There things stick in my mind when I recall our adventure at Lartique:...1. Bread and wine for breakfast...(not too bad I guess)...2. Sleeping under mosquito nets..(bad)...and, 3. The crap holes in the latrine....(the pits)
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Replying to:
There's been considerable e-mail chatter over the past few days about the so-called "joint exercise" with the French during the 1954 deployment to the Med. Most of the squadron relocated from Halfar to the French Air Base, Lartique, located south of Oran for the 7 to 10 days duration of the exercise. Most of the e-mail dialog has been about the base rather than the actual operation. Hopefully most of those comments will be repeated here.
Dave Reed got it started with an inquiry about the date it occurred and I responded as follows:
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Oh yes indeed I do remember Lartique - can't forget. It was, supposedly, an
exercise with the French during the summer of '54. We marveled at those
bright and shiny French P2V-5s parked on the ramp - hardly used. Our
planes were faded, dirty and worn. We were flying 10 hour missions to
simulate harbor mining, I believe, on the south coast of France but I don't
think the French ever made it off the ground. However, I did see one crew
crank up like they were getting ready to taxi but - - they just shut it down
and scattered.
Yes, most, or all, of the crews deployed, temporarily, to Lartique from
Halfar. I was on crew 7 (Ifft) at the time. Shortly after our return to
Halfar Ifft succeeded Ettinger as CO.
I can't fail to mention the base "latrine" which was an "experience" hard to
forget. Suffice it to say, there were only two (2) flushes per day (morning
& evening) - water shortage - Algerian desert in the summertime!!!!
Drinking water had to be flown in for us - the French drank cheap wine.
I might add that exercises with the Italians had similar results - we were
the only participant. And there was never an exercise with the Brits!!
I've got a photo or two that I'll send when I find 'em.
As I recall Gordon Peterson was there and probably spent more time at the
base than I did so I'll send a copy of this to him. He may be able to
