Gunboat Diplomacy

 

Who wants to lie in bed comfortably at 07:00 on a Sunday morning then lallygag about having a leisurely breakfast before turning on the Sunday morning talk shows at 09:00? Apparently, not me, nor any of the usual suspects from 3BAM who evidently thought it would be much cooler to build a

The dress for Saturday was "combat."  The weather was "wet."

do-it-yourself gunboat by putting a 25-pdr gun on a steel barge, having it towed out onto Lake Tremblant and firing it. This was something we'd never tried before.  It's not that there was a particular problem with piracy on the lake, or that that anyone needed a beachhead softened up with naval bombardment; it's just that the organizers of the Ironman triathlon held there this time of year every year wanted us to fire starting shots for the event as in previous years but wanted to use every bit of available beach space for the competitors, organizers and first responders. So they provided a barge and a tow, and never having done this before, 3BAM took up the challenge with our usual aplomb and had fun in the process. After all, when the badge you wear on your hat says "Ubique," you have to try to live up to it.  And in case you haven't figured it out yet, 3BAM is also about having fun.

A lot of wine was consumed.

Loading the gun onto the barge.

It's also hard to say no to an all-expense paid trip to to Mont Tremblant. Add the wet weather, having to get up at 04:45on Sunday, and a lot of "hurry-up and wait," and the camaraderie that naturally comes from hanging around with old soldiers and doing things like this, it was a lot like old days in the regiment, but with better food and accommodations, not to mention free booze. Oh, and I almost forgot...colour TV.



It wasn't all peaches, though. It rained all day Saturday, which though we weren't firing, was the day we had the most work to do, getting ready for Sunday, where we were shooting at 07.00. To make matters worse, we had to spend an eternity, or so it seems waiting on the beach for our barge to show up so that we could load the gun onto it. Of course, we were standing in the rain, and 3BAM is not particularly well-equipped with rain-gear. One again, our Sunray, CWO (ret) Gilles Aubé pulled out his infamous 1950's vintage rain-capes and passed them around. It was just then that I noticed for the first time that the buttons on these early Cold-War memorabilia were all on the wrong side to be men's garments. They must have been made for women and issued to nurses! However as expensive digital cameras and rain do not go particularly well together, I accepted the nurse's cape as a necessary evil to protect my precious gear.

La Cage Aux Sports.

Once we were satisfied that everything was in place and all the gear secured, we repaired to our hotels to dry out a bit, change of clothes, and it was off to La Cage Au Sports for supper.  Well, most of us changed clothes at any rate. The food was pretty damned good, though the place was too noisy for my tastes. Lcol (ret) Jaques Borne, who has a nice bar in his home, not only paid for a large pitcher of beer, he actually bought the dispenser. ( I couldn't think of a better term. See photo) Before loading it into his car however, he managed to get the base changed to a football.

Colonel Borne pours a beer.

Camaraderie. I've said it before and I'll say it again: it's what I miss most about the military and at the end of a long day, it's always nice to get together with the fellas and drink a few and share a laugh. I'm pretty sure that it's why a lot of 3BAM members are part of 3BAM and why it's mostly the same core group - the usual suspects- that show up most often. You either get it or you don't.  If you are reading this post, then you probably get it. 

Diplomacy, 3BAM style.

But this story was about gunboats. "Gunboat diplomacy" for those who are not entirely familiar witth the term, refers to the old practice of enforcing foreign policy objectives through conspicuous displays of military power. Though 3BAM's objectives are entirely peaceful what we do is to practice a sort of diplomacy promoting our causes; veterans, the artillery, the 2nd Field Regt. I figured, and I think quite correctly that the moment we put the gun on the barge and towed it out onto the lake, we became the most heavily armed vessel ever launched in this lake, this qualified us as a gunboat of sorts.We'll call it the (HMCS) IRONBAM. Ahoy!

One of my "nautically-themed" photos.

I have to also admit to having a bit of a nautical passion, which passion makes many guest appearances in my real (paid) photographic work. (see picture) It was therefore great fun, especially since it was the perfect opportunity to bellow out nautical commands you don't get to use every day. What I didn't think of doing, was bringing some of my nautical paraphernalia to lend that special touch, but we're back in August so there's another chance.

My first cup of the day.

But before the fun, again came some work. Getting up at 04:45 on Sunday morning so that we could be ready to shoot at 07:00 would qualify. And when you get up at that hour, the first cup of coffee that's put before you makes all the difference between coherence and incoherence for the rest of the day. I needed more than one in my case. Breakfast was pretty spartan in this B&B. Toast, bagels, fruit salad,  bananas, cereal, coffee, OJ, assorted jam and PB. What was missing were eggs, bacon, sausage...the sort of stuff that people who aren't competing in a triathlon would love to eat when getting up this early. This may explain our stop at Tim Hortons on the way home. But at least there was coffee!

