James Kerr Jim Lovie

We went out on the troop ship to Cape Town [South Africa]. We took the train from Cape Town to Durban [South Africa], then we got on another boat in Durban and we went up the other coast of Africa, up to Tanganyika [Territory] anyway. That’s on the other coast of Africa there. Tanganyika wasn’t really in the air force setup at all. There was all kinds in there, the Royal Navy and the army and the air force and we lived in a boat out in the harbour. Well, I think we were going out that night in kind of a hurry and the last thing you did, usually before you went out, was make your bed. There was always somebody screwing around with it or something like that. And so they always had something new. So this night, they changed my bed across the barrack room, took it down the other end. And then put my bed somewhere else. And of course, when I came back in from the washroom, here’s my bed sitting there, all the blankets tore off and everything. And of course, I had to start from scratch again and make it. And all these guys are all killing themselves laughing, they thought it was a real good stunt. It was I guess. I had to make this guy’s bed and then when I found out, I had to go and make my own bed before I could go out. That’s why they were laughing because I was doing it to my own bed and didn’t know. Because they had changed it. I had been in the air force since I was 17. And I was one of the first that they let go at the end of the war. I was out just about a couple of months after the war finished. They sent me back to Britain and I was out before Christmas that year.