Page 16 - December 2018

By this time the wireless operator had found a channel After many drinks it was discovered that someone
on the radio that we could talk to them. They instructed had peed in the Group Captain's hat - enough to fill
us to park in front of the tower and await instructions. it. Obviously more than one person. The Group
Captain was very upset and ordered that we would
Conversation on the radio indicated that the commercial
airlines were being diverted elsewhere because of us not leave for Montreal until the guilty people
confessed. Nobody confessed, and after four days,
and other Debert aircraft, most of who were trying to
Eastern Air Command of the R.C.A.F. ordered the
land at Dorval without radio control. We had just nicely
Group Captain to release us to go to Montreal. This
got sorted out at our parking place when a Group
was mid-November of 1941.
Captain came out and angrily ordered us to take off out
of there. I immediately told him we would not do that, The plan was that each crew, after getting checked
as our pilot's compass was unserviceable. He stomped out by the instructors in Ferry Command, would
off and left us alone. deliver a Hudson to England, Hudson's that were
being supplied by the Americans for the R.A.F. This
All but two of the Debert aircraft either came into Dorval
or tried to two of them crash-landed while trying. A would save a lot of money being paid to the civilian
pilots who had been hired by the R.A.F. to deliver
message was given to us ordering us to stay at Dorval
airplanes to England from Montreal at $1000 per
until someone came up from Debert to decide what
should be done to stop us from killing ourselves. By this trip. Nobody asked us if we could do it, but very few
of us thought we would be successful in getting a
time three of the aircraft and crews had been wiped out
plane across the Atlantic to England, especially in
and a fourth crew had safely landed in the bush, three
hundred miles east of Montreal. winter weather. We did some more training at
Dorval and, during the first week of December, got
We, the surviving Debert crews, all checked in at the our logbooks endorsed as "Qualified as Captain for
Mount Royal Hotel in downtown Montreal and enjoyed Atlantic Ferrying".
ourselves for three days waiting for the weather to
A few days later, December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbour
improve and for further instructions. They eventually
was all the news. This brought the U.S.A. into the
sent a bunch of instructors up from Debert to fly back to
Debert with us, and after the partying we had been war.
doing in Montreal it was probably a good idea. Needless …To Be Continued
to say I had the compass "swung" before our departure
from Dorval.

We had a bit more training at Debert and then orders
came in that all the surviving crews from Debert were to
be posted to R.A.F. Ferry Command, Dorval Airport in
Montreal, where we would get final training for Atlantic
Ferrying on Hudson aircraft.

The night before we were to catch the train for
Montreal, there was a course graduation party in the
Officers' Mess. The party included the non-
commissioned officers on the
course. This was something
very rarely done in the service
a party in the Officers' Mess
that included the sergeants;
and this one was further
evidence that it should never
be done.