Possibly, I am
the only pilot living to have flown
operationally with John Gillespie Magee,
author of World War 11’s most famous sonnet, “High Flight”.
Two Sergeants and one Pilot Officer joined 412
Canadian Spitfire Squadron at Digby, Lincs. during the last days of September 1941. A.P.L.Smith
, and I were the sergeant pilots and
Magee was the pilot officer. Smith and Magee were both killed in flying accidents
while I completed two tours of operations, serving 26 months in 412 Canadian Spitfire
squadron.
Smith and I, both from
Saskatchewan, received our wings at Yorkton, Sask. in June, 1941 and
operational training at 61 O T U at
Heston, where the South African ace Sailor Malan was the Wing Commander.
Shortly after joining the
squadron it moved to a satelite grass
airfield at Wellingore. Here the officers were billeted in a rambling old house called the Grange, while the sergeants and airmen occupied
a three- story stone building
(nearing castle-size) previously part of a large estate before being expropriated
by the RAF. Our aerodrome was a farmer’s grass field about 800 yards
square, fairly close to the southeast corner of
Wellingore village.
The squadron had four
non-flying officers: an adjutant, a medical officer, engineering officer and an
intelligence officer. Flight Lieutenant
Hart Massey, diminutive son of Vincent
Massey, Canada’s war-time High Commisioner
to Britain and later Canada’s first native born Governor General. While
attending Oxford University, just prior to the war, Hart’s diminutive size earned him the coxswain position in their rowing scull when Oxford defeated
Cambridge in one of their legendary
races. Hart drove at break-neck speeds
an MG sports car that was especially modified with extended clutch and brake
pedals to compensate for his small
size. On one occasion he was a passenger
in a spitfire while seated on Rod Smith’s knee
He occasionally flew, with another pilot, the squadron’s “Maggie” also
modified to suit his short legs.
Squadron operations those days were mainly training flights and
long boring convoy patrols off the East coast .However occasionally the
squadron would fly south to Manston or West Malling to join two other
squadrons for a sweep over France The squadron received it’s
first baptism of fire on it’s fourth
sweep on November 8 when tasked to give
withdrawal cover to 12 Blenheim
medium bombers which were to bomb the
locomotive shops at Lille.
Briefing had been by an
aging wing commander who when reaching the French coast led the wing through a
poorly executed maneuver, causing the
36 aircraft to disintegrated into a loose beehive .
Sections, pairs and single aircraft flew
around in an endless left hand orbit and
was soon attacked by 109 F’s which from
time to time would down one of our spitfires. During the melee a voice believed
to be that of the wing leader was heard to say “I guess I am too old for this
boys”. He did not return.
Kit Bushell, 412 squadron’s
recently appointed squadron leader and
two other pilots, Owen Pickell and Ken Denkman became the squadron’s first
casualties. This was Magee’s first and only operational sweep.
On December 11th the squadron took part in a wing formation exercise above cloud, with an RAF
squadron from Kirton - in - Lindsay , a
fighter station located about 18 miles north of Lincoln .
When the exercise was completed Squadron
Leader Morrison ordered the squadron
into line astern and dove through a hole
in the clouds. Unfortunately, the hole
was right over Cranwell airfield circuit and Magee’s
spitfire collided with an Airspeed
Oxford training aircraft. Magee baled
out but was too low for his parachute to fully open and he died in a field near
Cranwell. The crew aboard the
Oxford also died.. Magee is buried in Scopwick village cemetery,
near Digby airfield. In a letter to Magee’s brother in 1987, Squadron mate Rod
Smith described John as a skillful pilot whose formation flying was tight and
dogfighting tough. However, he was sometimes impractical having once taking off
down wind in a strong wind towards the hangers at Digby, narrowly missing the
top by no more than a yard. This incident was observed by the Duke of Kent who
had just arrived to inspect the squadron. On another occasion Magee forgot to
hook up his oxygen supply and passed out at 22000 feet. He came to in a high
speed dive just in time to pull out. Another time while taxing, he hit the wing
of a parked aircraft with his wing tip.
Smith concluded by saying he thought
Magee had the right stuff to become a first class fighter pilot.
