Caught in the Middle

Our Education Officer was a guy by the name of Massey. He was Vincent Massey’s son and he was a real, real good head. We’re bombarding him with questions like, “What’s the fire over there?” “That’s Le Havre.” “Okay, what’s going on over there?” He says, “Well, that’s Caen. That’s where Jerry is. That’s where we're supposed to have our air field. "But,” he says, “you’re not going.” “And what’s behind us?” The Canadian Army was behind us. “Who’s in front of us?” He says, “Jerry.” And one kid says, “Well, aren’t we supposed to be behind the army?” “Never mind, things will work out." He said, “What you guys are gonna do is go get your, into your tents, get your tents stuck up and go to sleep.” But we never slept, not for two, three, four days. You couldn’t. And then, about three, four days later, part of an American Army engineers came in and we worked together to lay this air field down. These strips of steel, like, for the runway, and what it was, our squadrons back at Chichester would, in the morning, would fly over to Plumetot and we’d gas them up and ammo them all and they’d take off and do their business and come back, they’d do five, six, seven trips a day. Then at five, six o'clock in the afternoon they fly back to England where it’s safe. By the same token, RAF Spitfires would come in, they’d ammo up and gas up and then, because they were, were covering for the bombers when they came over. And the American Mustangs and, the different American aircraft would come in and they would be continually day in, at night, you look out at the field there may be one or two aircraft. They’re all back in England where it’s safe. And that went on for about three weeks, and that’s all it took to break the German Air Force because you could see, and we started on the move, we started, we moved once, build another air field, and then they abandoned the air fields.

Mr. Abdallah talks about being in France to lay down an air field and explains how they got caught in between the Canadian Army and the German Army.

Wilf Abdallah

Mr. Abdallah was born in London, Ontario, in 1923. His father immigrated from Lebanon to the United States at the age of 12 and eventually ended up in London, Ontario, where he was a candy maker and owned a few stores in the area. In 1936 the family moved to Petrolia and then on to Sarnia. Mr Abdallah attended high school in Sarnia before moving back to London in 1939-40. After lying about his age Mr. Abdallah joined the Royal Canadian Air Force when he was seventeen. He went to Toronto for three weeks training at Manning Depot before going to Paulson, Manitoba, to complete his training. In March of 1944 he sailed on the Louis Pasteur to Bournemouth, England, where he was stationed with 129 Airfield. Mr. Abdallah worked with the tactical air force, building airfields and then joined the air force’s return salvage unit. He moved through France, Belgium and Holland recovering aircraft to be repaired or stripped for parts. When Mr. Abdallah returned to Canada after the war he went back to live the rest of his life in London, Ontario.