Description
Mr. Robertson describes how his squadron was formed.
William “Bill” Robertson
Mr. William “Bill” Robertson was born June 13, 1921 in Toronto, Ontario. He was raised in a family of five with three brothers and one sister. Growing up in the province of Ontario, Mr. Robertson received his grade 12 education and with the awareness of war, had a keen desire to join the Air Force. In 1942, he attended observer training and in April of that year received his wings. He held the rank of navigator with the RAF 158 Squadron. On May 13, 1944 during a routine flight towards Belgium, his aircraft was shot down and he and the surviving members of the crew spent many months in hiding from the Germans in the hopes of one day being free. As freedom became a reality, Mr. Robertson returned home to Canada with his wife Violet. He and his family reside in Belleville, Ontario.
Transcript
Unusual way to form a crew, they took the pilots, bomb aimers, navigators, gunners and they turned us loose in a great big air hanger, shut the doors and before shutting doors, they said, “Form your crews!” And as I was standing there, an Australian gunner comes up to me and says, “Hi lad, would you like to join our crew? ” And I said, “Sure!” and he said, “My name’s Frank Tight.” So I said, “Good.” He says, “I got another gunner, he’s an Aussie.” I said, “That’s fine.” So he said, “There’s a pilot over here,” and they took us over, a chap by the name of Jack Griffith, he was a pilot and we decided we could meld together and they said we need a navigator, and I said, “There’s a tall thin guy over there, he looks rather studious type, he might be a good navigator.” So we picked him, it’s pretty scientific, eh? And this is the way we formed our crew and we trained together and then eventually had a flight engineer came along another Brit. So, I ended up on the crew, I was the Canadian, two Aussies and the other four were all Brits. And I now discovered that I’m now going to 158 Squadron, it’s an RAF Squadron for bombing group and I never had any chance to say I wanted to go Canadian or anything else. You just sort of went where you were sent, you did what you were told and that was the way the air force operated in those days.