 |
| Princess Elizabeth with the Queen Mum looking on |
Welcome to 2018. Hard for me to believe, when it often feels like the war was only yesterday. I hope everyone had a good holiday season.
In years past I would enjoy taking my children to downtown Toronto for the annual Santa Claus parade, which is billed as the largest Christmas parade in the world. Pretty grand for sure, though for my money the most impressive I saw was during the war, in Ceylon, where camels led the parade.
In reviewing my previous missive about the contributions of our womenfolk during WWII, I feel remiss at not mentioning Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth. Of course back then she was the Princess Elizabeth.
I've read that it took much pestering by the teenage girl before the King allowed her to pitch in. She joined the Women's Auxiliary Territorial Service in 1945, trading in her skirts for coveralls and toiling as a mechanic and military truck driver.
One little story that warms the cockles of my heart is of an eager colonel, who anxiously approached the Princess, knowing he was addressing the future Queen of England. He impressed upon her his desire to assist her in any way possible.
Princess Elizabeth looked up from the motor she was working on and quietly said "Actually, there IS something you can do for me".
The colonel's mind must have started formulating the story he would be passing down to his grandchildren about his royal service. He stood at attention and responded earnestly "I am ready and able, your Majesty".
The Princess slowly pulled an envelope from the inside of her coveralls and held it out toward the colonel, who did his level best to contain his excitement.
As he reached out to receive the enticing envelope, the Princess sweetly asked "Could you pop this in the mail for me, please?" No doubt deflated, but happy to oblige.
I'd now like to touch on our friendly wartime competition with the American flyers we shared a runway with at our airfield in Ceylon.
They were a friendly and extremely helpful bunch, often loaning us the use of their tools and machinery, not to mention sharing their K Rations, which was greatly appreciated.
It might not sound like much now, but we coveted those packages of hard biscuits, dry meat, chocolate bars, gum and cigarettes. I didn't smoke, but could trade cigarettes for more chocolate.
I clearly recall the Americans telling me that the Baby Ruth candy bar was named after a famous baseball player, Babe Ruth, who was unknown to me at the time.
On opening one of my K Ration packages I was greeted with a note from the American girl who had packed the kit, whose name happened to be "Ruth". I wondered whether her parents had been fans of baseball or the bible.
It's only recently I learned that the tasty treat was actually named after President Grover Cleveland's baby daughter, Ruth.
Part of the camaraderie we had with the Americans was the mutual experience of having to deal with our rudimentary runway. It was so rough and bumpy that pretty much every landing felt like a crash landing.
In fact, one of the smoothest landings I experienced was when we actually overshot the runway and ended up in a soft rice paddy.
One source of rivalry we had with the Americans was the testing of long distance flights, thought to be particularly useful for photo reconnaissance, not to mention far-off bombing missions.
After the Americans eventually deemed the pursuit unfeasible, the Brits prevailed by stripping aircraft of most armaments to allow for fuel for up to 26 hour return flights.
Our Consolidated B-24 Liberator (American built) was one of the first aircraft in the region to hit the 20 hour flying mark, being one of the reasons why our acclaimed "Skipper" was awarded the Royal Air Force Distinguished Flying Cross.
Thumbing through my RAF log book, I take particular note of long missions across the Strait of Malacca in Malaysia.
One of my fondest memories of a long distance mission was the delivery of supplies to a remote area of Malaysia in 1945.
When we finally reached the drop zone, I had a bird's eye view from the rear turret as the merchandise was being released.
It was very gratifying to see the children happily waving at us and the appreciation shown by the people below as they ran to collect the food, medical supplies and provisions that were bouncing along the ground.
I suppose for them it must have felt like Christmas.
