Volunteering for the Far East

Heroes Remember

Volunteering for the Far East

Transcript

How did I get to the Far East? I was tired of being at a radar school. It was too quiet, so they did something you should never do in the service - I volunteered. Next thing I know, I was in the Far East. There were a total of 723 Canadians in the Far East. Canadian radar people were responsible for a large proportion of the radar sites and the facilities in the Far East … looking for protection against the Japanese, looking for escorting convoys up the Persian Gulf up to Iraq, and watching as we were doing at the beginning of 1942, watching for the Japanese who might be expanding from where they were in the Dutch East Indies. And sure enough, a very famous Canadian on a radar equipped flying boat saw the Japanese landing craft, assault craft, aircraft carriers and destroyers, that were heading for Ceylon. Detected them early enough to disperse the British navy that was located there. And to make a long story short, it was what Churchill called, ‘the Saviour of Ceylon,’ this detection of the Japanese assault force. And had they not been stopped, we could have lost again. The Japanese, the way they were advancing, swept up through Burma and into the, at the edge of India. And they would have come up through Ceylon the same way about the same time as that very famous battle in North Afric was being fought by Montgomery at Alamein. Had they joined together, we wouldn’t be talking to you today.

Description

Mr. Barrie explains how he ended up in the Far East with the RAF, the responsibilities of Canadian radar technicians there, and the crucial role of radar in the war against the Japanese.

William “Bill” Barrie

Mr. Barrie was born on June 5, 1918. As a child, he was intrigued by radio, followed his desires and studied in the field of radar. By 1939, Mr. Barrie received a certificate as a Second Class Commercial Radio Operator from the Marconi Radio School in Toronto, Ontario. At age 22 he joined the RCAF. His first posting was to Britain and from 1941 to 1942, while in service, he obtained more education on heavy duty radar systems. In July, 1942, Mr. Barrie joined the RAF # 212 Flying Squadron and travelled to Southeast Asia where he took part in many airborne radar patrols. In 1945, Mr. Barrie returned to Canada and enrolled in a Radio Physics course at the university in London, Ontario, graduating with a BSC in Honours Radio Physics. In 1946, Mr. Barrie met a young Scottish girl who was serving with the Royal Navy as a WREN and they married later that year. After graduating university in 1949, Mr. Barrie was employed as a Development Engineer with a company in Belleville, Ontario. From 1957 until his retirement in 1981, Mr. Barrie was involved in major projects in the field of radar, from developing sound systems to designing more complicated satellite communications hardware. Retirement allowed him to become a major contributor to the “Canadians on Radar Research Project”.

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