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As I recall, Jerry and I did ok until it began to snow. We were at least a 100 miles from base and the winds started to howl through the drafty old Anson. We gave up the pinpointing exercise since we couldn't see the ground anyway. The pilot headed for home and we were tossed around most of the way. the pilot did a lot of twisting and turning, bobbing and weaving out of necessity perhaps, but more likely to show off his airmanship and to scare the daylights out of a couple of rookies, or 'sprogs' to use the Air Force term. I soon sick as the proverbial dog and got tremendous mileage out of my barf bag. My first thought was that I would be washed out due to airsickness and I wondered what ground crew trade I could possibly qualify for. Jerry was a bit queasy but handled the situation better than I did. We landed after only two and a half hours in the air but it seemed to me like two and a half days. My concern about being prone to air sickness was unfounded. As it turned out I was sick on only one other flight and that was over Frankfurt, Germany as you will read later in the narrative.

Three days later we were in the air again, and this time it was a bright sunny morning as we set out on another map-reading exercise - this time over the Eastern Townships of Quebec. We had a similar exercise a few days later and this completed out orientation. By now we were getting accustomed to heights and distances and felt that this business of flying would be fun even if we wre not at the controls. The old Ansons were not noted for speed but as navigation trainers they served the purpose at that stage of the war. The interior was virtually unheated, except for one small hot air pipe near the navigator's table. It was in the dead of winter in a brutally cold part of the country. We wore heavy flying suits and fur-lined boots ans usually two pairs of gloves. When we were recording data on the charts or using one of the navigation instruments, the gloves had to come off. Sometimes we made do by wearing only the inner silk gloves. Another feature of the Anson that I remember only too well was the archaic undercarriage. The wheels would retract but there was no electrical linkage to make it happen at the press of a button. Instead, a crew member was required to manually turn a handle beside the pilot to crank up the wheels after take-off and to lower the undercarriage by the same method before landing. This required about 120 turns of the crank and it was the assigned duty of the second navigator to perform this essential chore.

We continued with classroom training in the weeks to follow and applied the knowledge in the air - over 30 flights in total. We soon learned that the major factor in accurate air navigation is to know wind speed and direction and to make due allowance for it. Before takeoff, a wind forecast was usually provided by the Meteorology people and this was checked throughout the flight based on visual pinpoints or checking the drift of the aircraft through the bombsight. We adjusted the wind component during the flight if we found we were off track which was often the case. At AOS we had no sophisticated aids and relied primarily on - 'dead reckoning' navigation better known as D.R.

If not flying on weekends, we would usually head for Quebec city on Saturday nights. There were dances at the 'Y' and except for a few pub crawlers, most of our course ended up there. I wasn't any Fred Astaire but had a good time. The three piece band had an incredibly limited repertoire and one hit tune that is forever etched in my mind 'Chattanooga Choo-Choo'. In Québec city I saw actor Glenn Ford in person. This was his hometown and the movie bosses arranged fot the world premiere of Ford's 'East of Eden' to be held in Canada. This was big-time stuff and a far cry from the Capitol theater in Port Hope.

The weeks literally flew by and at the halfway mark we were given a 48 hour pass on short notice. It all depended on weather conditions. There were so many winter blizzards, that flying had to be squeezed in whenever possible and no advance commitments were possible. As it turned out, I went home at the end of February and had from Saturday morning until Sunday morning with my folks on the farm. It was good to see them and Tip still remembered me.

On March 7, I had my first night flight which was a real thrill. Quebec city was a pretty slight with all its lights and mountains of snow everywhere. At the time we thought that night navigation was useful training but in hindsight it wasn't realistic at all. The civilian pilots didn't trust student navigators and some of them would fly from town to town at night regardless of the course we gave them. When we got overseas, flying in the blackout with barrage balloons over the cities, we found out it was a brand new ball game - still we had to start somewhere. At AOS we did learn to use a bubble sextant for star and sun shots and would concentrate on this form of navigation before leaving Canada.

NOTE: The purpose of this paragraph as originally written was to explain to the reader that training conditions in Canada , especially at night, were very different from those we found Overseas. Without question this was the case ‐ the contrast was dramatic ! My reference to some staff pilots at Ancienne Lorette being reluctant to fly the courses given to them by the student navigators at night may leave the wrong impression about the overall calibre of the pilots. In general, the civilan staff pilots did a fine job in every respect and we as inexperienced trainees were fortunate to have them help us learn our trade. My pilot on my last navigatrion flight at Ancienne Lorette was George E. Fedush. Unfortunately he was killed in an air crash two years later near Megantic, P.Q

Our last four weeks at Ancienne Lorette were hectic to put it mildly. We had 10 final exams to write and were well behind in our flying due to foul weather and slushy runways. In the winter of 1942 we had something like 12 feet of snow on the level and hugh rollers packed the white stuff to provide a firm service for the Ansons. The Tiger Moths at the elementary flying school at our base were equipped with skis so it didn't matter. When spring finally arrived, the snow packed runways started to melt in brilliant sunshine which made flying impossible - several aircraft became mired in the slush.

By early April our academic training and exams were behind us. I passed in everything but my marks were no great shakes - an average of 70%. The standards were tough as shown by the failure rate. In our class of 26 Air Observors, five were washed out and sent to Trenton for reclassification. Three others, including my flying partner Jerry Millard, were held back for a further six weeks of training before advancing to the next phase.

During our last week we had her graduation dinner at the lovely Chateau Frontenac. It was a super celebration thrown by Quebec Airways - what great PR by the company that operated the training school. F/ Sgt. Lachance had a place at the head table and told outrageously funny stories in his exaggerated French accent. By now we have grown to like the guy and realized how much he did for us behind the scenes in dealing with the civilian staff. There was a dance afterwards and I invited a girl named Evelyn Lyons I met at the Saturday night 'Y' dances.