Lcol Bégin and Lsgt Lanoes at breakfast.

With breakfast over, we headed out to the beach, and unlike the previous day, the rain held off and everything ran pretty smoothly. I'm happy about this. I'd have hated to have worn a ladies rain cape in front of a thousand people.  The only real fly in the ointment was that for the second weekend in a row, some terribly "misinformed" announcer kept referring to us on his PA system "The Canadian Armed Forces," instead of the 3rd (Montreal) Field Battery. Unfortunately, by the time he was doing this, we were all on the lake and couldn't send anyone out to correct him.  Right there was thousands of dollars worth of free publicity flushed right down the toilet. Hey guys! Look at our WWII uniforms and equipment! Look at our mostly grey hair! We are NOT the Canadian Armed Forces, nor do we have any right to pretend we are.

The moment of truth. It wasn't a very big barge.

But aside from this, things went pretty well, though owing to some miscommunication of intention, there were 14 starts and we fired starting guns for on the the first two. The organizers would have liked for us to fire for all of them but didn't tell us in advance to ammo for all 14, so fired only tow as in previous occasions at this event. Next time (August) we'll bring more ammo whether they ask us for it or not. Nonetheless, we had to stay on the lake until all 14 groups were in the water with 5 minute intervals between each start. Add to that the fact we were in place a good 45 minutes before the first shot, and we were out on the lake more than two hours. As our little gunboat had no deck chairs, it was bit uncomfortable at times. Another thing to think about come August.

What it's all about.

I think that this might be an appropriate time to mention that there were people who are even crazier
than we were on that lake. Those would be the competitors in this grueling triathlon. All day on Saturday, wherever we went, we could not but notice athletes in training, jogging in the rain, pushing themselves, preparing for the next day's grueling events. Why the hell aren't these folks in the army, I wonder?

2nd breakfast.

Once everyone was in the water, it was time to go back ashore, pack up and get back on the road, destination, Montreal. Like little hobbits, though, we all seemed to crave a second breakfast, which was held in the parking lot of a roadside Tim Horton's, on the trunk of Colonel Borne's car, as Timmy's was pretty crowded inside. That too was reminiscent of army days where I ate many a meal on the hood of a jeep or an Iltis. RECCE PREPARE TO MOVE! The trip back to Montreal was without incident and we were back at the barn by 12:30, with the gun and vehicle maintained and everything secured away by 14:30.

I have to say that it was a fun way to spend a couple of days.  If most people go to Tremblant to ski in the winter or swim and jog in the summer, or just to lose money in the Casino, 3BAM goes there to put on a show, maintain artillery traditions, take on new challenges, and just hang out together and have a good time. Anyone can start a race with a starter's pistol, but if you really want to make an impression, put your popgun away and call 3BAM!

Ubique!



Gary Menten
Photographer-Correspondent,
3BAM

Have You Ever Seen The Rain?

Lcol Borne concentrates on his Tagalog greetings.

I have to admit that up until today when we went to fire a rather long salute (8 shots) to commemorate Philippines independence, we've been pretty lucky with the weather. But sooner or later our luck had to run out and we'd get weather that made us all hark back to our active days in the military and our annual visits to Gagetown. As luck would have it, that turned out to be today where from the moment things got rolling, we received a steady, if not overwhelming drizzle that lasted pretty much all afternoon. As a consequence, the two most thoroughly useless things I did this weekend were to:

A. Spend two hours pressing and starching my uniform and:
B. Put on sunblock this morning, for fear I might catch another nasty sunburn as I did a couple of weeks ago.

No chance of that happening today....none! NFW!

Our first shot of the day.

Anyway, despite the rain, and our having to spend pretty much all afternoon in it, everyone kept their pluck, and spirits remained high with absolutely no complaints or griping. We had a few humorous moments to boot. Lcol Borne, who by virtue of rank was selected to address the crowd on our behalf and speak a few words in Tagalog, was introduced as "The Commander Of The Canadian Armed Forces." Congratulations on your promotion, sir.

Also, despite the miserable weather, we had great fun posing for photos with members of the Filipino community, often loaning them our hats or pulling out a WWII tin hat for them to wear. All good fun, but also good publicity for us and the regiment as many of those photos taken by spectators today will invariably end up circulating around the internet through Facebook and other social media. I was very pleased to see how well other 3BAM have taken this practice to heart.

Lcol Borne samples some of the cuisine.

Participating today for 3BAM were Lcol (ret) Borne, Ocdt Ouellette, CWO (ret) Aube, Sgt (ret) Castonguay,  myself, and Lsgt (ret) Rocheleau. Not a big detachment, but we got the job done due in no small part to Sgt Castonguay, who served both as our artificer in which he was aided by Lsgt Rocheleau, and also serving as #1.

