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Mail From Home

Heroes Remember

Mail From Home

Transcript
Very, very important. Unfortunately, a lot of the things never did reach us. Mail from home from Newfoundland, I guess I heard from my mother on an average about every month and a half. I made a point of writing home at least once a week and I kept that regimen pretty well all the time that I was overseas. In fact, until 1968 probably, every one of my letters home was in the home in Elliston because when my folks, when my dad retired from the mill in Grand Falls, he sold the home there and they moved back to Elliston. At the age of 70, he built another home. He was a first-class carpenter. And they kept, they had kept all these letters and just before he died, the question arose...The letters were in a bread bag, I guess, in the attic, quite close to the chimney and he was sort of apprehensive about the possibility of fire. And I remember he, I had gone to Elliston to visit at the time and he mentioned it to me. I said, "Dad, they're of no consequence; throw them out." And well, to this day I rue that, ever having said that because it was part omy history. Certainly part of my personal history. It would have been nice, even now at this late stage in life to look back and see the nefarious deeds that I committed and had the nerve to tell them about. But packages were a different story. I had made quite a number of friends on the mainland when I was doing my flying training and they would send cartons of cigarettes and with Sweet Caps in those days, Sweet Caporal. And of course, we had always been used to Camels and Chesterfields here in Newfoundland. It was all American, you see. We had none of the Canadian Players and Sweet Caps and Export and so on. So anyway, there was a young lady in Lasheen (sp) when I was at the manning depot. I met her and spent weekends at her home. Her parents were very, very gracious people. And they sent me on the basis of once a month a carton of Sweet Caps, and that went on for the whole two and a half years I was overseas. And I venture to bet that I received maybe six. The others, of course, probably lost during the voyage. Probably torpedo ships or something. But a great majority, I would say, on the black market For instance, we could go to the trade commissioner's office at 58 Victoria Street in London and if we had five or six days leave we were guaranteed, as far as possible, a carton of Wings when we arrived and a carton of Wings the last day we were there, heading back to base. Numerous times, in fact, on numerable occasions, I went to 58 and picked up things like seaboo (sp) stockings which I found great for wearing when I was flying. But Wing cigarettes, Flag cigarettes, no. None in stock. But you go about a block and a half up the street and you could get them from under the counter. So even our own guys, you know, just flogged, blankets of sweaters and all that sort of thing that the Patriotic Association, the WPA knit and sent over. A lot of them just went the way of all flesh, bartered and sold on the black market.
Description

Mr. Cole explains the importance of mail from home. Throughout the war he received regular packages from friends he had made during his travels.

Raymond Boyd Cole

Raymond Boyd Cole was born in Elliston on July 14, 1924. His father worked in the United States and then at a papermill in Grand Falls, Newfoundland, when Raymond Cole was one month old. Mr. Cole grew up in Newfoundland.

In 1941, Mr. Cole finished grade 11 and was 17 years old in July of that year. He wanted to be a fighter pilot so in 1942 he signed up for the air force by altering his birth certificate. He received his wings on November 12, 1943. He found out later that he was not to become a pilot, but he did become an air gunner.

Mr. Cole spent three weeks at #1 Air Gunners Ground Training School (AGGTS). He then spent six weeks at #9 Bombing and Gunnery School (BGS). Following #9 BGS he went overseas. Further training includes #30 Operation Training Unit (OTU) and then 1667 Heavy Conversion Unit (HCU) where he made the conversion from twin engine aircraft to heavier, four engine aircraft with seven crew members.

Mr. Cole flew as an air gunner in over twenty operations with as much as one thousand aircraft in some. He was involved in the Normandy Campaign and many of the missions were heavy concentration bombings of the Ruhr Valley, which was a heavy industrial area.

Mr. Cole completed his flying tour (thirty operations) and went on to do three more operations afterwards. One to help his crew finish up their tour and then volunteered for another two. He worked as an orderly and as a truck driver for a while before returning to Grand Falls, after three and a half years overseas. Afterwards, he became a minister.

Meta Data
Medium:
Video
Owner:
Veterans Affairs Canada
Duration:
04:29
Person Interviewed:
Raymond Boyd Cole
War, Conflict or Mission:
Second World War
Location/Theatre:
Europe
Branch:
Air Force
Units/Ship:
166th Airborne
Rank:
Corporal
Occupation:
Air Gunner

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