was a bit like summer camp. The war was over and like most
of us, I was waiting to be appointed to flight school since this was the reason I had joined in the first place.
Unfortunately, thing were not going our way. In October 1945 several of us, me included, were selected to train
as accountants…. While waiting to be sent to flight school. I later learned that others, the ones who spoke English,
were sent to the USA for flight training. I struck out because I didn't speak English. The airforce's argument
for sending us to accountant school was that once we were done, we would be quickly promoted to sergeant, which
would significantly increase our pay. Since I had no choice, I went.
So here we are, a group of disillusioned soldiers appointed to an airforce accountant school located in Bias (Lot
et Garonne) near the town of Villeneuve-sur-Lot.
The journey to the school was my first long trip ever. It gave me the opportunity
to visit our nation's capital. We had the chance to catch an exposition of American airplanes right under the Eiffel
tower. They were all there. It was very impressive since we only had seen small airplane up close during their
layover in Courlaoux.
We then headed south. Our first encounter with Bias was not very encouraging. The camp was built before the war.
I believe it had housed Spanish refugees for a time. During the German occupation, the Vichy government used it
to jail people that were arbitrarily arrested, mostly Jews and "undesirables". Much later it would house
Algerians Harkis (Soldiers).
All this to show that the conditions were far from satisfactory and was a bad omen for things to come. This would
be our home for the next 6 months (October to March). We soon met with our drill sergeant, a sadistically by-the-book
type, mean and though. So aside from the rather boring accounting classes, we were subjected to a tough basic military
training, tougher than the CIA of Bletterans. We had to follow all the mandatory steps that ultimately lead us
to non-commission officers.
The only pleasant memories of Bias were the rare leaves allowed when we were able to visit local wineries armed
with our 2-liter canteens. We used to bring back a white wine sweet but deadly !
No less memorable, but in a different way, was the end of the year leave. We had eight days off, some over Christmas
and others over New Year's eve. I was part of the first group and was due back on the 31st. But like most of my
companions, using the excuse that the 1st was a holiday, we added that day to our leave and returned to the camp
a day late. The sentence came without delay… and we each were sent to jail for eight days and had our heads shaved.
So we were doing our normal day's work and at night, armed just with a blanket, we spent the night in jail, sleeping
on a wood plank padded only with a thin mattress made of straw. The 45-46 winter was particularly severe so needless
to say that these nights were far from a walk in the park. Since a fair number of us had been sentenced, and since
there wasn't enough room in jail for everyone, we had to serve our sentence in shifts.
I personally was more upset since the drill sergeant (the local ass….) had learned that I was from Louhans, home
of the Bresse chicken, and had me drop off a chicken to his family who lived in a town nearby. I had assumed that
this favor was well worth an extra day leave but he didn't see it that way!
Regardless of all these incidents, our training was coming to a close and I was promoted to Corporal and Master
Corporal with an accountant diploma by the end of March 1946.
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The WW2 planes display on the Champ de Mars- Paris |
