Bud Dash

My first course was in Edmonton in what they called the War Emergency Training Program. They didn’t even have enough uniforms for us then, and they give us boots and socks and coveralls and so on. But we didn’t get a uniform. We completed that and then we went to Manning [Alberta] where you learned to march and everything like that. Then we got our uniforms. I wanted to be an air gunner, really to start out. They need air frame techs so that’s what I was given. We worked [Avro 652A] Anson aircraft, after the school, that was the first aircraft I worked on, the Anson, which was the trainer in the Commonwealth Air Training Plan. We’d refuel them and direct them in and direct them out, and you have to supply the power to start them and all this. It’s line work. If you’re in the maintenance part, you’re doing inspections on them. On the line, you do the daily inspections and so on, you just have to sign everything. And you would do this so they know who to blame if there’s something wrong. We weren’t escorted by any warships or anything, we just zig-zagged across. I remember that, you didn’t know when you were going to zig or zag there. That’s so they couldn’t plan your route, the U-boats. I remember that quite well. (laughs) And I was down in the bottom of that boat, just about riding alongside the driveshaft on the prop. Towards the end of the war, I can remember the aircraft come back from a raid and German Air Force come along with them. When they turned on the lights for the, for the aircraft to land, of course, everything’s blacked out in wartime. The Germans strafed a station. So I can remember seeing them, limbs coming out of the there. We were in a brick building, but we were squatted behind the bricks and looking out and watching these things. So that’s about the highlight of that.