Description
Mr. Ireland describes being at sea when the war in Europe ended, considering the possibility of piloting against Japan, and volunteering for the USAF Tiger Force.
Elgin Gerald Ireland
Elgin Gerald Ireland was born in Shelbourne, Ontario, on January 12, 1921. He was the eldest in a family of seven. Because his father was a farmer, his family survived the depression in relative comfort. Mr. Ireland lived close to an airfield, and was fascinated by the thought of flying. When the family farm was sold, Mr. Ireland felt no obligation to stay home, and in April, 1941, enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force. He was groomed as a pilot, and did his elementary training at St. Eugene, flying the Fleet Finch. He moved on to St. Hubert, learned to fly the Harvard aircraft, and then moved on to Trenton where he was a flight instructor for one and a half years. Mr. Ireland reached England as a member of a Hurricane squadron, but soon transferred to 411 Spitfire Squadron. He flew air to ground combat at Falaise Gap and Nijmegen, while at the same time engaging the Luftwaffe in air to air warfare. For his efforts, he received the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Netherlands Flying Cross. After the liberation of Europe, Mr. Ireland volunteered for the Tiger Force, an air group which was to aid in the war against Japan. Mr. Ireland remained in the air force, returning to the Trenton Flying School. He was one Canada’s first pilots to fly the Vampire, F-86 Sabre, and CF-100 jet fighters. After spending four years as Canada’s CF-100 Squadron Commander in France, he returned to 409 Squadron at Comox, British Columbia, where he was promoted to Camp Commander. It was at that point that British Columbia became his family home.
Transcript
We were sent to the, back to one of the OTUs my buddy and I, I hadn’t seen or hadn’t flown with since instructor school back in Trenton in ‘42. Jack Lumsden and I, we were sent to an operational training unit to presumably to do six months duty and go back on Ops. So I wasn’t there very long until they said, “Oops we made a mistake, Ireland head home for 30 days leave and come back over to the squadron”. So that’s how I ended up in mid Atlantic VE-Day on a dry ship. Everybody was glad the war was over. Well one war was over. We still had the Pacific, you know, in the back of our minds, you know. We should have had, everybody had. So it was just well we got rid of that one now it was the future with a big question mark. Are the Canadians going to participate? Are they going, what are they, if they do what are they going to send? Are they going to send fighters? Are they going to send bombers? Are we all going to be converted to bomber pilots or what’s going on? So there was a big question mark. Imagine if you were ashore and had enough enthusiasm all around you, you could have celebrated. But on the boat we didn’t do much celebrating. It was mostly, well now what comes next because there wasn’t much else to do on the boat. I was going to play it cool. If the air force wanted to keep me in well I’d consider it very closely and if they didn’t I’d have to look elsewhere for civil employment as far as I was concerned, but I had no intention at that point of starting another career, to me my flying was my career. Well I had found something that I was able to do in all humility perhaps a little bit better than most other people. I don’t know if it was a gift, or natural or whatever you want to call it. I found that I could probably do things with an air plane that other people couldn’t cope with and couldn’t handle so I felt that that was my profession and if I could make it so. As soon as the plans were announced that there would be a tiger force sent to help quiet Japan down then became a chance to volunteer to stay. If you had any interest in staying in the air force, post war, you volunteer. If you didn’t, next boat out Jack, next gig so. There was a decision to be made then as soon as the plan was made, yes, so I was a volunteer. I wanted to leave my options open.