In February the squadron
flew south to Biggin Hill to join more than 400 RAF fighters providing cover for bombers and
torpedo-carrying Swordfish attacking the
German battleships Scharhorst and Geisenau when they broke
out from
Brest and were making their way
up the English Channel. The
weather was extremely difficult
with complete overcast at 5,000 feet,
broken cloud and rain below making it almost impossible to keep station
with the bombers and we did not observe
the German ships.
The squadron’s next
major operation was on March 15, 1942 .
Led by F/L Bill Napier 10 aircraft attacked five German E boats near the Dutch
coast. When first sighted one aircraft was delegated to make a low pass
to positively make an identification,
friend or foe.. When the E boats opened
fire Napier ordered everyone to attack
After everyone had made two or
three passes expending all their
ammunition, one boat had been sunk and the rest were dead in the water,
smoking heavily. This action earned the
squadron a letter of commendation from the British Admiralty.
May 1 1942 saw 412 squadron
begin 17 moves in England before
embarking for France on June 19,
1944.
The first moves was to
Martlesham Heath, Suffolk where we continued with convoy patrols and the
odd sweep. Readiness duty served from dawn to dusk was quite arduous as double
daylight saving time made a short night.
It was from here that I flew my first Rhubarb shooting up some canal barges and
a gun position in the Ostend area. Received a lot of flak, but no damage. My
number two that day Was Claude Weaver !!!. from Tulsa Oklahoma. Weaver later
went to Malta where he destroyed several enemy aircraft before he himself was
shot down and became a prisoner of war in Italy. When Italy surrendered in
September 1943, Weaver along with
several other POW’s escaped just as the Germans took over the camp. He
returned to England, joining 403 squadron where he shot down two more enemy
aircraft for a total of 13. He was
killed January 28,1944 while on a fighter sweep in the Amiens area
of France. Weaver was awarded a DFC, DFM
& bar.
In less than a month the squadron
was on the move again, to North
Weald for a very short stay before
moving to Merston, Sussex, a satelite to Tangmere airfield on June 21.
Johnnie Walker of the
whiskey Walker family was
the wing commander and led us on
a great many sweeps, often to the
Abbeville area where we occasionally
encountered JG26 pilots nicknamed the “Abbeville Kids”. On August 19, 1942 the squadron took part in
the Dieppe Raid providing cover over the beachhead and escort for Hurri
Bombers. Several enemy aircraft were engaged
and the squadron lost two aircraft and one pilot due to anti-aircraft
fire. The best I could do that day for three flights was to claim a
damaged FW190.
More moves followed: to Redhill,
Friston and Kenley By this time winter over the continent was
setting in and Rhubarbs, usually
consisting two aircraft, became the order of the day. Trains,
emitting steam in the cold air
were visible for great distances, and
were the favorite target. On
January 17 Wing Commander Fee led the wing
on an offensive sweep in the
Treport-Abbeville area netting several
trains and a German army training
camp. Less than two hours after
their return the wing set out to repeat the operation in the St. Valery region. While attacking locomotives and other ground
targets, the wing was bounced by a score
of 190’s. Both Fee and his number two were shot down.
Winter operations continued to
March 1943 when 412 squadron took
part in “Operation Spartan”, an all-out
exercise designed to prepare for a landing on the continent.. A couple of more
moves to Lasham, Fairwood Common and
finally to Perranporth in Cornwall where I completed my first tour where I was posted to become an instructor at 57 OTO at Eshott, Northumberland , still flying
spitfires. My logbook showed I had flown
251 operational hours.
My posting was not without it’s fun side. Following
the traditional going away party
Buck McNair who. who had been a
supernumerary Flight Lieutenant in 412
squadron for a short time, was
posted at the same time. We proceeded to
London where I discovered I had 33 pounds in my deferred pay account. We
checked into the Regent Palace hotel and
had a glorious time for the next 3 days until the money ran out. When I arrived
at Eshott W/C Gracie enquired why I was late so when I told him I had been with
McNair in London, he said “I understand”
and nothing further was said. Buck had
been in Malta where Gracie was the Winco.
And so I spent the next six
months familiarizing new pilots with the Miles Master prior to going solo in a
spitfire and leading nerve racking formations.
Students were told not to try to
crowd in close, but to stay up in line-abreast.
Invariably, some showoff would
try to impress you with his flying skill.
Nothing is more frightening than to
look out and see a whirling three
bladed propeller just inches away, about to chew off your wing tip, knowing
that the pilot had very little
experience flying spitfires. Six months of this must surely equal a tour of ops.
