大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Henryka McDuff for the 大象传媒 and has been added to the website on behalf of Eileen May Leeming and she fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was in the Royal Canadian Air Force, and for approximately two years having volunteered, I was an overseas volunteer. We were in London, based in no. 32 and no. 20 Lincoln in Fields. All of our parades were in the morning and all of our disciplines were acted in the square in Lincoln in Fields.
We planted a lovely maple tree in the square to remind Londoners that we were there. We used to have church parades through High Holborn, but not every sunday. We paraded to church. We had to be on parade at certain times and at one stage took a salute on the Bird-Cage Walk where they had trooping of the colour.
We took the salute from the Duchess of Gloucester. That was a long time ago. I still have a photograph of that. I have many photographs of my service in England.
We had many many bombings in London so the girls were billeted all over London. People who left London left beautiful accommodation. That was all taken up by the Canadians so that we could live in these rented houses. Some of the girls were married and were living in these rented houses. We were billeted all over London in order that the bombing would not get whole groups of us at once.

I worked in the signals department in todays equivalent to e-mails. It was all secret stuff in those days. The signals would come in telling us what was going on with our war. It was pretty terrible, we would have to read them and file them in the proper section and they would all be sent back with replies.

Another part of my life in the war was having fun, because we were very well paid; there were not that many girls, we used to think it was very nice to get into a London taxi, no buses for us, and we would go around London in taxis.
We used to have lots of fun. When we did go on the bus, we would go upstairs and sing Canadian songs. French Canadian songs like "Alluette". I am not really sure, looking back, what the British population thought of these rowdy canadian girls.

Another thing I remember very well indeed is being asked if I would like a promotion and stay in England, or, would I rather go back to Canada and serve the rest of my service out there. I thought about it and thought what fun to go home. I decided to do that.There were eleven girls who decided to go home, but what we did not know is where we were going secretly at night. W were going, about midnight, on a big bus, taken to who knows where. We were put on a huge American Red Cross troop ship. What we were not told was that the troop ship was full of wounded American men.
They had horrific injuries. There were eleven girls and we were allowed to sit at the Captain's table throughout our trip.
After a couple of days the Captain called us and said it would be very nice if we would go around the cabins where all the poor wounded were not able to walk. They were blind, had legs missing and arms missing. We used to go around at certain times when we were told to. We would take books to read to the blind and our job was to cheer up these poor fellows. I must admit, it was a hard job and some of the fellows had wonderfull sense of humour. They were so happy to be going home. They cheered us in all sorts of ways.
Half way across we were all alerted by a big whistle on deck. The warning went out. The German U-Boat submarine was chasing the ship. We were terrified we would be sunk. They must have realised we had an enormous Red Cross painted on the ship and they backed off. I don't know where we were, somewhere on the icy waters between Great Britain and Canada.

I don't know what else to say. We used to have a lovely time in Greenwich Park.

When I got back to Canada from that troopship, we were all given money and told we were all in barracks. Our barracks were rather special, they were rather more glamourous to what I had been used to. It was a lovely time. By that time my brother, also in the Royal Canadian Air Force, had gone over to be demobed as well.
He decided that when I got there he would meet me off the troop ship, which he did.
For a while I had to be in these barracks. I asked if it was possible to be discharged because I was now back home. They said that they would discharge me if that was my desire.
The war was coming to an end and I was discharged in a place called Rockcliffe Ontario.
I have my discharge certificate.
I went to live with my friends who had a place over a supermarket. There were mountains of food, every luxury that English people didn't have. All the lights were on and we had a great joy to see these lights, especially a gasolene company that had signs that lit up one by one. To me, as far as I was concerned, it was the end of the war.

When the war ended we were in Canada. My brother and I got a great big flag and marched around because we were so excited.
Just at that time it was said on the radio that they had discovered Belsen. That is all I could tell. I hope no one in this generation will ever have to suffer bombing in London and terrible war that was going on on the continent.

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