|
|
Planning for the Events and A trip to France
Plans to Celebrate a Historic Event
During 1998 and 1999, we heard various stories about the French retiring the last of their F-8 aircraft, but never any firm information or dates. Then, during the early summer of 1999, Sam Laden, retired Vice President and General Manager of the Vought Commercial Division, put me in touch with the F-8 Crusader Association, Inc. (F-8 CAI) that was on the Internet. The F-8 CAI organization is comprised of former USN and USMC F-8 pilots. My first contact was with ex-Cdr. Charlie Snell who I had known slightly back in my Field Service days. The F-8 CAI organization had been in contact with a similar organization of former French F-8 pilots, Les Anciens des Crusaders. Capitaine de Fregate (LtCdr) Antoine GUILOT, the Commanding Officer of Squadron 12F, the only remaining squadron of F-8's in the French Navy, had contacted the American Crusader Association, informing them of their intentions to have a big retirement celebration at B.A.N. Landivisiau. He invited all former USN/USMC F-8 pilots to participate.
The preliminary plans in France called for a three-day affair, 1 December through 3 December l999. As GUILLOT said in one of his early e-mails, the weather in the Bretagne part of France is not very hospitable during this time of the year, so he felt if there were a 3-day span, there would be at least one day of OK-flying weather.  Larry Durbin, Secretary of the F-8 CAI, e-mailed me updated lists of the people who were going, as well as the latest development of plans in France. It appears that there was an element of the French Navy that just wanted to quietly retire the aircraft. They thought it was almost shameful that they were still flying such old aircraft, and could see no reason to celebrate such an occasion. But, there were several ex-F-8 pilots who had risen to flag rank in the French Navy who recognized the significance of the contribution of the Crusaders to the history of aviation in general, and in particular, Naval Aviation, and they strongly supported the plan that Squadron 12F was proposing. As a result the plan became a reality.
During the early part of these plans it appeared that John Konrad, Chance Vought Chief Test Pilot, who had made the first flight in XF8U-l Number 1 on 25 March 1955 and Maj. John Glenn USMC (now a US Senator), who had made the Project Bullet flight from California to New York at more than the speed of sound on 16 July 1957, might be there. Unfortunately, neither one could make it.
One of the major events of the celebration was a big final dinner on Friday night, 3 December. The function was scheduled at a "castle", located near the gate to the base. Questions were immediately sent back to France asking what the dress code would be for this evening, as well as any of the other functions that might require anything other than casual dress. GILLIOT responded that dress uniforms would be in order, or for civilian dress, the ladies would wear either evening or cocktail dresses, and for the men, blue blazers would be acceptable. A shop was found that would make special sets of "Go Fast" blazer buttons replicating the "Thousand Mile an Hour" pin. Chance Vought Corporation presented "Thousand Mile an Hour" pins to each Navy/Marine pilot when he completed training in an F-8 which included supersonic flight. The pins are highly prized by these pilots, so the drive was on to get enough sets of blazer buttons for everyone to have for the Friday night dinner.
Planning a Trip to France
I started my planning by sending an e-mail to the secretary of the French organization, Les Anciens des Crusaders, who suggested I e-mail the squadron directly; when I did, they referred me, again, to the secretary of the F-8 Crusader Association Inc. (F-8 CAI). I contacted the secretary of the F-8 CAI, Larry Durbin, to confirm that non-pilots/non military individuals could attend. Larry said there would be no problem, so I proceeded to do some planning. From the very beginning, Elaine (my wife) was very encouraging. She recognized how much I wanted to go and gave me a "kitchen pass" to look into it with the serious idea that I would go.
 As it became more evident that this whole idea was really going to happen, more and more US pilots became serious about taking part and the list got longer. Some of the folks scanned the Internet and came up with lists of hotels, inns and auberges, airline, train schedules and prices. This whole part of France is a summer resort area, so many of the accommodations and restaurants would already be closed for the winter. One hotel manager in Brest wanted to know why there were so many Americans making reservations in the area for this time of the year. He was happy to say that he could accommodate as many as wanted to come. Early on in this sequence of events, I noticed in the Internet correspondence going back and forth among the various American participants, a web site for a place called Auberge Saint -Thegonnec. It sounded interesting, and both Charlie Snell and Larry Durbin had reservations there. I e-mailed the auberge and received a room confirmation from Monsieur Alain LE COZ, the Proprietor, on 2 November 1999.