As I've already mentioned, the weather just plain sucked. It sucked enough to constantly fog my lens and ruin a number of shots and I was constantly wiping off my camera, lens and flash. Fortunately, Nikon professional gear has very good weather sealing, but that doesn't help with fogging. Drats!

In between the first five shots and the last three came a long period of inactivity, probably a couple of hours, during which most of us grabbed some lunch in the form of tasty Filipino dishes that were being served all over the place. We spent the rest of the time either posing for photos, waiting for an interminable mass to end, or just standing under the cam net (with a blue tarp stretched over the center) trying to stay dry and recounting old Gagetown stories. It was during this time that former Liberal cabinet member and current Montreal mayoral candidate Denis Coderre wandered around to our position and came to speak with the detachment. By this time the foul weather had convinced me to pack away my camera in waterproof Pelican case, so I had to rapidly go dig it up again and get it ready so that I could take a couple of group photos.

Members of the detachment with mayoral candidate Denis Coderre

Sgt Castonguay

After the religious service was finally over, we tried in vain to find the organizers, who were also supposed to be our VIP gunners for the last two shots. We really wanted to fire those shots, get paid and get the gun and gear back the armoury, where we still had a fair amount of work to do. Marc Castonguay took charge of the situation just then, suggesting that since we still had three rounds left and only two VIP's we fire one shot immediately, and this would surely bring our organizers running. Sunray agreed and so a quick BOOM later, Marc's prediction came true. Our organizers appeared out of nowhere, cheque in hand and wanting to make they got to shoot before we headed back to the barn.We had here something of a repetition of something that had happened in February with "Les Amis de la Montagne" shoot and our gunner either not understanding how the firing lever works or not pulling back with sufficient force, but the gun didn't boom when the order to fire was given and it took rather a while to get the shot off. The second shot went a little better and with that, we packed up and headed for home...well, CDN Armoury to stow the gear or hang it up dry any rate.

One of our VIP's

It's a pity that the weather was as bad as it was. The event would have been a lot better for the participants if it had been, and I'm quite convinced that in better weather a lot more of the participants would have come to pose for photos with us, thus increasing our exposure. This is the very thing Gilles brought me into 3BAM to do. but you win some, you lose some. Everyone did their part, got wet together and made the best of it. I saw nothing but smiling faces. Even my KD service dress cap, better suited for wear while chasing Rommel in the Western Desert or while sitting in hotel lobby in Cairo sipping gin-and-tonics then to wearing in the rain held up better than expected. And I wasn't the only one dressed for the desert!

When it's all over, June will have been a very busy month for 3BAM, and so a month's stand down in July will be a welcome break and I will I hope, give me to opportunity to spend my weekends shooting pin-up photos and my weeknights editing said photos rather than ironing my uniform, shining my boots and posting this blog.

Ubique!

Gary Menten
Photographer-Correspondent
3BAM

Along For The Ride

Sometimes the best part of the mission isn't the "boom!" It usually is to the people who we are shooting for, and surely for our VIP gunner but when you fire so many salutes in a month, and June was very busy for us, not every mission can have the same impact on you. Friday, June 14, 3BAM fired a salute at a golf club in St-Colomban to mark the opening of an R22R Old Timers golf-tournament, and for me at least, it was a mission for which the comparatively long ride to get to the event was the most interesting part of the mission, not what we did when we got there.

From Left to right, Lcol Borne, Mgen Forand, Capt Noreau and MWO Savoie

I speak strictly for myself of course, and no-one else. Both Lcol Borne and Captain Noreau who were instrumental in arranging our presence at the event are themselves former Van Doos so they are naturally and understandably delighted to be doing this for their old regiment. There is nothing wrong with that of course. Old regimental affiliations die hard, if at all. I can't imagine that one ever stops being a Van Doo any more than one ever stops being a gunner, and one of my best friends from high school days, George Vladisavljevic spent 20 years in that very same regiment. Vive La Canadienne!

Eric Lapointe

But on with our story. Our first VIP gunner this day was Maj-Gen (ret) Alain Forand who not surprisingly a former Van Doo and the current Colonel of the regiment for the R22R, a post having a similar function to one of Honourary Colonel of our own regiment. Our second VIP gunner, was retired CFL running back Eric Lapointe, who played for a number of teams, including our own Alouettes before retiring in 2006.

Just like army days

Before firing, we were treated to a quick breakfast at the clubhouse, but it had to be a quick one as we had departed the armoury and arrived somewhat later than anticipated. Breakfast kind of reminded me of me of army days: it was late, served out of trays, and we didn't have very long to eat it! It was also damn nearly 12:00 when we finally got a chance to eat it, so it was breakfast in menu only. Again...sort of like old army days.