By October first I had finished my 6 month tour
of instructing and received a posting to
Warrington where on December 3rd
I boarded the ship Mauritania,
landing in Halifax on December 10,1943.
Following a happy
visit at home with my parents in Wynyard then a train trip to Vancouver to visit family
members, I reported to Lachine, Quebec. On January 22,1944 our returning group boarded the Queen Mary in New
York harbor. An extremely rough crossing, combined with the after effects of
several inoculations given to the 8,000 American soldiers just prior to
boarding made a very uncomfortable
crossing. Suffering the effects
from their shots and experiencing sea
sickness most of them were violently ill
which put a heavy strain on the ship’s “head”. When the ship was battened
down at night, with little ventilation, the sickening odor was overpowering.
Luckily, the Queen made one of her fastest voyages landing at Greenock,
Scotland on January 29.
My second tour of ops
started on February 19 with 401 squadron at Biggin Hill where I was welcomed
back by Buck McNair who by this time was the Winco Flying. After only five operational flights with 401
and a four day familiarization course on
the new Gyro gun sight, I was
posted back to my old squadron 412, resuming
where I had left off as Flight
Commander of “B” Flight.
March flying was mostly training flights in co-operation with the army and
considerable air to ground firing. However, one notable flight took place on
March 23 when we escorted 72 Mauraders bombing Criel marshalling
yards. On the return flight my section
spotted a lone JU88 flying close to the ground
Two of us dove down and attacked with cannon and machine guns. Badly damaged, the 88 crashed in a field where after getting the OK from
the wing leader, we strafed the fallen aircraft on the ground.
April saw the squadron take
on a new role, that of dive bombing carrying
500 pound bombs slung under the fuselage, The most frequent target
was a couple of small buildings located
along the coast and well hidden in dense bush.
We called the sites “Noballs”
but learned later that they were
launch sites for the V1, Buzz
Bombs”. Diving at a 70 degree angle from
about 10,000 feet and pulling out around 1500 feet, built up tremendous speed
making the controls extremely stiff and shake violently. Little did we know that this was
compressibility, the violent disturbance encountered prior to reaching the
speed of speed of sound. Complete blackout
was experienced when pulling out which may account for the mysterious loss of
several pilots while dive bombing.
May was a continuation of
dive bombing, escort duties and sweeps over Northern France. During the month I
racked up 36 operational hours.
The last days of May saw air
operations dramatically increased with three and four operations a day. Sweeps,
dive bombing ammo dumps, road and rail communications and bomber escorts kept
us in the air from dawn to dusk on many days.
On May 25th we
received 3 inoculations and were told two more were coming, so we knew
something big was brewing. A clinching clue was when we were ordered to barber
pole our aircraft with black and white stripes which were familiar to us having
used them for easy identification on August 19,1942 for Dieppe.
While painting was being
done we had June 5th free to do as we wished. Somebody obtained
several dozen eggs which together with the contents of parcels from home and a
whacking great quantity of beer made for a great outdoor party much like a
modern day barbecue.
The party raged on all
afternoon and evening as the sky began to fill with planes towing gliders
filled with paratroopers. At 23:30 hours
Group Captain (Iron Bill) MacBrien called the pilots of 126 and 127 wings to
announce that the long-awaited D-Day had arrived.
The briefing broke up at 01:30
hours on June 6th. Two hours later we were called to readiness and
at 8:10 hours we were air born for the first of 4 beach patrols that day.
The Luftwaffe did not show its
face until D plus one when 126 wing destroyed 12 enemy aircraft. For the next
several days we continued with beach patrols, bomber escort and dive bombing.
On June 14 we landed at our future home at Beny-sur-mer in France, returning to
England in the evening. On June 18 the
entire 126 wing moved permanently to France.
By the end of June I had
completed another 62 hours of operations, destroying numerous transports as
well as dive bombing the railway yards at Liseau. One memorable op took place on June 27 when I
led my flight to the village of Villers
Bocage where a concentration of
German transports was reported to be congregated, Over the village, we encountered intense flak
whose accuracy was phenomenal,
putting 17 holes in my aircraft and damaging three others in
the flight. Luckily, we all landed successfully back at B4.
