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Gordon Roy served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War.
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.
![Gordon Roy]({"id":"08efc099-2b45-48b4-b1af-f3ec76d95c15","disk":"s3","directory":"The-Memory-Project\/image","filename":"4615_original","extension":"jpg","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","aggregate_type":"image","size":7619063,"variant_name":null,"original_media_id":null,"created_at":"2022-08-02T21:17:58.000000Z","updated_at":"2022-08-02T21:17:58.000000Z","title":"Memory Project Image #4615","alt":"Gordon Roy","caption":"Service Certificate highlighting time served by Gordon Roy and his two siblings. F\/S Gordon Roy (on left) enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) in 1940, his sister Cpl. Rita Roy (in middle) enlisted in the Canadian Women's Army Corps (CWAC) in 1942, and his brother Sgt. Norman Roy (on right) enlisted in the Canadian Army in 1940.","creator":"Memory Project Image #4615 - Veteran #3486","source":"Gordon Roy","conversion_urls":{"original":"https:\/\/d2ttikhf7xbzbs.cloudfront.net\/The-Memory-Project\/image\/4615_original.jpg"},"url":"https:\/\/d2ttikhf7xbzbs.cloudfront.net\/The-Memory-Project\/image\/4615_original.jpg","credit":"Gordon Roy","pivot":{"mediable_id":"9d659ec9-ae89-4d92-90df-4d3434a28d99","media_id":"08efc099-2b45-48b4-b1af-f3ec76d95c15","mediable_type":"App\\Models\\Article","tag":"gallery","order":1},"translations":[{"id":"a275e167-b6cf-4692-b1e7-648682a29670","media_id":"08efc099-2b45-48b4-b1af-f3ec76d95c15","title":"Memory Project Image #4615","alt":"Gordon Roy","caption":"Service Certificate highlighting time served by Gordon Roy and his two siblings. F\/S Gordon Roy (on left) enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) in 1940, his sister Cpl. Rita Roy (in middle) enlisted in the Canadian Women's Army Corps (CWAC) in 1942, and his brother Sgt. Norman Roy (on right) enlisted in the Canadian Army in 1940.","creator":"Memory Project Image #4615 - Veteran #3486","source":"Gordon Roy","locale":"en","credit":"Gordon Roy"},{"id":"ee519ccb-dcae-4a35-9a40-10dca934f036","media_id":"08efc099-2b45-48b4-b1af-f3ec76d95c15","title":"Memory Project Image #4615","alt":"Gordon Roy","caption":"Certificat de service mettant en \u00e9vidence le temps pendant lequel Gordon Roy a servi avec son fr\u00e8re et sa soeur. FSgt Gordon Roy (\u00e0 gauche) s'est enr\u00f4l\u00e9 dans la Force Royale de l'Air Canadienne (RCAF) en 1940, sa soeur Cpl Rita Roy (au centre) s'est enr\u00f4le dans le Corps des femmes de l'arm\u00e9e canadienne (CWAC) en 1942 et son fr\u00e8re Sgt Norman Roy (\u00e0 droite) s'est enr\u00f4l\u00e9 dans l'arm\u00e9e royale canadienne (ARC) en 1940.","creator":"Memory Project Image #4615 - Veteran #3486","source":"Gordon Roy","locale":"fr","credit":"Gordon Roy"}]} "Memory Project Image #4615")
![Gordon Roy]({"id":"46e285f5-90ce-4875-b1a3-fcc90b0c4603","disk":"s3","directory":"The-Memory-Project\/image","filename":"4614_original","extension":"jpg","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","aggregate_type":"image","size":2795211,"variant_name":null,"original_media_id":null,"created_at":"2022-08-02T21:17:45.000000Z","updated_at":"2022-08-02T21:17:45.000000Z","title":"Memory Project Image #4614","alt":"Gordon Roy","caption":"Gordon Roy's Discharge Certificate issued by the Canadian Field Force (No. 6 National Resources Mobilization Act Clearing Depot) on March 13, 1946.","creator":"Memory Project Image #4614 - Veteran #3486","source":"Gordon Roy","conversion_urls":{"original":"https:\/\/d2ttikhf7xbzbs.cloudfront.net\/The-Memory-Project\/image\/4614_original.jpg"},"url":"https:\/\/d2ttikhf7xbzbs.cloudfront.net\/The-Memory-Project\/image\/4614_original.jpg","credit":"Gordon Roy","pivot":{"mediable_id":"9d659ec9-ae89-4d92-90df-4d3434a28d99","media_id":"46e285f5-90ce-4875-b1a3-fcc90b0c4603","mediable_type":"App\\Models\\Article","tag":"gallery","order":2},"translations":[{"id":"726ffa5b-2dfc-4676-850c-69b133446542","media_id":"46e285f5-90ce-4875-b1a3-fcc90b0c4603","title":"Memory Project Image #4614","alt":"Gordon Roy","caption":"Gordon Roy's Discharge Certificate issued by the Canadian Field Force (No. 6 National Resources Mobilization Act Clearing Depot) on March 13, 1946.","creator":"Memory Project Image #4614 - Veteran #3486","source":"Gordon Roy","locale":"en","credit":"Gordon Roy"},{"id":"971d53b2-66ca-4283-8e70-dc7120eb0dc4","media_id":"46e285f5-90ce-4875-b1a3-fcc90b0c4603","title":"Memory Project Image #4614","alt":"Gordon Roy","caption":"Certificat de d\u00e9charge de Gordon Roy remis par la Force Royale de l'Air Canadienne (RCAF) le 13 mars 1946.","creator":"Memory Project Image #4614 - Veteran #3486","source":"Gordon Roy","locale":"fr","credit":"Gordon Roy"}]} "Memory Project Image #4614")
Transcript
I took a physical education class in [RCAF Station] Trenton, Ontario with the [Royal Canadian] Air Force. To leave, you drew a ticket from a hat, and I drew the ticket that sent me overseas. I went overseas. Over there, we drilled the men, we had sports, prepared sports for the men. They had something to do day and night. The first three months, they had us doing drills and exercises. They chose me to be the physical education teacher. It helped a lot that I was bilingual. I taught the women and the men. The women weren’t there right away, they arrived later. We gave them the same exercises as the men. The men and women from the air force got along well. We roller-skated in the evenings. The men and women couldn’t even stand up on their skates. Sometimes we called a truck and we would take the women down to another place to go skating. […] We were on the go all the time. We had hundreds of boxes of pairs of skates. While I was there in the north, in Yorkshire, pretty much everything was in English.
