Canada declared a state of war against Germany on September 10, 1939. In the fall, on a sunny weekend afternoon, I was standing in a potato field near Fairfield, New Brunswick when an old aircraft chugged over. It was the only one which I had seen since I was a stripling in Windsor, Ontario. Right then and there I decided that to pilot an aeroplane was for me.
I went to Moncton and passed the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) recruiting medical, then went home to wait for a call that was supposed to follow within one week.
Old Schofield – Jones, Schofield and Hatheway Limited, grocery wholesalers and tea importers and situated on Market Slip in Saint John, was where I slaved. Wow, what a thrill it was to lope upstairs, walk into Mr. Schofield’s godly office and spout, “Mr. Schofield, I have joined the air force so as of today you can stuff your office and your warehouse.” (You might imagine the thoughts that I had as the old gentleman sent a package each month to me when I was overseas but I only received two of them). A few days later the RCAF sent word that there was a state of retardation and I was to wait until further notice. I was without a job. I had burned my bridges behind me. The Navy was full and the Army had, also, stopped recruiting temporarily. The poorest economic conditions in Canada sat stoutly on New Brunswick and all the young bucks looking for work found it as they, evidently, had beaten me to the recruiting centres.
No comments:
Post a Comment