In his book “Invasion
Without Tears”, Monty Burger wing
Intelligence Officer, reports “by the
last week in June the wing’s pilots were dropping bombs on special targets,
shooting up road and rail traffic, and almost as an afterthought, knocking enemy aircraft out of the sky with regularity”.
My logbook shows a busy time
during the first week of July when I shot up two transports, one in flames,
dive bombed a road and rail junction, shot up a truck and two soldiers, shot at a ME 109
without result and while the squadron was having great success in downing enemy
aircraft, I had no luck.
July 7th was a
very memorable day for me. Besides being my father’s birthday, it was the day
my luck ran out and I was shot down by anti aircraft fire. While patrolling in
the Falaise area, I attacked, using cannon and machine guns, a
large transport followed by a motorcycle
dispatch rider travelling along a tree-lined highway. After successfully destroying the
target, I climbed up to rejoin the squadron, passing right over a German Flak
battery where my aircraft was hammered by a succession of exploding shells.
Immediately, a huge ball of dirty red fire shot up from between my feet
scorching my face, wrists and legs. Sheer panic took over as I unsuccessfully
tried to back away from the flames, being held back by my harness, oxygen and
radio cords. Self-preservation instinct
must have helped me jettison the coupe top, undue my straps and stand up
whereupon I popped out like a cork from a Champaign bottle.
I don’t recall pulling the
rip cord, but the next thing I knew I was floating down clutching desperately
to the D ring, thinking it was the only thing keeping me from free falling. I
was only at about 1,000 feet from where I could clearly see a vehicle loaded
with troops headed in the direction in which I was most likely to land. I hit
the ground with the usual back-wrenching, dropped my chute and started to run
away from the approaching vehicle.
Coming towards me was a young boy, possibly 12-13 years old, who pointed
to a large bush at the edge of the field. I dived head first into the thickest
part, covering myself with leaves and loose branches.. Barely a minute later a
young German soldier had his rifle pointed at my head and escorted me to their
vehicle. I was then taken to a small village (I learned later was Martagny Sur
L’Ante) where a German officer was holding the small boy who I had passed while
running away. They were surrounded by the boy’s mother and a large gathering of
villagers, all pleading to have him released. I tried to tell the officer that
the boy had done nothing wrong, but when I was taken away he was still being
held. I have ever since wondered what he had done to warrant his arrest and
what became of him.
All this time my burns were
becoming more and more painful and I pleaded to be taken to a doctor. But
first, I was paraded before a German officer, still in bed upstairs in a nearby
house being used as a headquarters. Following his instructions I was again
loaded into their vehicle and taken to a nearby airfield, so well camouflaged I
am sure our intelligence did not know of its existence. Finally, a doctor arrived and proceeded to
bandage my head, face, wrists and legs. When finished, I resembled a mummy with
two holes for eyes and a slits for my mouth and nose. I was then locked up in a
small shed with a straw pallet for a bed. During the night I developed a raging
fever and insatiable thirst. My frantic calls for water, made in English, were
finally understood and responded to by the young German soldier stationed
outside the door.
In the morning I was taken before
several officers who through an interpreter asked the usual questions, what
aircraft was I flying, from what airfield, etc. My response was name. rank and
number until one officer accused me of
attacking ambulances. This I vehemently denied, although I knew that some
attacks had been made resulting in huge explosions, proving that the Germans
were using Red Cross ambulances to transport ammunition. I was then given a
large piece of dark crusty bread and a piece of sausage which I found difficult
to get into my mouth. I don’t know what prompted me to scornfully ask the
interpreter “is this the best food you can provide an officer?” His response
was that all German ranks received the same food. This exchange, interpreted
for the officers made them visibly angry and I was quickly dismissed.
My memory of events during
the next couple of days remains dimly hazy as I was probably in shock and moved
several times. I recall lying on the grass in the midst of many wounded German
soldiers, the one next to me without an arm. Nuns were scurrying about which
makes me believe this could have been a convent or monastery. We were outside
on the grass because of the excessive casualties inside. Next I was in the back
of a large covered truck with several German soldiers returning to their unit
after being on leave. One, who spoke excellent English was anxious to engage me
in a political discussion. He wanted to know why I was opposing
Germany rather than Communist Russia which was his motivation for being in the war. I am
afraid I did not have a very apt reply.
