Description
Mr. Tarling expresses his respect and admiration for Dr. Tilley in saving his hand and leg.
Raymond Tarling
Mr. Raymond Tarling was born May 19, 1920 in Vancouver, British Columbia. After his schooling, Mr. Tarling decided to join the Air Force. He trained at the Calgary Wireless School and Lethbridge Gunnery School choosing an occupation of Wireless Air Gunner. After receiving this training, Mr. Tarling attended a year’s service of Instructing in London, Ontario, and was then posted overseas. Once in Nottinghamshire, Scotland, Mr. Tarling was assigned an instructor position and eagerness to participate in active service, he volunteered on the Wellington mission dropping leaflets over Northern France. During this time in Mr. Tarling’s career, he experienced a crash flight and was severely disfurged by the impact. Mr. Tarling was taken to East Grinstead Hospital in Enlgand where many surgeries and repairs to his face, hands and leg were performed. It was because of this tragedy, Mr. Tarling proudly became a member of the Guinea Pig Club. To this day Mr. Tarling takes great pride in his service and experiences at East Grinstead Hospital. After recovery from his injuries, Mr. Tarling returned to Canada married his long time sweetheart, Elsie, and raised a family.
Transcript
I didn’t know him, but when he came and had a talk with me and he talked and we can do this and do that. And so I says, "So do I have to go through all that? " And he says, "Well I'm quite sure you have a better chance of keeping your hand if we do something." And he says, "I"ll have to take skin off of somewhere else." I was still on, more or less not there. Anyway he says, "Will you say yes or no? " And I said, "Okay you do what you can Dr. Tilley." And he did, he saved my hand and I, God they were wonderful and Dr. Tilley, he was a wonderful man and how he could do these things. I never knew they could do things like that, not then anyway. I know eventually but he did all this with I guess not too many machines or anything then but he sure knew his business I'll tell ya that. I never thought I'd ever gonna have, I thought sure as hell they were gonna take it off, I really did. And I thought I was gonna lose my leg too and he got that all fixed up. It was amazing that they had him because I wouldn’t be like I am now, never would have been like this at all! It took two or three months just to get my face back to normal.