Arthur Franklin McMillan (Primary Source)

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Arthur Franklin McMillan served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War. Read and listen to his testimony below.

Please be advised that Memory Project primary sources may deal with personal testimony that reflect the speaker’s recollections and interpretations of events. Individual testimony does not necessarily reflect the views of the Memory Project and Historica Canada.

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I believe it was No. 2 Air Navigation School, RCAF [Royal Canadian Air Force] and I was in safe flight. We had Avro Ansons. They were training navigators. And it worked days and nights, switch around on night shift, day shift, just regular servicing.

Transcript

I believe it was No. 2 Air Navigation School, RCAF [Royal Canadian Air Force] and I was in safe flight. We had [Avro] Ansons [air crew training aircraft]. They were training navigators. And it worked days and nights, switch around on night shift, day shift, just regular servicing. I was in servicing; and although I did do a, a month I guess, part of my training when I got my Class 3 in maintenance, I was mostly always servicing. And you do primary inspections, between flight inspections, run ups, refueling, just the regular run of the mill stuff.

Some of the flights used to be pretty low. I did hear that one time at navigation school, we had a punishment … and I sort of believe it because you’d be down pretty low and almost in the fields and stuff, and over the water, up and down stuff. Just having a good time.

I was in Charlottetown at VE [Victory in Europe] Day and I had already volunteered for the Pacific; and I believe there was five of us in Charlottetown, transferred we were told, we’d be going west. We ended up coming to [RCAF Station] Summerside, which is still west on the island. We came to Summerside, they were forming a reconnaissance unit at Summerside, so that stands in my mind. I was thinking, oh good, the west coast and out of the west coast, I end up at Summerside, still on PEI.

When we were to come back to Canada when I was in England, this was in the navy, I’d take my course outside of Winchester at a naval air station [Royal Naval Air Station Worthy Down] where the … And we were supposed to come back on the [HMCS] Warrior with a friend of mine to chum around with there. He had been air force too. I was engine, he was air frame, and we were both on a course there. But we were supposed to go on, I think it was [RCAF] 826 Squadron, [Fairey] Firefly [Fighter] Squadron. But somehow, our draft note got lost and the Warrior left. So we ended up in London, we were up there, we were in London for, I think it was about 10, 12 days, waiting to get passage back to Canada and needless to say, we had a pretty good time. We could just report into naval headquarters on Haymarket Street ….Go in about 9:00, 9:30 and say, we’ll see you tomorrow. So we were having a great time in London. That stands out.