Seeing The World

Heroes Remember

Seeing The World

Transcript

Interviewer: When you fellas, when the decision was made that you were ready to go... Yes. Interviewer: Tell me about that? The day that you were told, "This is it. You're going." You got, you had leave right away and we had, I don't know what leave, but I know I had, had leave and then we, we ended up at Dorval. The air craft were not ready for us, so they sent us to, I remember, Moncton, and I remember going into this hotel, and the snow was higher than, than, than I was walking into the front door and I said, "Let's get the hell out of here. Let's go south." Anyway, we, we ended up back, at, at the end of that leave, we, we reported back to Dorval, we were told to report back, which we did, and the air craft were ready. So, we crewed-up and Transport Command, their pilot, their navigator, and their, their signals officer were in charge of the air craft. We dubbed in to find out what it was all about, they, that was their job to fly across the Atlantic to ferry air craft to Europe, and, so we were, we were in, that was another learning curve for us. Ended up at Gander because of the weather, we were there for two weeks and we drank the bar dry and the CO said, "Get those Goddamn Canadians out of here." So, we, off we went and there was, there were Mosquitos taking off, there were Lancasters taking off, there were Libs taking off, I don't know whether, and most of them were half cut, you know, but he just wanted us out of there, because there was a break in the weather. We ended up in the Azores. Beautiful, oh God, after, after that weather in Gander and so on, it was beautiful, and then Rabat Sale, and then to Algiers, so, I was, I was seeing what I wanted, I was seeing the world and it was wonderful.

Description

Mr. Fitzmaurice talks about his trip from Canada to Southeast Asia and getting a chance to see the world.

Anthony Fitzmaurice

Mr. Fitzmaurice was born on a farm in Mount Carmel, Ontario. He grew up in London, Ontario, where he attended school. After graduating from college in 1943 he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force and received his training in Mitchells and then Liberators in Calgary, Alberta. After training he flew from Dorval, Quebec, to Algiers. Mr. Fitzmaurice flew in a Liberator with 357 squadron flying guerillas in to Burma, China and Thailand. He returned to Canada on the Aquitania in March of 1946.

Meta Data

Medium:: Video
Owner:: Veterans Affairs Canada
Duration:: 02:44
Person Interviewed:: Anthony Fitzmaurice
War, Conflict or Mission:: Second World War
Location/Theatre:: Canada
Battle/Campaign:: Burma
Branch:: Air Force
Units/Ship:: 357 Squadron
Occupation:: Wireless Navigator

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Date modified:: 2019-04-03