Lost and Found
Heroes Remember
Lost and Found
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When I got through Cairo in forty, this'd be December ‘43,
20th of December I left Malta, finished up.
But before that how we found out there was a Canadian
Headquarters in Cairo. We needed an airplane. So a crew went
over on a destroyer to Alexandrea and went on to what we call
Whimpy Valley, where they had miles of airplanes of all
description. And this guy came back and he had a
piece of paper and he said, "Here, sign this." Prior to this on
the battle order board, in other words they put
your name up, you're flyin' tonight sort of thing,
if you hadn't been promoted in the last nine months put your name
here. This squadron I was on had more Canadians than British.
The Australians, New Zealanders, two South Africans and the
Canadians pretty well filled the airplanes. So Canadians,
they put their names up on the board, nothin'.
British would get promoted. So this guy came back
with a piece of paper from Cairo and he said "Here, sign this."
He said, "I was in Canadian Headquarters." We were sure his
mind was gone because there was no such a thing as a Canadian
Headquarters in Cairo. There was. Beautiful big place. They
were lookin' for fifty-five of us that they didn't know where we
were. Fifty-five aircrew from sergeant to flight lieutenant,
they hadn't a clue where we were in the world.
One young fella that was in the same room that I was in got
married at 19 before he came overseas. Hadn't heard from his
wife for about six months, and it was affecting his work.
So I was goin' down to the mail this day
and I said, "Kenny, you want me to pick up your mail?"
"She won't be writing to me anyway," and the
language wasn't too good. I went down there and there was
a stack of letters that high done up with
like binder twine, and an explanation on the top, "No Trace
India." The guy had never been east of the Suez Canal in his
life. They were lookin' for him. What this chap found out when
he went to Cairo, we ended up gettin' Canadian rates of pay.
One chap went from a sergeant to a W-O1 overnight.
I think it took me two weeks to go from sergeant to W-O1.
They found us. How I found out that they had lost us, I used
to drive to work when I was back in the service and living in
Waverley, workin' in Halifax and I'd drive with this little
commissionaire. His daughter-in-law got in the car one morning
and I'm in uniform and she looks at the ribbon she said,
"Where were you?" I said, "Down in the Middle East."
I said, "We flew out of Malta." "You're one of the
of the ones we lost." She was workin' in
Canadian Headquarters, Lincolns Enfield in London and they were
This guy found out when he went lookin' for an airplane and we
thought he was insane. They found us. They finally found us.
And the British got very mad at us because I was a sergeant
and I was gettin' the same pay as a pilot
He didn't like that very much.
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