Another vague recollection
is of spending the night alone in a warehouse type building, sleeping on a
straw pallet on the floor. In the morning I was
startled to hear the sound
of American voices coming from the yard outside a window. I
learned they were prisoners, detailed to chop wood, and our conversation was
made short by the German guards.
At some point,
someone in authority must have ordered that I be taken to Rennes where there
was a POW hospital which I learned later was designated Stalag 221. I was
seated in the back seat of a large staff car along with two soldiers. Spotters rode
one on each front fender watching for allied aircraft. Several times spitfires flew over sending the
guards dashing for safety at the side of the road, leaving me a very nervous,
fully exposed, sitting duck. Luckily, we were not spotted and eventually
arrived at our destination, Stalag 221,
Rennes.
My new home for the next 34 days was a former
3-level brick school building converted to a hospital to accommodate several hundred
wounded prisoners, mostly American paratroopers
captured on the morning of D-Day. The building faced onto a busy street with a high stone fence on three sides, guarded by aging German soldiers. Medical treatment was provided by a
83-year old French doctor, brought out of retirement and assisted by a group of
student nurses who came in every morning, returning to their homes at the end
of the day.
My first medical treatment
took place in a make-shift operating room where a French nurse first shaved my
head, stripped off my clothes and then began to peel away the dead skin from my
burns with the aid of tweezers. I suffered the excruciating pain for as long as
I could until when she asked “sleep”, I quickly assented and a cotton swab
saturated with ether was placed over my nose.
When I awoke I was lying on a cot in a large room, surrounded by similar
cots, all occupied by bodies showing various degrees of bandaged wounds. Being
the newest arrival, I received a barrage of questions, how the war was
progressing, my name and rank etc. Because the rank of Flight Lieutenant was
completely strange to the Americans and with my bald head covered with mercurochrome,
I looked like a native on the warpath, I became Chief.
I got a real scare the first
morning I woke up to find that I could not open my eyes. Puss from my burns had
dried, sealing them shut.. Using forceps to peel off the scabs became a morning
ritual for one of the nurses who came to my bed.. Gentle as she could be, the
pain was agonizing, especially when mercurochrome was applied. When she was
finished I would lay rigid on my straw mattress with my teeth clenched to keep
from crying out. When the pain subsided I was able to shuffle outside into the
courtyard to sit in the warm sun and watch the puss drip from my wrists. By the
next morning my hands were doubled up into claws as the scabs formed and the peeling procedure began again.
I learned my companions were
mostly from the American #101 parachute division, nick named “The Screaming
Eagles”. They had been dropped several miles off of their intended drop zone
and were quickly captured. While being marched down a road behind the lines,
they were attacked by a flight of American Air Corps mustangs, that mistook them
for the enemy. Caught between high embankments almost everyone in the column
was either killed or wounded, a case of friendly fire. They were transported to
Rennes to become the first prisoners of Stalag 221 hospital
The first fellow prisoner I became friendly
with was a husky paratrooper from Louisville, Kentucky who despite his wounds,
assisted in the operating room. He told me that
while under the anesthetic I had
fought like a wildcat, requiring two persons
to hold me down. He also kept us entertained with stories about the many
surgeries, including amputations that the old French doctor was required to
perform
The scanty food we received
became an ever present obsession. Once a day we received watery cabbage soup, a
piece of dark, dry bread and occasionally
a piece of unsavory cheese, which
added to my already dislike for all kinds of cheese. Despite the persistent urging of my new found
Kentucky friend, I continued to refuse the cheese until hunger finally drove me
to give it a try. When I found that it was not as bad as I had imagined, we became
a team, collecting all we could get from those who turned down their ration.
Some enterprising person rigged up a toaster, using wires plugged into the
power outlet which markedly improved the cheese, but caused the lights to go
dim.
The dark bread we received
was sometimes delivered by Moroccan prisoners in a horse drawn cart used mainly
to haul garbage. Captured early in the war, the Moroccans were used as slave
labor, leaving their barbed wire enclosed compound each morning, returning in
the evening. The arrival of the bread cart always drew a large audience to
watch as one worker climbed into the cart, pushing the bread out with his boots
while the second caught the loaves in a spread blanket. The fun began when one
loaf fell to the ground initiating a mad scramble for possession. Some
prisoners visited the Moroccans through the wire barricade separating our
camps, sometimes receiving food and bargaining for cigarettes. Rumor had it
that some of the food came from a stray cat.
