Up the Gatineau! Article
This article was first published in Up the Gatineau! Volume 22.
Some Thoughts on VE Day Plus Fifty
Archie M. Pennie
A year before World War II, I had completed my studies and started on my career as a research chemist at Glasgow University. With the outbreak of war, I found myself in a reserved occupation and was prohibited from joining any branch of the Services. Instead, I was “drafted” to essential war work at ‘Woolwich Arsenal, working on the development of the new and powerful high explosive, RDX.
A couple of years later, the reserved occupation category was relaxed only for RAF aircrew. I joined up that very day. It was wellnigh impossible to train “ab initio” (beginner) aircrew in Britain during wartime. Blackouts, enemy action, and unreliable weather all mitigated against reliable flying conditions. After a few months of training at ground school in signals, navigation, aircraft recognition, and the hated “square bashing” or marching and drilling, I boarded the troopship Letitia bound for Canada and the Commonwealth Air Training Plan. Practically all of the RAF training schools were in Western Canada, and after a long but interesting train journey, I started flying training at Bowden, Alberta. It was a great location for a bunch of “Brits” — right in the foothills of the Rockies, with the wide and endless prairie to the east.
After elementary training there, and vivid memories of the first solo, it was on to Calgary to complete wings training on Harvards. The Harvard was a great aircraft for learning all about flying, but tricky and unforgiving if mishandled. At the conclusion of the course, with the coveted wings proudly sewn on our uniforms, all of us were ready to face the enemy wherever he might be! However, for a few of us it was an encounter that was to be delayed a considerable time. In my case, I was picked to be a flying instructor, and posted to Amprior, Ontario. Once a certified flying instructor, I returned to the Saskatchewan prairie to teach beginner pupils to fly, right from scratch. Naturally it was a great disappointment not to be posted overseas with the rest of my group, but I found instructing a great challenge and it was most rewarding to see young pupils, not long out of high school, take to the air by themselves.
At the end of my instructing tour, it was across the Atlantic again and to the serious business of life in Fighter Command, first on the good old Blenheim and then with the high performance Mosquito. Looking back, I can readily recall some moments and thoughts about VE Day. At that critical time, I was stationed at a Mosquito base near the Scottish border when each day brought fresh rumours about the end of hostilities. All had been business as usual that day, and as nights operations were still scheduled, all aircrew reported to our respective flights, ready for yet another sortie into the dark and sometimes inhospitable skies. No one in authority would or could confirm the news that we all eagerly anticipated and welcomed. Reluctantly we climbed into our aircraft and set off on the customary night flying test of machine and its complicated radar systems.
It was always exhilarating in the early evening to drive that wooden wonder up through the overcast, with the two powerful Merlin engines rasping and roaring as if they too enjoyed the chase. Unfettered, we chased our own shadows in and out of the clouds. When all had landed from their tests, the flight commander then announced that for us the war was over. To all of us it came as a great relief and in many ways a sort of reprieve, for no longer would that ever-present and uncertain sword of Damocles hang over our heads.
For all intents and purposes, our days as Mosquito pilots were over. All of us could now look forward to lives and careers free and remote from the incessant roar of aircraft engines and the sweet but sickly smell of gasoline — an environment we had lived in for several years.
For me it had been a great and unique experience, the freedom of flight, the memories of anxious and difficult moments and, of course, the sad reflections of room mates and close friends who took off and failed to return.
All serious flying came to an end with VE Day, and after demobilization I returned to Woolwich to continue work in explosives research and development. However, I found it hard to settle down to life in post-war Britain and my happy ‘memories of life in Canada were always clearly in my mind.
My flying career had started in Western Canada and some strange and magnetic attraction beckoned me to the country that had given me my wings, and left a strong impression on my life. Within a year or so, the opportunity arose to continue my career in the explosives field in Canada. I had no hesitation in packing my bags and setting out for the new and challenging country that I had known and appreciated as a young pilui. This decision was, without doubt, the most important turning point in my life.
A few months ago I visited the World War II battlefields in Europe. To me, the quiet and well-tended cemeteries were places that gave great cause for sad and solemn thought. There in a strange and foreign land were graves of people who had been my own age and younger, with the same motivations of patriotism that we all embraced, but tragically they had not survived to share in these nniversaries of victory. One grave in particular made me stop in my tracks and urned my memory back to the very day I enlisted in the RAF. There on that readstone was the name of a pilot whose Air Force number was within four digits f my own. I never knew him, but he must have been the fourth person ahead of 1e as we lined up to take the “King’s shilling” in 1941. Fate had singled him out, 1d good luck and good fortune had spared me from a similar grave. As I stood lently, my private thoughts not only covered him but my many other close ends and companions who failed to survive the battles.