Frank Burgess (Primary Source)

Transcript

I had an opportunity later on to go to A.V. Roe, I worked there on the Martin [B-26] Marauder that was going to be made at A.V. Roe. They canceled that contract after a while and it was while I was there—kind of a funny way to do things—I asked my boss that I was interested in finding a nice girl to take out. And he said, “Well that's funny,” he says, “I have a girl that rides with me” and I says, “Oh, that'll be nice. I'd like to meet her.” So that was fine. But it went on for quite a week or two weeks or better and I never got an invitation to this young lady so I decided to take the thing into my own hands and I wandered down to where I thought she was working and lo and behold, a girl said, “Hello, Frank.” And I thought it must be Jean. So there was a party coming up at the Royal York Hotel and I asked her if she would go with me and she said yes, fine. So I went back to my boss and said, “Ernie, I don't need your help any longer. I've met Jean.” The next morning he says, “Frank, I've got news for you—she's never met you.” So who have I asked to the dance? So I went back down to that section again and I had a friend working there and I pointed this girl, out to him. I said, “Who’s that?” And he says, “Oh, that's Audrey Hubble.” I says, “How does she know me.” He said, “You nut, I introduced you to her last Saturday or one Saturday night and I guess you didn't take enough notice but she made a note of it.” So the upshot of it was I took her to the dance and unfortunately she couldn't dance worth a damn. But anyway, I finally got together with Jean and we ended up married and that's now 64 years since we've been together. Coming after my 21st birthday, two friends in the same boat, we were talking about it and I said, “Geez, I don't wanna wait and go into the army necessarily.” So this one chap said, “Well, I have a friend who’s in recruiting in Hamilton [Ontario] and they're looking for RDF [Radio Direction Finding] mechanics.” So we said, “Well, that sounds better.” I thought well, here's something perhaps I could learn. I didn't have a trade at that time, so perhaps it would be a good thing to know. But anyway, we went down and I didn't qualify because I left school at Grade 10 and the minimum requirements were Grade 13 for a senior matric[ulation]. However, this fellow says well, we'll make an exception for you and away it went. So I enrolled as an RDF mechanic, radio direction finding, at that time and went to Westdale Tech for our ab initio training of six months and then to Clinton and so on and so forth. We were required to air test the radar that we were using on the [Bristol] Beaufighters. So I would get in the back seat of this craft and we would go off over the North Sea and the first thing they did was fire the guns, so I would cock the cannons in the belly of this thing and then said, “Okay, what have we got on the radar?” So I said, “I've got a position here about 45 miles away,” so I directed him to fly to this object. It turned out to be a destroyer. Well, it was one of our own destroyers. But he made a mistake and he flew over this thing, which was against all rules and regulations, and they started firing at us. Whether they really intended to hit us or not I don't know. But you had to be careful because a Beaufighter was quite similar to a [German] Junkers aircraft. Anyway, there's puffs of smoke around us. He dropped the wheels and asked if the IFF [Identification Friend or Foe, a system which could identify aircraft] was on and I said, “Yes it’s on.” So whenever we got back, he said, “Burgess, I wonder—it might be a good idea if we just forgot about this little incident.” He says, “Okay?” I said, “Alright, I'll forget about it too.” So whether it was ever reported by the destroyer or not I don't know. As I say, it was a bit of an adventure as far as the people that I knew there because of the fact that we were isolated from the worst of this war. It was brought home to us quite readily when we first arrived and we arrived in Bournemouth [England] on a Sunday night I guess and were billeted there. The next day we went into town and we found that the Germans’ two Focke-Wulfe 190s had strafed the town and dropped a bomb or two and hit a building where some Aussies were in. That sort of brought the war home to you in a hurry.