MWO (ret) Tom Savoie brings up a point at breakfast

The rides to and from St-Colomban took their time too as our 70-year old FAT wasn't exactly built for modern highway speeds. It was along the ride back, as we were nearing the barn that Gilles Aubé, after we'd been talking much of day, thanked me again for all the work I was doing to promote 3BAM told me that he was very happy to have me as a friend, and that was the best part of the day for me. Lasting camaraderie, the thing I miss most about my old days in the regiment, is far more important than the  flash and bang of a gun, which are done and over with in a fraction of a second.

The long rides, as it turns out, were for me the most interesting part of Sunday's mission. With Col Borne and Capt Noreau meeting us up at St-Colomban, and Tom Savoie and Gilles Pelletier riding up in the FAT, it gave me a fair amount of one-on-one time to chat with our Sunray, Gilles Aubé as we rode up together in his vehicle. He'd just earlier this week had a meeting with the regiment's new CO, Lcol Garon and the Colonel de Kovachich, our honourary colonel and I was dying to know how it went. Apparently, it went quite well, and what was related to me confirmed what I had already suspected, chiefly that Col Garon is taking a very keen interest in 3BAM including our appearance, and from what I can gather, plans to make the maximum use of 3BAM to promote the regiment and the corps. Just the sort of thing I wanted to hear! Ubique!

WO (ret) Gilles Pelletier, our driver and artificer.

It was also a good opportunity to bring up new ideas I had about increasing 3BAM's visibility as cheaply and effectively as possible, not to mention keep discussing a lot of older ideas not yet implemented for lack of time. One of the new points I brought up though, is that 3BAM needs more gunners, and by gunners, I mean new members. One of Colonel Garon's points was that he didn't much like seeing captain and colonel's serving as gun numbers when we shoot, which is unfortunately an expedient of necessity at times as no member is available 100% of the time. The truth is that  sometimes of late we've have more forage caps among the detachment than berets. One possible solution would be temporarily demote the captains and colonels by removing their caps and slip-ons if they have to fire the gun, but a better one in my opinion is to recruit more new members to serve as gun numbers.

WO (ret) Pelletier and Eric Lapointe

I will take a moment here to state that to join 3BAM, you don't need to have served in the artillery at all, nor even the Canadian Military. One our members, Lsgt Fredéric Lanoés, served in the French army. In fact you don't need to have served in the military at all. All you need to have is the right spirit, a commitment to honouring our veterans and promoting the traditions and history of the artillery, be willing to wear a uniform (which I got away without doing for about 8 months) and of course be willing to devote a certain amount of your time to what we do.

So I resolved on Sunday that soon, there would be a link on the blog to a permanent section on recruiting, and that reaching out to potential recruits would be a major objective of the blog and that I will have achieved my stated goals when Sunray starts getting phone calls or emails from people seeking information on how to join. I also resolved that there should and will be an introductory message from our Sunray greeting new visitors to this blog. Developing the idea a bit further, I also resolved later that night that I should find some way of asking both the commanding officer of the regiment, Lcol Garon and the honourary colonel, Colonel de Kovachich to also draft short welcoming messages to be permanently posted on this blog.  If you are reading this post good sirs, please start thinking about what to write!

All this exchange of information and ideas was possible largely because of the long ride, and having the chance to do so made the ride worthwhile. It reminded me very much of my days as TSM of 7th Bty when on return bus rides from Valcartier, I would often have an hour or more to discuss new ideas for training the battery with our BC, (then) Maj David Patterson. I really believed then as I do now that these relaxed and informal chats are very useful when it comes to setting goals and figuring out ways of achieving them. As we have a much longer drive to Mont Tremblant coming up next weekend, I may have to come up with a few more talking points!

Ubique!


Gary Menten
Photographer-Correspondent,
3BAM

How to Join 3BAM / Recrutement 3BAM

La 3BAM est une organisation composée uniquement de bénévoles à but non lucratif et dédie à rendre hommage aux anciens combattants du Canada ainsi que nos morts à la guerre,  a l'enseignement et le maintien de l'histoire et les traditions du Régiment Royal de l'Artillerie Canadienne et le soutien et la promotion du 2e Régiment d'Artillerie de Campagne, et à appuyer et entrainer son corps de cadets affilié. C'est une grande mission pour un tel petit groupe de personnes et nous avons besoin de recrues. Que vous soyez un ancien artilleur ou un membre d'une autre unité ou corps ou même un civil sans expérience militaire, si vous êtes prêt à porter notre uniforme et de contribuer un peu de votre temps, alors nous nous réjouissons de votre participation à nos entreprises.

3BAM is an all-volunteer non-profit organization dedicating to honouring Canada's war veterans and fallen heroes, teaching and maintaining the history and traditions of the Royal Regiment Of Canadian Artillery and supporting and promoting the 2nd Field Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery and supporting and training it's affiliated cadet corps. It's a big mission for a such a small group of people and we need recruits. Whether you are a former gunner or member of another unit or corps or even a civilian with no prior military service, if you are willing to put on a uniform and contribute some of your time then we welcome your participation in our undertakings.  

