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Description
Basic training and a period as a pilot instructor in Canada behind him, Mr. MacLean recalls the reaction of his parents when he told them he had been posted overseas.
Transcription
My parents were rather fatalistic about it. They knew that there was a danger but I don’t think they realized or they realized even less than I did, the intensity of the danger. Especially if you ended up in Bomber Command at that time. Of course I didn’t know at that time that I would be in Bomber Command. That was a decision that was made in England. You see when I was posted to Bournemouth, which is where you went first, before they decided what to do with you. I was given a test, an eye test, a night vision test it was called, and people who has a high night vision test were posted to night fighters. And people who were intermediate night vision test were posted to Bomber Command. And people who had a poor night vision were posted to Coastal Command, which flew in the daytime mostly. And, so having intermediate, sort of medium night vision was almost a fatal characteristic. It meant you were going to Bomber Command.
Interviewer: So at that point in the war that meant that you were going to be taking hazardous duty trips into enemy held territory at night?
Yes, it was very hazardous but it was the only way that the Allies had of doing any damage whatsoever to the enemy and it was therefore essential that it be done.