Posted to Great Britain

Heroes Remember

Posted to Great Britain

Transcript

Interviewer: Where was it you were first stationed? I first went, this probably saved my life, because I was sent down to a bombing and gunnery school down in South Wales as a staff pilot and I towed targets up and down the Bristol Channel for a whole year. And then the, the bombers with, full of under-training air gunners would, would fire at our drogues. It was very boring, except once in a while one of the, I got stitched from one end of my Ferry Battle to the other one time by a gunner who gave way too much deflection. Didn’t know it till I got down on the ground and the ground crew came up and said, “My God sergeant, you’ve been hit.” And I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “There’s four bullet holes right down the side of your airplane,” and he said there was a hole on this side and hole on that. I didn't know this, when your engine's roaring and all that sort of stuff. A bullet had come in one side of my aircraft and passed about that far in front of my belly and out the other side. So I thought, “Am I going to last to get into actual fighting, or is somebody going to shoot me down out here in friendly fire?” Interviewer: These targets that you would pull, how far behind, you said a Ferry Battle, so a Ferry Battle aircraft that you were flying, about how far back was the target? I would say probably two or three hundred feet. They were quite a ways back. Yeah. Interviewer: So this, this, this or a plane load of air gunners would come up along side you. Yep. Interviewer: And shoot at the target. That's right. Interviewer: Now you said deflection shooting. Now they have to allow deflection, they have to aim over here when the aircraft is there. Well one of these young, they were all Polish lads, and he allowed too much deflection. Maybe somebody hadn’t told him, maybe he was firing and thought he was supposed to fire at the airplane, I don’t know. Shook me up a little. Interviewer: So you were there doing this type of work which could, from time to time, be both boring and dangerous. Yes, yes. Interviewer: You did that about a year? Did that about a year, yes. As I say, it probably saved my life because I became a pretty good pilot through that, all that extra flying. So many of these kids were sent into action with only a couple of hundred flying hours and they just weren’t ready. There was such a rush to get pilots into, into fighters and bombers that I always thought they didn’t have the adequate training but they didn't have much choice. They had to get going against the Jerries and they just pushed things a little bit.

Description

Mr. Chisholm speaks of his arrival in Britain and his first assignment overseas.

William Lawrence (Red) Chisholm

Mr. Chisholm’s father was a station agent in Berwick, Nova Scotia with the Dominion Atlantic Railway. He moved his family to the station in Windsor, Nova Scotia and then later left the railroad and bought a store in Kentville, Nova Scotia. Mr. Chisholm completed his education in the Kentville school system. He worked briefly with his father after graduation from high school then went to work as a brakeman for the Dominion Atlantic Railway. After enlisting in the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1940, he took his initial training in Toronto. He was then one of about 500 sent to the first class at British Air Training Program Training School in Regina for a period of two months. After completing his training he moved to a Flying School in London, Ontario. Mr. Chisholm went on to become an ace pilot and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC), with bar.

Meta Data

Medium:: Video
Owner:: Veterans Affairs Canada
Duration:: 03:02
Person Interviewed:: William Lawrence (Red) Chisholm
War, Conflict or Mission:: Second World War
Location/Theatre:: Wales
Branch:: Air Force
Units/Ship:: 92nd Operational Squadron
Rank:: Sergeant
Occupation:: Pilot

Language selection

Posted to Great Britain

Heroes Remember