I was a child of two and half years when my older brother left to join the RCAF. I remember that I couldn't understand where he had gone or why he left except that I knew he had something to do with airplanes. My mother told me that when my brother left, whenever I would see a plane in the sky, I would call out Baw, Baw, my name for my brother Tom.
A few years back, my brother was asked by his grandson to write a speech about what he did in WW II because he would like to share that speech with his classmates at school on remembrance day. The following is an excerpt from that speech
In 1942, I joined the Airforce. I was 16 ½ years old. I was stationed at Toronto for assessment for three months; went to McGill University for four months then to #9 Bombing and Gunner School at Mont Joli for four months. After Mont Joli it was on to Three Rivers Commando Training then to Halifax. Boarded the ship Nieu Amsterdam, landed in Gurock, Scotland. Took the train to Cheltenham, more training then to Abingdon to assemble crew. I then went to Acaster Malbis for more Commando training; then to Marston Moor to train on two engine aircraft; then to 462 Squadron to train on Halifax bombers. It was in Foulsham near Norwich I stayed there until the war was over. (WW11).
I was an Air Gunner in the RCAF. My RANK was a FLIGHT/SGT service # R290043. While in ENGLAND, I was Stationed at FOULSHAM which is a village about 30 or so miles from the city of NORWICH. The Squadron was # 462 in Bomber group command. We were called Thunderbolt Squadron. We flew in Halifax 1V airplanes. These are large 4 engine bombers carrying a crew of 7 (pilot ), (navigator ), (Bombardier ), ( Flt/ engineer ) ( wireless operator) (2 Air gunners). One was a rear gunner and I was MID upper gunner. This was an (ABC) Squadron (ABC) stands for Airborne Counter Radio Interruptance squadron. WE carried an extra crew member with us, he had special training & spoke fluent German & our aircraft was full of specialized Radio equipment. His job was to disrupt the German fighter plane Dispatchers & Radar.
Our squadron would take off (5 or 6 planes ) at the same time as a group of bombers took off to bomb German targets. Before we reached Radar spotting height, (the German Radar could detect us at fifteen hundred feet ? ), the special operator, using a tube on the side would push out the appropriate amount of packets of tinfoil (these were designed to appear on German radar as if two equal number of bombers were on the way, one going to the south one going to the north of Germany.
This caused the German fighter dispatchers to send half their fighters to the North & half to the South, thus dividing their number of fighter planes. We would only fly (our squadron) to the coast of Europe, then circle around while the specialist used the German radio frequency to try to confuse the Germans by pretending to be the real fighter dispatcher and the German dispatcher was the wrong one.
The Germans overcame this at a later date by using female dispatchers We overcame
this by installing a microphone near one of our engines and the special operator would find the German frequency they used, flip a switch and jam the radio frequency. They would switch to a new one, the special operator would it and jam that frequency. We would then head home having done as much damage as possible.
The bales of tinfoil (called WINDOWS) were done up with paper bands so they would burst when they hit the slipstream. Hey maybe Bill Gates is in Patent infringement ? These got fed out depending on the amount going to bombing target (ie) 5 bales per minute for 100 bombers and 10 for 200 bombers. This would show up on radar as two identical squadrons of bombers. I don’t know the name of the person who designed this (ABC) program, we called ourselves, “The Air Born Cigars”.
My brother will be 85 years old next month and is one who has never been afraid to learn new things..five years ago he wanted to know how computers work..so he began to take various old computers apart and learned about them.
On this day I thank you, Tom.
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