Fascination for Radio

I was born on a farm near Galt, Ontario, which is now Cambridge. A little red-haired kid who had a hobby - when he started off at school - of electricity, radio, and I became a radio ham. And in 1934 I became a radio ham licensed to talk to my buddies all over the world. And I decided that farming wasn’t for me. I didn’t like animals, but it was a nice life. It was a very fine farm and I shouldn’t deride the farm, but I had other things in mind. I became a wireless operator, having gone to the Marconi School in Toronto, and I was going to see the world, shipboard. Well, along came the war and all the radio amateurs were shut down because it was considered necessary for security - didn’t want to let the world know what was going on in other parts of the world. Then a knock came at the door and a fellow in air force uniform said, “We would like to have you because you’re a radio ham. We would like to have you join with us, with the RCAF and go overseas with the RAF.” I had no idea what it was about. I’d heard talk about secret weapons and that sort of thing, because the radio ham community could, they learned a lot of things and told each other. But because we were closed down and couldn’t talk anymore and because if you were a shipboard operator, at that time about all you’d be able to send was S O S, the way ships were being sunk, I thought, air force sounds pretty good. So I joined the RCAF with a lot of my radio ham friends in 1940. And all I can remember is the look on my father’s face when he dropped me off at the station; “Well, here goes my boy”.