When I started looking at flight schedules, I decided to go a few days early. I wanted to spend some time with the Squadron Maintenance Office, getting whatever data they could give me on their aircraft to help finish the history of the Crusaders that we are writing for the Retiree's Club company history. In addition, we didn't get to spend much time in this area of France when we were there in 1965/66, and I wanted to do some touring, therefore I arranged my schedule to leave on 27 November 1999, the Saturday after Thanksgiving, non-stop D/FW to Charles de Gaulle-Paris Airport, with a continuing flight to Brest. The return flight was scheduled for Wednesday, 8 December. This gave me a few days either side of the festivities at Landivisiau to spend time with the maintenance people, and to see some of that part of France, at least that's what I had planned.
All I had to do was get all my warmest clothes together, pack half of them, and leave.
Getting From Dallas to St. Thegonnec
I left on Saturday afternoon, 27 November 1999, on American Airlines Flight No. 48 scheduled to depart at 5:40 p.m., however, we didn't pull away from the gate until 6:00 p.m. It was already very nearly dark, just a thin "after sunset" glow on the western horizon and clear as a bell with lots of lights visible all over north Texas. Over McAlester, OK, we were already at 33,000 feet, and our planned flight path was over St. Louis, Detroit, Ottawa, St. John, (Newfoundland), the south tip of Greenland, London and into Paris after 8 hours and 38 minutes. In spite of the late departure, we were still scheduled into Paris at 10:00 a.m. Sunday, 28 November. The flight was not full, so I had an empty seat beside me and could stretch out a little. I have never been able to sleep much on airplanes so I read a good book on the Normandy invasion, written from the point of view of the German soldiers who were in the beach fortifications waiting for the Allies to come in, and how they tried to repel them.
I may have slept 2-3 hours, 15-20 minutes at a time. Somewhere in there, I changed my watch to Paris time, seven hours later than Dallas. We saw the first streaks of dawn at about 8:10 a.m., sunrise and breakfast about 9:00. Paris was reporting 46F (8C) with partial cloud cover. Because of the cloud cover we could not see much of the city during the approach but we were on the ground right at 10:00. There was absolutely no check-in through customs - our passports were stamped, but that was it. We came in on Concourse A, so I walked to Concourse D, to board Air France Flight #7736 to Brest.
We rode a bus from Concourse D to the airplane, a small Canadair commuter-type , operated by Brittish Airways. Mechanics were working on the left engine, which didn’t give one the most comfortable feeling. They must have gotten it fixed, because we taxied out right on time and took off after a running start. The crew never did announce our altitude, but I don't think we ever got over 10,000 feet, because we had good views of the countryside, in between the clouds, and of the coastline as we got closer to Brest. On final approach, we flew directly over the air station at Landivisiau.
I picked up my baggage and signed for the rent car, a 2000 model Renault Nelle CIo (whatever that is), and followed the maps and instructions on how to get out of the airport and onto N.R.12 heading east to Landivisiau and St. Thegonnec. The weather was cold but mostly clear, with a cold north wind blowing in from the ocean. I headed out and soon realized it was farther to St. Thegonnec than I thought it would be.  As I got off at the St. Thegonnec exit, there were signs pointing to the four or five hotels in town, so I had no problem finding the Auberge St. Thegonnec. Besides, their web site said it was on the Cathedral Square, and you could see the Cathedral from five miles out of town, so I was able to drive right to it. Monsieur LE COZ, the proprietor showed me to Chambre 12, and I got my stuff unpacked and tucked away in short order. I discovered that the auberge's dining room was not open on Sunday evening, but that there was a good creperie just a few blocks away. I decided to walk the whole area to see what else was there. On a Sunday evening, there wasn't much going on. I did find the creperie, but there was a sign in the window that it was closed on Sunday afternoon, and the French "apres-medi" can mean all the way to midnight. Back at the auberge, Monsieur LE COZ couldn't believe that, and he called the creperie. They said they would reopen at 7:00 p.m. So in this case, "apres-medi" did mean afternoon, and a little bit of early evening. I went back and enjoyed the biggest crepe on the menu.
Monday, 29 November, I went to the Landivisiau Air Base to get checked in and meet with the squadron's record keepers. While there I had the privilege of seeing a rehearsal of the air show for the Friday events.
Tuesday, 30 November, I returned to the base to see another, more impressive, rehearsal of the air show. When I returned to my room at the auberge, I received a phone call from Joe Engle, an F-8 test pilot for LTV , who, with his wife, had driven from Paris. They had a room at the Holiday Inn in Brest. They had gotten lost when they arrived in town. They stopped and asked two motorcycle policemen for directions, and the officers decided it would just be easier to guide them, so they did with sirens, flashing blue lights and all, right up to the motel entrance. The Engles were planning on going out to the base and getting checked in on Wednesday morning, then doing a little looking around, and maybe coming by the auberge so we could go to the "beer call" in the town of Landivisiau.
|
