Nova Scotia/Nunavut Command of The Royal Canadian Legion www.ns.legion.ca 67 continued ... Three important happenings occurred at the end of our stay at No. 9 SFTS. First, at our last ground school class the instructor called our attention to an instrument he was holding in his hand. It was a hand held plastic instrument to calculate drift (its official name escapes me) which could be used when applying a course vector, wind speed and direction, to calculate drift and a course to fly to compensate for the drift. The instructor told us that these had just been received by the school, that he wanted us to recognize them when we were posted to a squadron but there was no time to teach us how to use it! Second, there was a Wings Parade and we were presented with our pilot’s badge and promoted to the rank of Sergeant Pilot. Third, three of us were advised that if we would accept a posting to be trained as flying instructors for duty in Canada at a British Commonwealth Air Training Plan school we would be granted commissions as Pilot Officers. My two Nova Scotian companions David Perry and Louis Longley accepted the offer. I declined and was granted embarkation leave and was posted overseas as a Sergeant Pilot. I went home and then reported to a depot at Windsor Park, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Windsor Park, Halifax Nova Scotia and the Sea Voyage to Liverpool England At Windsor Park, when the draft was assembled, and on the appointed day, we marched to the pier (probably pier 21) and boarded ship. When we set sail, we realized there were only three ships in our convoy; the Dominion Monarch, the Empress of Russia and the Strath Eden. My ship was the Dominion Monarch.We were escorted for a while by Royal Canadian Navy ships and then left to our own devices. The Empress of Russia was a “coal burner” so we cruised by night and lay to by day so that enemy submarines would not see the smoke from the Empress’ funnels. We arrived at Liverpool without incident except for one day when an alarm was sounded and our ship took evasive action from the presence of an enemy submarine by plying a zigzag course until the danger had passed. We disembarked on arrival at Liverpool and proceeded by train to a Manning/Holding Depot in Bournemouth. Manning/Holding Depot, Bournemouth, Dorset, England The RCAF had selected Bournemouth as a place to assemble its personnel on their arrival in England after which they were posted to various units for duty. A number of small hotels on a cliff overlooking the city centre had been commandeered and we were billeted in one of these. At Bournemouth we were given a medical check up, an indoctrination briefing including gas mask safety instruction and generally kept busy with drill and some limited class room activity. One day with a small group of pilots I was taken to a room where we sat in a circle in chairs with a clip placed on our tunic collars to prevent us from leaning forward. We were left in pitch black darkness for a while. Gradually as our eyes became accustomed to the darkness we could see shapes forming in the centre of the circle. We had been given a pencil and a piece of paper and were instructed to write down what we saw. I couldn’t see much at all but thought that I might have seen an airplane so wrote that down. When the lights were turned on we were told that it was a night vision test. We were never told the result of the test or whether we had passed or failed. After a few days the pilots in my group were posted to training schools. I was left behind. After a few more days, and a weekend approached, I requested a pass to visit with my brotherin-law who was a navigator on a Bristol Blenheim aircraft squadron. I was able to get a train to where his squadron was based and while there had my first flight in England (in a Blenheim). He was later shot down and killed in action while flying in a Havoc aeroplane. Havoc was the RAF name for the Douglas A-20 aircraft which were used as light bombers and night fighters. continued ...
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