Pour plus de details comment se rejoindre a nous SVP contacter par courriel ici

For more information on how to join us, please contact us by email here:

Required Uniform.
The 1943 uniform below  is the ONLY one that members are REQUIRED to obtain.  
1943 dress.
Complete uniform costs approx. $300

MWO (WO class II) and below

Khaki beret   
(WPG cat #204505000) C/W brass king’s crown badge (ebay, surplus etc.) 

Aertex desert shirt 
(WPG cat #201214000)

Khaki drill (KD) desert shorts 
(WPG Cat #20126500)

KD long trousers 
(WPG cat #20132500)

Web belt 
(WPG cat #204738000)

Regimental belt plate**

Khaki socks 
(WPG cat #203091000)

Puttees 
(WPG cat #204477000)

Black ammunition boots 
(WPG cat #201501000)
modern parade boots acceptable (army surplus)

Rank and divisional badge will be worn on an armlet on the right arm. 
(We usually provide an armlet or brassard and appropriate rank and unit badges) 
 

Officers and Officer cadets, CWO's (WO Class I)

Same as above but with Khaki service dress cap (WPG cat #20103300) with blackened bronze cap badge in place of beret and oxblood (red-brown) boots (WPG cat #201033000) or oxford shoes instead of black ones, and rank slip-ons on the epaulettes.

Note: many 3BAM members obtain their SD caps from William Scully Ltd in Montreal.

Exceptions

The piper and photographer are authorized to dress distinctively, denoting their unique status within the unit.

Members who’s prior military service was in a different regiment or corps of the Canadian or Commonwealth military may opt to wear the regimental headdress and insignia of that unit or corps instead of those of the Royal Canadian Artillery. We are very accommodating about this.

New members are given a considerable grace period in which to acquire their WWII uniforms and are permitted to wear the optional OD combat uniform below in the interim.

For WWII reproduction uniform items, we suggest the following two suppliers of re-enactor gear: 



What Price Glory in California (WPG)
http://onlinemilitaria.com

SOF Military in the UK
http://www.sofmilitary.co.uk


Both ship your orders very rapidly and seem to draw most of their uniforms from the same sources, though in most cases where they have the same merchandise, WPG is less expensive. On the other hand, SOF Military has some items WPG does not, especially things like rank and unit badges, slip-ons, etc. 

Note also that 3BAM is not a re-enactment unit and does not maintain the same exacting standards of historical authenticity in dress and equipment as most re-enactor groups do. Our priority is to fire salutes when called upon and so we compromise somewhat on uniforms so that we can focus on the mission.

Nor do we require you to own any field gear (full web sets, helmets, canteens and mess kits, etc. We don't carry weapons or wear the more expensive (and uncomfortable in summer) battledress uniform meaning that your investment in uniform and gear is really very affordable compared to any WWII reenactment unit, which we as I have already said, are not.


Optional Uniform

The OD combat uniform formerly worn by the Canadian military before the adoption of the CADPAT is an optional "first uniform" and work uniform. Members are NOT required to own one, however we often suggest to new members they acquire one of these (which can be had cheaply) before spending real money on the WWII uniform. One reason it is very cheap is that we have small QM with a certain number combat shirts and pants (two sizes only: too big and too small) that we will loan you to get you going.

Green beret with small queen’s crown badge*
OD combat shirt*
OD combat pants*
OD combat jacket*
Slip-ons with 2RCA flashes*
Black gloves
Black combat or other military boots (whatever you can lay your hands on) 
OD combat parka*

* We have a certain stock of these items and can loan one to you if we have it in your size


Members whose prior service was in another regiment or corps may wear the badges and insignia of that unit or corps if desired.



 

Guns 'n Bikers

R22R Veteran

No, it's not what it sounds like. The guns I'm talking about are 3BAM's and the bikers in question are not an outlaw motorcycle gang. These guys were way, way tougher than any group of outlaw bikers ever assembled; they are all Canadian service veterans and members of the Royal Canadian Legion.  3BAM sent a detachment to fire a salute at the Legion branch in Mascouche on June 9th as they were having their annual rally there and it was a lot of fun for us too.

These guys are tough, believe me, but also very friendly and very appreciative of our participation. From the moment we arrived and dismounted from our vehicles, each of us was greeted with many friendly and welcoming handshakes from various members.

