The Life and Loves of a United States Naval Aviator

Our air base was situated next to a small village called Kenitra (In 1977 the base was returned to operational control of the Moroccan Air Force and renamed “Kenitra”). Best of all, there was a beautiful beach nearby where we spent most of our free time. It contained a restaurant run by Monsieur Boniface. After a long flight to Naples or Rome, I brought the Privateer down on the deck, hedge hopped over the breakwater, hung the tip of the left wing at Boniface’s restaurant, and made a climbing left turn into the landing pattern and landed. Our fly-by excited Boniface’s deaf waitress who, from the vibration we created, thought she was hearing again. Boniface knew this was his clue to set up a table for us with our usual two-course meal consisting of a large bowl in the center of the table filled with shrimp with hot spicy sauce and a bottle of Calvados, which we referred to as Normandy Applejack. It was dynamite! In case we were lucky, this is where we could take our French girlfriends for lunch. Just to the right of the restaurant on the beach was the entrance to the Wadi (also spelled Oued, meaning river) Sebou with a breakwater extending out from the mouth. This is where, on November 10, 1942, a little over three years earlier during the invasion of North Africa, the destroyer Dallas plowed her way through mud and shallow water, narrowly missing the sunken ships and other obstructions, and sliced through a cable crossing the river, to land army raider troops who promptly captured the airport from the Vichy French. Along the beachfront were beach cottages and villas, mostly empty. Some of the officers had rented a few of the cottages, and not to be outdone, I, along with Konnie and a couple of others, rented a villa. It was a two-storey with a circular staircase to the top with four pie-shaped bedrooms leading out to a great veranda overlooking the entire beach of Mehedia Plage. We converted one of the bedrooms into a bar room, and we were in business. The only drawback to this location was it overlooked a beachfront property rented by the Port Lyautey Navy’s equivalent of Sergeant Bilco, who had acquired a harem of women. Every evening a rattle of noise came from the cottage. According to my French girlfriend, Arlette, who spoke French, English, and Arabic, the argument among the women was “Who was going to get to sleep with the chief that night?” It was a minor annoyance.