Associating With Our Own

Heroes Remember

Associating With Our Own

Transcript

We only associated with our own. We went out at nights to the pub. There was always the seven of us. When we went on leave usually one or two fellows would go along but we were staying with our own. You never made friends, close friends with anybody else on the squadron. You stayed just in your own little group. Interviewer: And is it fair to say that you certainly had to have a lot of trust in the crew members? Oh yes, yes. We knew the bomb-aimer was good. We weren’t going to have to go around the target twice because he wasn’t ready. Our pilot was an excellent pilot. We all had every trust in our pilot. Never once did we get really lost, the navigator was good. And I’d known Bill, the other gunner for so long. We worked together as a team. The wireless operator, the young Scots fellow, he could take a radio apart in flight and put it back together again. And the engineer, George Hockins, the engineer who was the London policeman, he was almost like a father figure in the crew. He was the one would put us all on the crew car and drive home after our pub visits and this kind of thing. He was a sergeant, same as we were at the time so he was always the one that made sure we got up, made sure we did this, made sure we did that. He worried about us!

Description

Mr. Heather speaks about the relationship among the crew and the level of trust required in one another.

Stan Heather

Stanley (Stan) Heather was born in Toronto, Ontario, on June 5, 1923. He began his military service on February 27, 1941, at the Galt Aircraft School as an airframe mechanic trainee and then joined the Royal Canadian Air Force at the manning depot in Toronto as an AC2 (Aircraftman, 2nd class) mechanic in July of that same year. He flew as an air gunner with Royal Air Force 78 Squadron at Breighton, Yorkshire, England. At the end of the war, he had achieved the rank of flying officer, and returned to Toronto to pursue his education in Accounting while working for the Dominion Bank. He worked for the Chrysler Corporation as an accountant, for Dale Carnegie Courses as a sponsor in the West Indies (for 15 years), and for the Mississauga Board of Trade as its general manager. In 1985, he co-founded Heather Child Care Supplies Ltd. with his wife, Hassina which they still operate together. Mr. Heather is a proud father of five, grandfather and great-grandfather.

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