Capt Noreau

3BAM members who participated in the event were Lcol Jaques Borne, CWO Gilles Aubé, MWO Tom Savoie, Capt Maurice Noreau in his role and uniform as legion president, Ocdt Monique Champagne, Sgt Marc Castonguay, myself, Lsgt Michel Lapointe and Bdr Sylvain Bouchard. Ocdt Champagne was very smartly decked out in her newly arrived KD summer uniform, though wearing one of Gilles Aubé old SD caps since hers hasn't quite arrived yet. The boss was very impressed by how well she wore her new uniform and wanted to make certain I shot a photo so that he could show it to other unit members who's standards are maybe slipping a bit to demonstrate them of how to wear a uniform properly. That's quite a compliment coming from Gilles; trust me on this one Monique, so take it while you can ;o)

Ocdt Champagne and MWO (ret) Savoie

One of the speeches being delivered.

There were a few speeches before we fired, and as is always the case on 3BAM shoots it seems, the lighting conditions kept changing and there simply was no good position to place my camera for when the magic moment came. Either the sun was in the wrong position, or there were obstructions, distracting background elements, etc, etc. I never like shooting outdoors at this time of day as the sun is too high, too harsh and the quality of light...just blechh! Unfortunately, we can't fire the gun indoors. Well maybe we could in some places, but not without breaking all the windows and setting off all the smoke alarms. I don't think anyone is willing to do this just to make the photography easier, though I do wish I could do a bit more indoor photography of the equipment with controlled lighting as the little bit I've done so far has had a very positive response from 3BAM members. I digress. Back to our story.

The Detachment at the ready, waiting for the speeches to end. From right to left: LSgt Lapointe, MWO Savoie, Ocdt Champagne, BdrBouchard and Sgt Castonguay.

Our first VIP gunner was a gunner!

As is almost always the case, we found from among the crowd two "VIP" gunners to fire the gun, one being a former gunner himself, the other a former VanDoo, in fact the one who's jacket is featured in the opening photo of this story. A little bit of instruction on how to fire and the sequence of orders, safety protocols etc, and they were both ready to bang away. As we were fairly close to a busy road and firing in its general directly, the police politely and wisely suggested that all traffic be halted for a minute or two prior to firing, which was of course done. No need to cause a traffic accident with an unexpected discharge of artillery!

Boom!

Things went pretty much according to plan thereafter and both shots went off without a hitch. Some of our VIP gunners are young and smallish and sometimes have a bit of difficulty pulling the firing handle back on the 25pdr, but not these guys! When Marc Castonguay yelled "Fire," the boom came right away. Unfortunately the strong light made it very difficult to time the exposures to catch the flash as well as I did in last weeks shots and so I think I have to work on this technique a bit. It's definitely possible, because I have done it. Timing....it's all timing.

The detachment and our VIP gunners pose for a photo.

All while we were preparing to fire, they folks from the legion had a large BBQ heating up and so that once we'd done with the shots, they were ready to slap on the dogs and burgers, which were much appreciated. I packed my gear and lined up for the grub and headed indoors to quaff it down with a couple of Budweisers. As with last week, I did some good business on my own selling large prints to members of the outfit. This is telling me that whenever I go out, I have to make sure to bring a few prints from previous events with me. They make nice souvenirs and are being very well-received.

Anyway, after a pleasant hour or so of pigging out on burgers and beer (there were some wine drinkers too) we hooked in the gun and headed back to the barn, where Gilles, Tom, Marc, Sylvain and I did some maintenance on the gun before heading for home. Another job well-done.

Ubique!


Gary Menten
Photographer-Correspondent
3BAM

The Longest Weekend

Field Of Honour

Last weekend wasn't really a "long" weekend, it just seemed that way, meaning that it seemed it would never end.  3BAM fired salutes on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I wasn't present on Friday, but was for Saturday and Sunday. On both days, we had morning and afternoon shoots, in two different places each, with long intervals between the two. Of these, the "longest" day was Sunday where we fired salutes to Canada's veterans in both the Mount Royal cemetery and the Field of Honour in Pointe Claire. 3BAM does this every year around the 6th of June, which for those who don't know, is the anniversary of the D-Day; the day in 1944 that Allied Forces landed in Normandy and which more than any event in the war, marked the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany. This has significance to me because both my parents lived in Nazi occupied Belgium at the time and were liberated by Allied troops in September of 1944.

"The Longest Day" is of course a the title of the 1962 film based on the book by Cornelius Ryan, depicting the events of June 6, 1944. The  title was drawn from a phrase supposedly coined by Rommel in reference to the crucial first 24 hours of the expected invasion.  Like virtually all other American or British films I've seen about WWII, (and I've seen a good many) it gives Canada and Canadians the short shrift, barely even mentioning our participation, and not even showing a single scene depicting the Canadian landing. This is in my opinion, and the opinions of many others, just typical, and so I suppose that it's really up to we Canadians and perhaps we alone to make certain that WE remember OUR service veterans and our war dead, and what they did for not just for us, but for the world. If we don't it's for damn sure nobody else will talk about it for us.

