William Roy Hindle (Primary Source)

Transcript

I joined the Royal Canadian Air Force on the 27th of May, 1943 at Hamilton, Ontario and was sent to the Manning Depot at Edmonton, Alberta. After an initial course of training at the Manning Depot, I was selected to go to number two Clinical Investigation Unit as a “guinea pig” for motion sickness and high altitude research. And that was at Regina, Saskatchewan. We were there until September of 1943 and at the completion of that period, we started our air crew training at number two initial training school in Regina, having achieved the monumental rank of AC1 [Air Crewman 1st Class]. On completion of the training at the end of the year of 1943, I was sent to Elementary Flying Training School at High River, Alberta. And upon successful completion of Elementary Flying Training, we were initially sent to number nineteen Service Flying Training School at Vulcan, Alberta. But they were extending the period of training for air crew at that time as the war seemed to be coming to an end and they had a surplus of personnel. We were diverted from training to general duties of the number five Construction Maintenance Unit at Grand Prairie, Alberta, number one Staging Unit, that was the first of a series of units to aid the movement of materiel north to Alaska and on to Russia. We were in General Duties at Grand Prairie until November, at which time we were sent back from Grand Prairie to the headquarters of the Construction Maintenance Unit at Vancouver [British Columbia]. Leaving Grand Prairie with 12 inches of snow and 10 below zero, we arrived in Vancouver to a drizzle rain and mild temperatures, to do an “IN” and “OUT” routine in one day and back on a train to take us number twelve Service Flying Training School at Brandon, Manitoba, where it was only seven below and freezing fog. We spent the next period of time learning how to fly multi-engined aircraft and graduated at April 1945. We were all promoted to Sergeant (Pilot) and I was one of three to be immediately commissioned to Pilot Officer but with instructions to report to the Release Depot at Toronto for release to a special reserve to be held in abeyance until they wanted us for fulltime service against the Japanese if necessary. The war not being over, I applied as a pilot to join the Royal Navy and was accepted as a Temporary/ Acting/ Probationary Sub Lieutenant (Air), Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve, to report to Halifax [Nova Scotia], HMS Seaborne mid-August of 1945. I arrived at Halifax at the appointed time and the Japanese had surrendered that day. Everybody was having a party. And I mean everybody. The Military Police had things well under control. There were squads of military police on each side of every block in downtown Halifax.