Flight Instructor in the Commonwealth Air Training Program
Heroes Remember
Flight Instructor in the Commonwealth Air Training Program
Interviewer: After you got your wings,
what did you think was going to happen
next and what did happen?
Well we were, as I say it was June,
June 22, 1941 and we were hoping that
we would go overseas.
I didn't know when I got my wings whether
I was going to be an NCO or an Officer.
I can't remember when I was told I was
going to be an instructor.
I guess it was before I came home on
leave to Vancouver and to report at
Trenton, in Ontario, and then some of
the fellows went overseas.
Interviewer: When you were told that you
were going to be an instructor instead
of going overseas, do you remember
what your reaction was?
Disappointment. But you see at that time
they were building up the Commonwealth
Air Training Plan and that was the part
that Canada was participating in with the
States and, or not with the States,
but with England because of the wide open
spaces and it was designed to train people
in the RCAF, people in the RAF,
Royal New Zealand Air Force and the
Royal Australian Air Force and we also
trained people from Norway.
There was an airfield in Ontario called
"Little Norway", just Norwegians,
they trained them in their own school.
So they were building these schools up
so fast that you, they had to have the
instructors so that's why we were sent
down to Trenton.
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