Having already already written about Saturday's events at Longue Pointe and in the Old Port I will now focus on Sunday's shoots. As I mentioned in my earlier post, our FAT suffered a broken fan belt the previous day. What I didn’t really explain all that well, was that the replacement we installed as a field repair was a tad too large and though an adequate to get us back to the barn, it wouldn’t do for what we had to do on Sunday and had not yet had the chance to install one the right size.  There’s still a bit of government red tape preventing us from using our 2^nd FAT as a tractor, so we had to use Lcol (ret) Jaques Borne’s pickup truck to haul the gun around.  It looked odd, but got the job done admirably, and if I were anything like a real reporter instead of a commercial photographer, I would have thought to shoot a photo of it. I didn’t.   

It was also pouring rain as we were preparing at the armoury on Sunday morning, and again, if I hadn’t been such a putz, I would have thought to shoot a photo of the detachment wearing the hilarious and ungainly WWII rain capes that CWO (ret) Aubé issued most of the crew as a precaution.  In my own defense, my camera and flashes were locked away in my Pelican case and this had already been stored in the back of Col Borne’s truck, so they weren’t to hand when the rain was coming down and everyone dressed up or when the gun was being hitched to the colonel’s bright red pickup. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, it stopped raining before we left CDN and the rain capes were stashed away long before I broke out my gear. Oh well, maybe next time!  

Participating in events on Saturday were Lcol Borne and Ocdt Robert Ouellette who were decked out in WWII tin hats and anyone who thinks a modern helmet is uncomfortable should try wearing one of these for an hour. Also participating, CWO Aubé, Ssgt Dell, Sgt Marc Castonguay, Lsgt Jean Rocheleau, Lsgt Frederic Lanoes, Gnr  Francis Castonguay, Gnr Wolf Poll, and myself. 

The shoot on the mountain went completely according to plan though we had little time to get ready, and we even found ourselves a VIP gunner from among the legion members with an appropriate artillery badge on his beret. Ubique! 


From a photographic perspective, the light was quite challenging being harsh, not to mention of constantly changing intensity.  I was shooting in manual mode t so that I could slow the shutter speed down enough to capture the flash of the shot (1/15^th second), I really had stop down the aperture much more than I really like to (f.22) and one day, I promise to get myself some ND filters to alleviate this problem, however I never use them in any of my commercial work, which is shot almost exclusively indoors in more controlled light. I didn’t get the timing quite right on the first shot…it’s an art, but luckily, I was spot on the second time around. 

Once the ceremony was over, we packed up and left and headed to the Field Of Honour without incident. As well hidden as the veterans cemetery is on Mount Royal, this one is even better hidden and harder to find, though much, much larger.  The ceremony there was also considerably larger, longer and better attended. The Canadian Forces Recruit School at St Jean provided an honour guard while members of the Canadian Grenadier Guards mounted guard the cenotaph guard in full dress with bearskin hats.  The guest of honour was 34^th Brigade’s commander, Colonel de Souza, who is well known to us and who took a few minutes time after the ceremony to come speak with 3BAM.  It’s always nice to know that our efforts are being appreciated. Box lunches were provided by the military. Lcol Borne, still decked out in his WWII helmet laid the wreath for 3BAM. 

Unlike the morning's salute, but rather like the previous afternoon's salute in the Old Port, we had a lot of time to spare in between arriving and having to shoot. 3 hours, to be exact, for most of which we had little to do besides eating lunch doing a few practice drills in the interim and watching the lads from the recruit school and the CGG practice their drill over, and over...and over. And the ceremony itself lasted over and hour, which couldn't possibly have been fun for the lads resting on arms reversed in full dress in the high heat and humidity. 3BAM had a much easier time, of it, only standing to the gun a few minutes before the salute, though as photographer I was a bit busier, shooting photos of parts of the ceremony including the poor blighters standing motionless in with bearskins perched atop their heads.

Once everything was over, we headed back to the barn, did some maintenance on the gun to clean out the highly corrosive black powder residue from the bore and finally headed for home, our own day being finally over. I was bone tired and badly sunburned from two days in the sun without sunblock but sadly, as the photographer, my day was far from over. Photos awaited post production and the blog post awaited writing, and it is only now, on Monday night at 10PM that I am finally finishing this up. But the result, which remains to honour our veterans and our fallen, makes the effort all the more worthwhile.

Ubique!
Gary Menten
Photographer-Correspondent
3BAM

Always On Hand

A Tale Of Two Salutes

One thing about 3BAM's Sunray, retired CWO Gilles Aubé is that he that he takes 3BAM's motto "Always On Hand" very seriously and makes sure we live up to it. On June 1st, while smart people our age were staying in the comfort of someplace with working air conditioning or perhaps sipping pina colada's and margaritas by the swimming pool, we took it upon ourselves to dress as if we were chasing after Rommel in the desert and fire salutes at both Longue Pointe and the Old Port. Gilles had really hoped to have two detachments available because Longue Pointe had wanted us to shoot in both the morning and afternoon, but unfortunately, on this occasion we could only muster enough personnel for one detachment (plus me). 

