Couldn’t Wait To Fly

Interviewer: What was your reaction when you heard Canada was at war? I think that it was just, you know, I’m too young to get in yet. I was anxious, you know. I visualized myself over the Channel with a white scarf flying on top of the coop top. On my eighteenth birthday, you had to be eighteen to get in, so I had been to the recruiting depot and had all my medicals and everything in advance. So on my eighteenth birthday, I was there first thing in the morning and got sworn in.Interviewer: On your eighteenth birthday.Yep. Interviewer: Wow, what year was that? 1943.Interviewer: Were there school mates or chums or friends of yours that had been killed in the war at this point? At that point I only knew one friend that had been actually killed, at that point. And of course, as time went on there were more. Interviewer: Why did you join? I think you’ve already answered this. You joined this branch of service because of your father’s experiences in the trenches. You didn’t want to go in the army. I thought, you know, I’d love to fly. And I’d had a chance to have a couple of rides in a small aircraft. I’d won one in a draw at the airport [inaudible] put your name in a box and I won a 20 minute flip, you know, in a little thing. And it was just, you know, it was exhilarated. So I went out. I used my birthday money another time to go out and buy another little flip. I just couldn’t wait to learn how to fly that thing.