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A Pacifist is Convinced to Enlist

Heroes Remember

A Pacifist is Convinced to Enlist

Transcript
Interviewer: During the late 1930s the situation in Europe had deteriorated. Yes. Interviewer: Do you remember that time and what you heard on radio and by newspaper? Oh, I was closer to the scene. I worked on a Norwegian freighter and finally we got to England and I went broke trying to become an actor, and then I was a cub reporter for The Daily Mirror and then I got onto the theatre and I was in the Repertory Company in the Royal, at the Royal Theatre, a well known theatre, in Margate, on the third of September when Chamberlain announced the war, and I... So I'd had two years in England and knew that war was coming, everybody knew it was coming. Some people feared it and some people were excited about the prospect, quite frankly. I, I was very upset and it was only because I, I was still a pacifist, strongly anti-war, believing that there were other ways of avoiding, resolving problems between nations, and I didn't fully appreciate what Hitler was doing, what Naziism meant. I didn't know what dangers we were running into with the appeasement policy of Chamberlain until I met an escapee, a Jewish woman who was very poor, lived in the same place I did and taught German to make a living. And then I interviewed, for The Chronicle newspaper, a refugee camp in, in Kent, all refugees from Austria and Germany and they opened my eyes about what was happening and then I and my pal, who was also a reporter, who was also a pacifist, we both decided there was no, no alternative. We'd gone too far. We had to stop this evil that was spreading around Europe. And so I converted. It was difficult but I became, then, a militant in so far as war was concerned, knowing war was going to develop. I got an application from the RAF. I couldn't bear to... What am I doing, I'm talking far too much. Interviewer: No, you're not at all. I really am. I didn't like the idea of killing people. It just revolted me so what was I going to do? I was going to get in a, a fighter plane and I was going to fly way up in the air and the only people I would meet would be Germans who was, a single man in another plane and I would shoot him down of course but if it would be a real battle and I stood a chance of being shot down too. So I applied for the RAF and when it, when war was declared I sent off the form and then I, eventually they, they, they sent it back for a short service commission and I had to have a, a birth certificate. My name is sort of German you know, we didn't have a passport as Canadians, you didn't need it. I never did have a birth certificate. There was a baptismal certificate somewhere but mother and father living in Indian villages didn't bother about registering our birth. So the air force said, "Get your, wire your mother and tell her to get a lawyer and sign a notary, a notary..." Interviewer: An affidavit? ...an affidavit swearing that I was a legitimately born and where etc. Well, mother wouldn't do it. Eventually she said, "Come back to Canada and I'll think about it. Come back and join the RCAF," which I did on borrowed money. I am talking too much. Anyway. Interviewer: Not at all. That's how war came to me, and I had by this time, I had lived for sometime in London, and I had a landlady, Mrs. Hook, Mrs. Hook. Mr. and Mrs. Hook were very kind to me and they were wonderful people of the lower class, very strong supporters of the establishment and of the church, and very convinced from the beginning that Hitler didn't stand a chance, that, "He's a silly man and we'll, we'll put him in his place." And so I, when I, when war came I thought about them and I think it was these human contacts that I made that, that made me convinced we had to do battle.
Description

Mr. Sager, a pacifist in 1939, describes how he was convinced that war was necessary and why he signed up for the Air Force.

Arthur Hazelton Sager

Mr. Sager was born in Hazelton, BC, where his father was working as a medical missionary. He was the eldest boy in his family, growing up with two brothers and four sisters. He and his family were pacifists (against war). Mr Sager quit school at age seventeen and went to work in a gold mine. At the outbreak of war Mr. Sager was living in London, England, working as a professional actor, as well as a reporter and had the opportunity to interview Jews and other people that had fled mainland Europe. The stories he heard from these people led to the changing of his pacifist attitudes. Mr. Sager also had two brothers who served, one in the Royal Canadian Navy and the other in the Royal Canadian Air Force. Mr. Sager joined the RCAF and flew many combat missions over Europe. He had a very successful career earning the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) with bars, and his flying record at the end of the war stood at six destroyed, two probable and five damaged. By the end of the war, Mr. Sager was made a commanding office After the war Mr. Sager also had a distinguished career as a private citizen. Among his many jobs, he spent twenty years working for the United Nations as Project Manager for developing countries, as well as a member of the Executive of the Royal Canadian Air Force Association.

Meta Data
Medium:
Video
Owner:
Veterans Affairs Canada
Duration:
04:43
Person Interviewed:
Arthur Hazelton Sager
War, Conflict or Mission:
Second World War
Branch:
Air Force
Units/Ship:
416, 421, 443 Squadron
Rank:
Flight Commander
Occupation:
Pilot

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