Col de Kovachich on the bateau-mouch

Present were Lcol's Jaques Borne and Yvon Bégin, Capt Richard Ayoub, Ocdt Robert Ouellette, CWO Aubé, WO Gilles Pelletier, myself and Bdr Sylvain Bouchard and his son. The regiment's honourary colonel, Charles de Kovachich was also involved somewhat in the day's second shoot in

Up-amoured Leopard 1 tank

the Old Port, where he served as our liaison to the navy and got to ride on a boat, while the rest of us had to watch from the shore. To be fair however, he was much more uncomfortably dressed than we were. But I'm getting ahead of myself here. back to CDN for a minute where the day started with Gille's Nissan Quest suffering a mechanical breakdown in the parking lot right after he arrived at the Armoury. That's the day starting off in a familiar army way; with a problem. Luckily now, there weren't too many of us needing to get to Longue Pointe. Sunray and I clambered into Gilles Pelletier's vehicle while the rest of the detachment met us at the base, where our FAT and gun had spent the night since 3BAM had fired a salute there on Friday as well. I couldn't show up for that one as I still have REAL job on weekdays. Anyway, things at Longue Pointe went pretty well, though the organizers printed some signs for us to hang up identifying us as the 3rd Field Artillery REGIMENT.

Our gunner of the event was a young female lieutenant with a logistics cap badge, who seemed to take enormous pleasure at being chosen to fire the gun. Let's face it, it's not often these rear echelon types get to fire a howitzer, even one loaded with a blank shot. The smile on her face in this photo and the others tells the story. She really enjoyed it. As much as we were a hit with the audience, my smart new khaki drill bush jacket was a big hit of the day with 3BAM members; at least the ones wearing pips and / or crowns on their shoulders. It's only the second time I show up for an event in uniform and for some it was the first time seeing me decked out in my new kit. It sure as hell looks better than the Aertex desert shirts the rest of the outfit wears, though obviously not as well ventilated. Notwithstanding, these were worn all over Africa, India and Burma, so they are well suited to the heat. Much as I'd predicted in the previous post, now that they've seen mine, others want one.

Salute at Longue Pointe

Our second shoot of the day was in the Old Port where we fired in support of a ceremony commemorating the sacrifices made by the Royal Canadian Navy and Merchant Marine in the Battle Of The Atlantic.  I can't overstate the importance of what these brave fellows accomplished. Had we lost this desperate fight, and we very nearly did, the Allies would have also lost the war. It's that simple. The world would be a very different place.

We arrived in the Old Port and set up with plenty of time to spare, our lunches having been made and packed my Mrs Aubé. We actually had quite a bit of time in the Old Port waiting to fire the salute, which was at 14.00 hrs. In the meantime we strolled about a bit in our desert uniforms, as though we were on leave in Cairo in WWII, and needed to find a hotel to have a drink in. Surprisingly, not a lot of people came to ask us questions or pose with the gun or truck during that time, though once things got under way and it was evident we were going to shoot, they started popping up coming dangerously close to the gun with their ears unprotected as we were about to shoot. It's a public place, so you can't avoid this, but we didn't have enough people present to be as effective at security as we usually are. Ocdt Robert Ouellette was #3 on this salute, firing his first shots as a member of 3BAM.

Salute by water's edge

At 13.45 the bateau-mouche being used for the ceremony maneouvered  into position nearby and a ceremony was held with speeches, a prayer and three rifle volleys from a firing party assembled on deck. The Last Post was played, and as soon as the last note played, we fired our two shots at a two minute interval after which the detachment formed up by the railing at water's edge and saluted once more.

 

A Tale Of Two Breakdowns
 

And with that, the ceremony was over and we packed up and left, with the members who came in their own cars heading for home while Gilles Pelletier drove the FAT back to the barn with me riding shotgun and Gilles Aubé taking up the rear in Pelletier's truck. But if the day began with a breakdown, it also ended with one as the 70-year old FAT broke a fan belt as we were driving along the Decarie Autoroute. This was really beginning to feel more and more like a real army weekend. Gilles Pelletier however had everything on hand in the truck to replace it, which took us about an hour or so, an it was in the process of doing so that a passerby stopped his car and came out to see what was happening. I didn't recognize him at first; it's been decades since I'd seen  him but it was Maj (ret) Marty O'Hara, late of the 2nd Field Regiment, and was DCO when I joined back in 1982. We chatted for a bit as Gilles Pelletier worked diligently on fixing our truck, and then good major went off on his way, and eventually, so did we, tired sweaty and with another two salutes to fire the next day. At least it didn't rain.

Ubique!


Gary Menten
Photographer-Correspondent
3BAM