Getting my Wings!

I went on training on a Tiger Moth which is just a small little two plane airplane for the instructor and student. I did that in Verdun, Manitoba. And then from there I went on the Twins, the Cessna Crane in Dauphin, Manitoba. That was of course heading for Bomber Command. And so I was there until I got my wings. I got my wings in Dauphin.

Interviewer: And I understand that the position that you chose for yourself was pilot.

Everybody did. Ya, everybody tried for it but there was a limited number of us taken just the same, you know. A lot of fellows tried for it but they ended up in some other position in air crew but I was fortunate, I got in as a pilot. We took quite a lot of training. It’s amazing how much navigation type of training we got and also morse code and this kind of thing. But the flying up was most important thing I guess because we had regular flying sessions where we went up until we were sent solo on a particular airplane and then we would be checked out on it for different things afterwards including like your instrument flying that’s very important because in Bomber Command we were mostly on night flying, you know. And if you couldn’t fly by instrument, you were dead before you started so you had to learn that.

Interviewer: And when you use the term instrument flying, can you describe for us what it was like, what type of technique that was?

Well for some of it simply put a curtain up and have you fly by instrument, the instructor would put a curtain around you and you’d fly it by instrument and, you know, you had to qualify and be good enough to do it or you failed and that’s one of the, it’s one of the places where a lot of the fellows that were trying for pilot didn’t make it.