Liberators

Following the loss of most of their APCs and trucks in the sinking of MN Toucan and MN Colibri, UNPROFOR systematically requisitioned civilian and corporately owned pickup trucks in British Columbia. Using Ministry of Transportation vehicle licensing abstracts, they searched for heavy-duty Ford and GMC pickups that were less than four years old and that were painted green or brown. Composite teams of RCMP officers and French Marines were sent to the registered addresses, carrying seizure paperwork printed in both French and English, and stacks of newly printed Canadian Provisional Government currency. Curiously, owners with French surnames never had their pickups requisitioned. These forays were more successful than their aborted attempts to disarm registered gun owners.

Owners of the pickups were forced at gunpoint to sign “voluntary” title release agreements and to sign receipts for the cash that they were handed. Once the pickups were driven back to the garrisons, they were spray-painted in flat camouflage patterns, and twelve-inch-tall “UN” stencils were applied to the doors, hoods, and tailgates in light blue paint.

•   •   •

The new war of resistance in Canada had some interesting aspects stemming from the U.S. border. In the early stages of the guerrilla war, American citizens were busy with a war of their own. After the corrupt U.S. ProvGov led by Maynard Hutchings and his cronies at Fort Knox, Kentucky, was overthrown, however, attention to the situation in Canada reached prominence. Inevitably, small arms, ammunition, and explosives began to cross the border, starting as a trickle, but eventually becoming a torrent. The Canadian Border Logistics and Training Volunteers (CBLTV) network sprang up and grew rapidly. The group, whose acronym was half-jokingly spoken as “cable TV,” included thousands of U.S. citizens in border states and beyond.

The flow of arms to the resistance in Canada from the CBLTV did not go u

This cordon sanitaire, also known as une zone totalement dépeuplée—was a ten-kilometer-wide strip that would be 100 percent depopulated. In this border zone UNPROFOR border guards could fire at will at anyone attempting to cross. The free-fire-zone policy was not publicly acknowledged at first, but warning signs were posted along its length, and eventually parts of it were planted with land mines, which killed deer with alarming regularity.

32

PUMAS AND GAZELLES

At the begi

—Mike Vanderboegh, Sipsey Street Irregulars blog

Williams Lake, British Columbia—August, the Third Year

Phil Adams was not surprised to learn that a detachment from the Cinquième Régiment d’Hélicoptères de Combat (part of the Fourth Brigade Aéromobile, or Fourth BAM) had established a helibase at the Williams Lake airport. They had brought in two types of helicopters, Pumas and Gazelles, both manufactured by Aérospatiale.

The larger SA 330 Pumas could carry up to sixteen troops, while the SA 342 Gazelles could carry only three. Phil considered these helicopters a key threat to the resistance, one that needed to be eliminated as soon as possible.

Lazy at heart, the UNPROFOR’s local command foolishly set up its three roadblocks just five kilometers out of Williams Lake and didn’t have any others until just outside Bella Coola to the west, Prince George to the north, and Kamloops to the southeast.

Driving his Ford F-250 pickup with a camper shell, Alan McGregor was able to drop off the three-man team just two miles before the roadblock. He then continued into town to buy supplies, as he did once every two months.

Canada’s infrastructure had fared better than that in the United States, in part because the power grid was predominantly powered by hydroelectric power. There was still grid power up in much of Canada. Some stores were still open, but it was a scramble to find anything to buy. Alan and Claire were often disappointed on these trips. It wasn’t until they learned to bring butchered sides of beef with them in their pickup that they got fully in tune with the barter networks in Bella Coola and Williams Lake.

The three raiders—Phil, Ray, and Stan—had opted to travel lightly armed, for the sake of speed on their pla

Although thermite would have been more compact and more effective, they opted for the expedience of simple Molotov cocktails, using gasoline. The gasoline was thickened with Styrofoam to the consistency of heavy syrup. Since they had used green Styrofoam pellets, the finished product had a light green tint.

Since there hadn’t been resistance activity west of Edmonton other than the sinking of the RO-RO ships (an act blamed on “American commandos”), UNPROFOR’s helibase at the Williams Lake Airport was lightly guarded and only three kilometers northeast of the town. From a timbered hill to the east, the raiders watched the routine for two days and nights, using binoculars and Phil’s PVS-14 night vision monocular. A variety of tents and vehicle shelters housed the pilots, ground crew, and cooks. Their ALAT’s light discipline was atrocious, with light blasting out each time a shelter door or a tent flap was opened. Their eight helicopters were parked in rows at eighty-meter intervals. Behind them was the unmistakable squat shape of a brown rubber fuel bladder—almost universally called a blivet. This one had a sixteen-kiloliter capacity. Next to it was a pair of fifty-five-gallon drums, standing upright.

During the first day that they watched, French soldiers used a commandeered bulldozer to methodically scrape the ground over a wide distance on three sides to create a protective embankment around the fuel storage point. They were obviously getting ready for a prolonged occupation. Taking his turn with the binoculars and watching the bulldozer’s work, Phil whispered, “What do you want to bet that the next thing they’ll do is bring in something like Hesco bastions and make revetments for the helicopters?”

Even at 450 yards, Phil recognized the distinctive outline of the FAMAS “bugle” 5.56mm bullpup carbines being carried by the French troops. By 2015, most of the French army had transitioned to the FÉLIN (Integrated Infantryman Equipment and Communications)—the French infantry combat system of the 2000s. It combined a modified FAMAS rifle with a variety of electronics, body armor, and pouches. The suite had an integral SPECTRA helmet fitted with real-time positioning and information system, and with starlight light-amplification technology. The power source was two rechargeable Li-ion batteries. The SPECTRA helmet was used by both French and Canadian military units. In France, it was also known as the CGF Gallet Combat Helmet.