Memoirs of World War II: The True Story of a Canadian Fighter Pilot

By Laurie E. Philpotts

An anecdotal account of one man's journey from growing up in New Brunswick to joining the Air Force and becoming a pilot to his time in World War II and accounts of the friends he met and the trouble they got themselves into along the way. The author is a receiver of the Distinguished Flying Cross which was bestowed upon him by King George VI. Laurie flew alongside Douglas Bader in Westhampnett while he was in 610 Squadron and was later an instructor who taught WWII heroes, like George Beurling, to fly.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Mar 30, 2011
• ISBN: 9781257240821

Book preview

A YOUNG PUNK STEPS FORWARD

Canada declared a state of war against Germany on September 10, 1939. In the fall, on a sunny weekend afternoon, I was standing in a potato field near Fairfield, New Brunswick when an old aircraft chugged over. It was the only one which I had seen since I was a stripling in Windsor, Ontario. Right then and there I decided that to pilot an aeroplane was for me.

I went to Moncton and passed the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) recruiting medical, then went home to wait for a call that was supposed to follow within one week.

Old Schofield – Jones, Schofield and Hatheway Limited, grocery wholesalers and tea importers and situated on Market Slip in Saint John, was where I slaved. Wow, what a thrill it was to lope upstairs, walk into Mr. Schofield’s godly office and spout, Mr. Schofield, I have joined the air force so as of today you can stuff your office and your warehouse. (You might imagine the thoughts that I had as the old gentleman sent a package each month to me when I was overseas but I only received two of them). A few days later the RCAF sent word that there was a state of retardation and I was to wait until further notice. I was without a job. I had burned my bridges behind me. The Navy was full and the Army had, also, stopped recruiting temporarily. The poorest economic conditions in Canada sat stoutly on New Brunswick and all the young bucks looking for work found it as they, evidently, had beaten me to the recruiting centres.

On the way – It was not until the first part of June, 1940, while I was helping to wire houses along the Bay of Fundy, that I received a train ticket to Moncton. I hopped a train and never returned to Saint John again for any economic reason.

On the train from Moncton to Toronto, big Sandy Taylor and I met. He was a Scotsman, a former woods boss in the Gaspe, a former heavyweight boxing champion, and he had spoken French more than he had spoken Scots. When our bunks were being made up on the train, big Sandy pulled a small New Testament from his hip pocket. He looked at me and explained, I have always carried this at all times, and will carry this always.

At about 0200 hours in the morning, the train was to stop at Campbellton, New Brunswick where Sandy’s fourteen brothers and sisters lived. He said he would wake me up as he wanted me to meet his family. The train stopped and there was an explosion; the Taylor clan had spied Sandy on the train. What a wonderful and exciting group they were.

Sandy and I were to become close friends through the next few months and I was to become a very cocky young punk, especially when big Sandy was in the vicinity to back me up. The time came when we both had to shake hands and, without a word, Sandy went to piloting Cansos on coastal patrol off Canada and I went overseas. Several months after I learned that Sandy, a person who had loved every minute of living, had died from cancer and I thought of Cambellton.

MANNING DEPOT, TORONTO

Drilling – We lived with the odour of creosote in the cleaned-up horse stables at the Canadian National Exhibition Grounds. Some had uniforms and the remainder had parts of uniforms. We drilled and were taught how to make our bunks up for about ten days. To me, drilling became fun because it was not too long a period of time before I noticed the types who had poor coordination and I would make a point of falling in behind these characters. When the drill corporal, a little god, hollered at us to get our arms up forward and horizontal from the shoulders, the man in front of me desperately tried to get his left arm up at the same time as he stepped with his left leg, and I would get to laughing. You there, wipe that grin from your face, came out of the blue. And while standing in line as a flight we practiced how to turn smartly and sharply on the same spot. The corporal varied the turning from left to right and from right to left. Often he hesitated and would command, Now, wait for it, and everybody would be on edge. Without fail, the guy in front always turned in the wrong direction and there he was staring me right in the face. How the blazes did one stop from laughing. I didn’t.

The heat’s on – The meals at the Depot were excellent as they were organized to keep one on the move. The beautiful China was made of tin and when the coffee was poured into the mug, one had to quickly eye a proposed place of sitting and then go like a bat out of hell before the rising heat of the tin mug burned holes through one’s fingers. Much food was spilled on the floor and you had to have a keen sense of balance to stay on your feet.

