Description
Although stressful and difficult at times, Mr. Muir recalls having some fun in flight.
Fraser Muir
Fraser Alexander (Red) Muir was born on June 27, 1924, in Westville, Nova Scotia. Mr. Muir trained as an air gunner and received his wings at Mount Stewart, Prince Edward Island, in January 1943. He was seconded to the Royal Air Force (RAF) after arriving overseas in April, 1943, and was eventually posted to 50 Squadron, 5 Group, RAF Bomber Command based in England. Mr. Muir served as a mid upper gunner, and completed 35 operations over enemy territory, and had achieved the rank of warrant officer 2 at the end of the war. On returning to Canada, he returned to high school, and went on to complete a Bachelor of Commerce at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. He was employed at Air Canada, retiring in 1983 after 30 years of service.
Transcript
Everybody did their job and once you got aboard, you know, you had the tension of being briefed and everything but once you got on and started doing your responsibilities... Well leading up to that I’d go out and make sure there was no spots on the turret and little dots, after a while those dots take shapes and you imagine you are seeing it’s an aircraft way off and you have to keep moving. You can’t stare at the sky or the sky will start moving with you. We had a lot of difficult times but we had our jollies. We loved to fly low, oh man. “Hey Red,” he said. He would tell me to turn the turret around to face the front and look for light poles and high trees, you know. We’d finish training (inaudible) and we’d drop right down to ground level and we’d see the ripples on the water from our slipstream.