Another paratrooper with
whom I became acquainted had an interesting but dangerous peace time job with
Ringling Brothers Circus. He would ride at breakneck speed, a noisy, souped up
motorcycle around an enclosed wooden bowl, rising to near the top rim, then
descending to the bottom before repeating the ride over and over. He became enamored with one of the pretty little French nurses
and asked me if I knew a French phrase that he could use to impress her. The
only one I could think of was “Vous Etes Mon Petite Chou”, you are my little
cabbage. It was hilarious to hear him in his deep southern accent reciting over
and over again the phrase I had given him as he practiced for the time he would
approach his would be lover. I never learned if he was successful or not.
Those prisoners who were
mobile spent the long hot July days basking in the sun out in the enclosed
courtyard surrounded by apartment blocks. One
paratrooper made use of his time
by contacting a female apartment resident by
writing messages on small stones then
tossing them over the fence. A return message made the same way,
revealed the writer was a teacher of English in a city school. The day we were liberated
he hurried to the apartment block anxious to cement their relationship. Rumor
had it that he moved in with his new found love, reluctant to continue the war. Another pastime only lasting
until the guards spotted us at the top floor windows, was ogling the SS troop’s
female companions as they sunbathed on their
patio.
We were able to get daily
news of the war’s progress by means of a clandestine radio, smuggled in piece
by piece by one of the nurses. A single
hand written page was made by the senior British officer and secretly passed
around. He was an imposing army major whose facial wounds required his jaw to
be wired shut. Two front teeth had been removed to allow soup as his only food.
Where the radio was kept and who operated it, remained a secret, but the news
it brought us was the highlight of the day.
In early August mortar
shells began raining down, announcing the arrival of General George Patton’s
Third Army which had just landed at Cherbourg and was smashing it’s way South
towards Rennes. Those who could move
took shelter in a crowded slit trench. A British Army Lieutenant, who had seen
many mortar attacks, advised me that this was not a good place to be so I
joined him huddled against a stone wall until the shelling stopped. It was then
we learned that a strong French Resistance group had contacted Patton
convincing him there was no need to flatten the city, as was his usual
practice, because it was lightly defended. During the First World War Rennes
had been declared an open city because of its many hospitals
It was not long before the
German SS troops began evacuating their quarters. Trucks arrived and they began
loading their personal effects all the while being pestered by their French
lovers to be taken along. We watched from our vantage point through the upper
windows but it did not appear any were
successful, It is possible they were the female collaborators with their heads
shaved we later saw being driven through the downtown streets No sooner were the escaping trucks out of
sight, than the looters arrived in force. They began hauling out everything
they could move. Beds, mattresses, dressers, bedding, cupboards, carpets,
lamps, dishes and pots and pans were quickly loaded onto wheelbarrows and carts
then rushing back inside for another load. It wasn’t long before the looters
reached the wine cellar and began passing out bottles of wine and champagne to
the growing crowd joined by the liberated POWs. Soon there was a happy singing, dancing,
drunken mob milling around the square. Time magazine reporting on the
Liberation, said that the citizens of Rennes celebrated longer and louder than
any other French city.
Unfortunately for me I missed the fun, having
developed quinsy, requiring the old French doctor to lance my tonsils just the
day before.
The next day an American
hospital unit arrived to set up a complete tent hospital on the outskirts of
the city. The unit had arrived barely 24 hours previously from the US with the
barest of information, there were several hundred casualties waiting for them
in Rennes. In short order we were given showers, clean beds, food, cigarettes, and
candies and shown a recent released movie. This luxurious living lasted for a
couple of days until I was put on an
American C47 hospital plane bound for England. After checkups at two hospitals
I was given two pounds, seven days leave and told to report to headquarters in
London. At this time I was still wearing my scorched battle dress, American GI
khaki shirt and pants, paratrooper boots that I had traded for my flight boots
and with no hair, eyelashes or eyebrows, it is little wonder that it took
considerable persuasion before I got past the security guard. Needless to say
the receiving officer was quite surprised as I was still reported missing.
After interrogation by both RCAF and British MI9 Intelligence I was issued
clothing warrants, given back pay and sent of leave with orders to report to
Repat depot at Wharrington for
transportation home to Canada. I arrived at Halifax on November 4, 1944, just
in time for Christmas.
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