The Hunt Club – Finally, in my home-grown shoes and socks, I was posted to the Hunt Club in Toronto where I was selected, in due time, to go for training as a pilot, or an air gunner, or a wireless operator, or a navigator, or as el flunko. Through the weeks of saying, I want to be a fighter pilot, I drilled, did callisthenics, was taught Morse code, did navigation problems, fingered the parts of a combustion engine, undid and put together, while blindfolded, a machine gun, and finally wrote the exams and went to the last interview. What do you have in mind, Philpotts? asked the interviewer. I said, I want to be a fighter pilot, Sir. The interviewer retorted, Well, you are in luck because the present demand is one of more fighter pilots. I thought of how much money the government could have saved had the RCAF employees had listened to me before I commenced the last few weeks.

The bulletin board indicated that I had been posted to Prince Albert, Saskatchewan for elementary flying training.

PRINCE ALBERT, SASKATCHEWAN

First flight – The very first time that I sat in a cockpit in the air and received a familiarization flight in an aircraft was at Prince Albert at the No. 6 Elementary Flying Training School. It was July 22, 1940. The instructor was a bush pilot, Al Bowman. While we were stooging about in the air in a De Havilland Tiger Moth, Bowman spied another Tiger Moth with a friend therein and this sighting, evidently, automatically meant a friendly dogfight. WOW, was I familiarized. I was hanging in the straps with my knees in my face for more time than I sat in the seat. After we landed, Bowman said that I was the first pupil in this first class at the School whom he had ever instructed and how did I like it? I answered that I thought it was mild. We became friends. Dick Waite, another bush pilot from Waite Fisheries, was the only other instructor I had at Prince Albert.

Spot landing – There was no doubt that these civilian, soon to become military, bush pilots taught me more tricks of the trade that paid off for me later on than did the military instructors. The bush pilots at Prince Albert taught many wise things to the greenhorns, and a method often took the form of a game. One of these games was Spot landing whereby a large circle was fabricated on the landing field and the pupils had to three-point their aircraft as closely as possible to the center of the large circle; one at a time, of course, but I wouldn’t have put it past us. Later on under operational conditions, the importance of maintaining airmanship airspeed and direction in forced landings brought me back to the bush pilot circles and the environmental conditions while trying to set down in the circles.

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The educators – Stan Thompson, a rancher from Saskatchewan, and D----O---------, a Newfie, were rushing a country school teacher and they would fly over her school on the prairie and perform acrobatics. The teacher used to take the kids outside of the school in order to watch the performances. It was lucky that she did this because Thompson dropped a note to her on one occasion. Dropping a note was perfectly alright but the silly ass but the note into a bottle and the bottle went right through the roof of the school like a bomb. Authorities of the local school board and of the flying school were perturbed.

Boyle, bread, girl, pie – Harry Boyle met a farm girl and she invited him to the farm. This was up Boyle’s alley, so while he was on a training flight in the old Tiger Moth he landed on the farm and was fed freshly baked bread and lemon pie. On one of the sojourns to the farm, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) constable, driving by the farm, noticed the RCAF Tiger Moth parked near the barnyard. He stopped to see if there was anything wrong and to see if he could be of help. He certainly helped pupil Boyle; right into a confinement-to-barracks for a few weeks.

Parasquirrels – Ron Fidler of Fidler’s Seeds of England was crazy about snaring ground squirrels (gophers) and then taking the little critters up onto the roof of the hangar and watching them float to the ground in the parachutes which he made for them. I swore that the gophers, with their four little legs drooping down, enjoyed the lofty view of the scenery yet I was worried lest the eagles, hawks, and owls saw them. But I suppose that the parachutes would keep them away.

Look Ma, no belt – Tootie Mason, who was only five feet in height, took up in a Tiger Moth to practice loops. As he was a good pilot the centrifugal force was maintained around the loops and it kept him in the cockpit seat while he was at the top of his loops in the upside-down position. This ability stood him well as in undoing his uncomfortable parachute harness while in the air he, also, noticed that he had forgotten to fasten his seat belt before taking off. His knees actually buckled under him when he made an effort to stand on the ground after getting out of the aeroplane.

