Mission To Waterloo (Quebec)

On Apr 20, elements of 3BAM deployed to the picturesque Eastern Townships city of Waterloo, Qc at the invitation of the mayor and through the good efforts of L/sgt Michel Lapointe, to help celebrate the anniversary of the local sea cadet corps, #291.  In this we were supported by Branch 77 of the Royal Canadian Legion. The longish drive (over an hour) provided me with a perfect opportunity to interject a short lesson on the actual battle of Waterloo (1815) after which the town is named and which was fought about half an hour's drive from the city in which my father was born.  I visited the site myself as a child, but that story will be for another day.

The mission was under the overall command of MWO (ret) Tom Savoie while WO (ret) Gilles Pelletier served as artificer. The GPO for the mission was Lcol (ret) Jaques Borne while the detachment was commanded by Sgt (ret) Marc Castonguay. Also participating in the mission were Lcol, (ret) Yvon Bégin,  Bdr (ret) Jean Rocheleau and Gnr Castonguay, and of course, myself in my usual civilian clothes and fedora hat, which was blown off my head repeatedly by the strong, gusting winds that day. So strong in fact that I was eventually forced to take it off and place it in the truck while I worked, leaving me feeling sort of naked. I don't like not having a hat. I guy without a lid ain't worth talking about.

Upon arrival at the local legion hall which served as our operational base for the event, Gilles Pelletier went to preparing the blank cartridges for shoot, assisted by Marc Castonguay who was helping with this task for the first time and received some instruction in the process. The process, having observed it myself a few times through the camera lens, seems a bit counter-intuitive at times. I usually have to fight back the impulse to stand back a bit. It also takes considerable time to prepare each round, there being several steps in the process. I think a future blog post may be entirely dedicated to this.

In front of the Legion hall sits an M114 155mm howitzer, identical to the one outside the CDN Armoury, though the paint on it seems newer, giving it a better appearance overall. I was surprised by the size of the legion hall itself, which not only features a lounge and separate billiards room, but also a good size dance floor. The gun was donated by 62RAC in Shawinigan, which act was made possible through the efforts of L/sgt Lapointe, who is a member of the local legion post as well as a 3BAM member. Early in his career, Tom Savoie actually served on the M114, before the regiment was converted to the 105mm C1.

The town is also the site of an annual parade of military vehicles, held over a four-day period each summer, and two WWII vintage Willy's jeeps were part of the parade on Saturday. I had the chance to look them over quite closely and found them to be very nicely restored, from my inexpert point of view at any rate. 3BAM will be participating in the festival this summer, as it did last year, though at this point, my participation in this event is at best uncertain.

I digress. The detachment fired a total of three shots, one of which I captured on video and incorporated into the short film shown here which otherwise composed entirely of still images which as a still photographer is what I mostly shoot. As is often the case, one of the local VIP's was invited to serve as a guest gunner and fire a shot, while Bdr Rocheleau and Lcol Bégin fired the other two. One of these days, I'm going to start writing down names, or at least getting someone else to write them down for me sot that I can stop doing such a half-ass job of reporting the story.

Also as usual, everyone did his part and despite the absence of our Sunray, CWO (ret) Gilles Aube, things went very smoothly.  After the parade and salute, we repaired to the legion post to put the gun and tractor back on the flatbed that we'd hired to bring them there and back then enjoyed a round of drinks courtesy of the mayor, and did a bit of pleasant chatting with the local legion members before making the return trip to Montreal. It was a long day, but worth the effort. The presence of 3BAM was genuinely appreciated by the cadet corps, mayor and citizens of Waterloo. We'll be back soon!

Ubique!


Gary Menten
Photographer