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Description
Mr. Chisholm pays tribute to the Royal Air Force ground crews who serviced the Squadron’s aircraft.
William Lawrence (Red) Chisholm
Le père de M. Chisholm était chef de gare à Berwick (Nouvelle-Écosse) pour le Dominion Atlantic Railway. Il a déménagé à la gare de Windsor (Nouvelle-Écosse), puis a quitté les chemins de fer pour s'acheter un magasin à Kentville (Nouvelle-Écosse). M. Chisholm a terminé ses études dans le système scolaire à Kentville. Après avoir obtenu son diplôme d'études secondaires, il a travaillé pendant une courte période pour son père, puis il est allé travailler comme serre-frein pour le Dominion Atlantic Railway. Après s'être enrôlé dans l'Aviation royale canadienne en 1940, il suit son premier entraînement à Toronto. Il fait ensuite partie des 500 membres environ qui sont envoyés aux premiers cours, d'une durée de deux mois, donnés à l'école de formation de Regina dans le cadre du Programme d'entraînement aérien du Commonwealth. On l'envoie ensuite à l'école d'aviation de London (Ontario). M. Chisholm devient par la suite un as pilote et reçoit la Croix du service distingué dans l'Aviation (DFC), avec barrette.
Transcription
Tribute to the Work of the Royal Air Force Ground Crews
Mr. Chisholm: They lived in tents, they ate bully beef like we all did, they never got any time off. You couldn’t go to a pub at night, there was no pubs in the middle of the desert and those fellas did an absolutely fantastic job. I have nothing but admiration for those, the ground crew guys in the RAF squadrons. They were just a fantastic bunch of guys. Boy, you know, they tinkering around with your aircraft all the time, and if you come back and told them you shot one down, my God they were so happy, their, their airplane had shot down a German. And I always remember how, what a wonderful bunch of people, those ground crew guys were. They never got any leave back to Cairo like we did every five or six weeks. We got a couple days back to Cairo, they stuck her out right straight through, all the way from...
Interviewer: Now they, they were all British, weren’t they?
Mr. Chisholm: Yep, they were all British.
Interviewer: Now how did they feel about you Canadians, you Canadian pilots?
Mr. Chisholm: Gosh they were, they were just, just great. Just great, they all, we got along fine. They also liked Canadian cigarettes and I got a fair amount of them, that always tuned them up a bit. But now, as far as our pilots went, we had a real league of nations at, you know, one time I can recall, we had Canadians, Americans, Australians, South Africans, New Zealanders, a Rhodesian, a fellow from Trinidad. They were from everywhere, and it was always, there wasn’t anything to do in the evenings except sit in the mess and tell lies, you know, and once in awhile we did get a little booze in but it didn’t last very long, and sitting around in the evening and hearing all these different nationalities tell about living in their country, and all that sort of stuff, it was, it was most interesting.
Interviewer: You must have felt a long way from, from Kentville at times?
Mr. Chisholm: I sure as hell did.