The awe of it all – Sometimes just flying around doing the same exercise over and over was quite boring so one afternoon I set the Tiger Moth down into a field which, I thought, was miles from any habitation. I put the parachute in the shade of the mainplane, put my head on it, and planned a snooze. The engine was ticking over, but I heard a voice and it came from a break in the hedge along the edge of the field. A little, old farmer came over and asked, Can I have a look at your machine? I have never seen one before. Yes, I said but please don’t go in front of it because it is dangerous. Very shortly after this, I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, that he was beckoning a lady (his wife) over and, again, I suggested firmly that they keep away from the front of the aeroplane. They had a great time looking into the cockpits, jiggling the ailerons and elevators up and down, and chatting away and then I heard the little, old guy say, Naw, naw Mable. This is one of them thar fightin’ machines. Before I took off I had to give them a reason, of course, for landing in his field. I told him that I had to land to cool the engine off. He thought that that was a smart thing to do. The kind people wished me good luck and I never forgot them.

A print dress, a couple of bouncy muscles, and no shoes – One afternoon, I got caught in a severe, prairie dust storm and in trying to get clear of the area I got lost and I couldn’t find a grain elevator with a local name painted on it. I was getting low on petrol, so instead of flying North and South like a lost chicken to find the North Saskatchewan River, I decided to put down and bloody well have someone point to Prince Albert. I saw some persons working in a field and I landed the Tiger Moth in the adjacent field. The boss (the father of the working family) came over and I stated my plight. He pointed in the direction of Prince Albert and I was happy. But before I could get back to the aeroplane, one of the farmer’s daughters arrived to the spot and loudly demanded, I would like to have a ride in your aeroplane. But I don’t have a parachute for you, I quickly answered. She retorted, I don’t need a parachute. I’m very sorry, but this is an RCAF aircraft and it is against the law for me to take passengers, I educated her. Her muscles bounced up and down and with gusto she said, Pa, you tell him unless he gives me a ride I’ll puncture his tire. The last bit perturbed me. Then I had an idea. I said to her emphatically, OK, but I’ll have to run the engine up first and when I signal that I’m ready, you get into the front cockpit. OK? OK." She nodded and grinned with satisfaction. Persons were standing on the field farther down, but I opened the Gypsy Major engine up, closed my eyes, and let ‘er go. There was one thing that I could say about the farmers and their kids in that particular area northwest of Prince Albert – They sure could move with haste when they had to.

Golfers – Sandy Taylor, Bill Doerr and I went to play golf at the local club one Saturday afternoon. Sandy and I had never been on a golf course, nevermind playing on one, so poor Doerr was in for a surprise. Doerr finally left the golf link in complete disgust and, childishly, he wouldn’t speak to us for a couple of days. Cohort Sandy and I told him that we had played for years and we supposed that he would soon realize our joke. With big bruising Sandy digging holes all over the place, and with me continuously looking for my golf ball, I never knew how many players Doerr waved though, but I did know that I was sick of the game at the last hole; hole No. 3.

Wooden Nickels – My doubtful contribution to the Prince Albert lot was that I found that if one could grind down the plugs from the holes of the electrical junction boxes being installed in the new buildings going up, the plugs could be used in the juke box at the little recreational centre on the Station. I never gave up my little secret, and I was a regular Beau Brummel right up until the electrical work gave out.

Recreation – The good people of Prince Albert were always trying to do their best for their country, and they would invite the pupils to go here and there. While attending a festival dinner at one of the churches, one of the ladies remembered me saying that I loved to ride horses. I never thought that the young housewife, who was, also, a local equestrienne, would turn up the next Saturday morning at the Station without first telephoning and ask me if I would like to go horse-back riding. We drove to the local equestrian emporium. When we went in to check her mount I cornered the groom and pleaded, Look, I haven’t been on a horse for some time. Do you have a reasonably gentle steed? The groom brought out a gelding and I took one look at its eagle glare and I knew that the morning was going to be a different one. Mrs. T----- stepped up into the stirrup with the grace accumulated by much ability and practice. My horse and I circled a few times while I was fighting to get my other leg over the saddle. Off Mrs.T----and I went onto the horse paths in and about Prince Albert. On the way back, the bloody gelding knew where the sun was. It grabbed the bit and we commenced our flight back to the stables. John Gilpin had nothing on me as the damn horse flew over the paths and made the correct turns. We came through the stable door with me flat out on the back of the animal and we stopped abruptly facing