Desire to Join the Air Force

At the tender age of 20, I was working at what became Avro. It was called National Steel Car, and I was a lead hand, I guess. I think I had about seven or eight girls rivetting. I think we were ... Lysanders, at that time, they were making, and I worked there until almost December of 1941. I knew that they were recruiting people, friends of mine had joined. I wasn’t that interested at the time. And I had a chance to go home to Winnipeg for Christmas, and the foreman said, “Well, you got a reserved occupation. You’ll lose that.” I said, “Well, that’s too bad. I’m going home for Christmas.” And while I was there, I happened to drop into a tavern, and ran into a friend of mine that I had gone to school with. He’d gone overseas with, I think, 113 Squadron from Winnipeg, and was back in Canada, recruiting. And we got talking, and so I joined the air force. I liked the idea of going to university. I was going to go to university, university training there, and so that’s it. I came home and just, I think it was Christmas Eve. My mother was quite shocked. I said, “Mom,” … she thought I was quite safe punching rivets. I said, “Mom, I’ve joined the air force.” It wasn’t quite a good Christmas present for her, but she had two boys overseas - my younger brother and myself. So that’s how I got into the air force.