Joey Jacobson's War

by Peter J. Usher

  It is heartbreaking but what can we do about it. I don’t say that life is over for us but I feel that in the dark days to come we will not forget that life has been very good to us. (PJD 3 July 1940)

  Four

  Toronto

  On arriving at Toronto’s Union Station on Tuesday morning, Joe proceeded directly to Number 1 Manning Depot on the Canadian National Exhibition grounds. There, he joined a thousand young air force recruits assembled from all across Canada for their initiation to military life. Each was issued a kit and uniform, and vaccinated for typhus, tetanus, and diphtheria. Recruits were instructed on the fine art of making beds, shining brass buttons and boots, and pressing pants to military standards. They learned the rudiments of military discipline: how to salute, march, and take orders. They were warned about the dangers of venereal disease by way of lectures, graphic films, and “short arm inspections”; learned of the rough justice meted out to anyone caught stealing; and watched inspirational films about Canada’s war effort. Several hours a day were devoted to physical training and to rifle drill on the parade square.

  Manning Depot was many a young recruit’s first experience of living away from home and looking out for himself, in close quarters with men from all parts of the country. Not for Joe, however. Air force training, he soon reckoned, would be like a giant summer camp with plenty of opportunity for team sports. Joe was quick to form opinions about his new situation, which he embraced with unbridled enthusiasm.

  Here begins another diary a war time diary. Volunteered and called up in the R.C.A.F. Arrived in Toronto manning depot today. Very exciting getting your outfit – letting army take over all your problems – meeting new fellows from all over the country. Impossible to realize great change that has taken place in my existence – my life in govt’s hands. Doesn’t feel like war anymore – too busy preparing to fight – I only have one regret – that is that Monty, Herby and Gerald didn’t join up with me. We would have all had a riotous time and stuck together – we won’t have much time or chance to think of each other from now on. We will all be in different branches of the services – … but such is the way of friendship. (JJD 2 July 1940)

  With the type of fellows on hand here and the system that is developing there can be no question of defeat – we have started to roll and will start turning the tide of battle in a year or so. The problem for the govt is to get everybody busy doing something, directly or indirectly connected with the war – once you are doing something you never think of defeat. (JJD 3 July 1940)

  Not much chance to write as lights are about out. Should write essays on the efficiency, thoroughness and marvelous spirit of air force – entirely different than that of other armed forces – corporals get work out of men by treating them with respect, humour and above all with decency. They aren’t interested in how they get results, they are only interested in the results whether attained thru originality informality etc. – that is its greatest strength – that will be the deciding factor in beating Germany – we can’t lose. (JJD 5 July 1940)

  Life in the service is extremely nice – we are treated as gentlemen inside and outside the barracks – we are receiving the best training possible for the job in hand and without a doubt we will carry on the tradition of our branch of the service.

  Whether we come out with our skins on is immaterial. The point is that we will act with courage as our predecessors are acting – we shall set an example and inspiration for our successors – a National pride and feeling shall evolve, the enemy will eventually be defeated, and we shall set about building a better society of our own for the future – all very interesting. As far as the war is concerned we think and talk about it very little – it is not important to us at the moment. We are primarily interested in becoming the best pilots in the world – the larger issues depend on our success. (JJD 7 July 1940)

  Not only had the once reluctant soldier had become an enthusiastic warrior for his country, he was also very much enjoying his off-duty time with friends and relatives in Toronto. For three weeks at Manning Depot, every night was party night.

  we … eat at the best restaurants, visit the golf club – ride in nice cars and generally insist on the best – we are looking for some nice girls with cars class and inexperience – we do everything on a high level.

  (JJD 7 July 1940)

  Joe also encountered his cousin Lionel Silver from Windsor, whom he had rarely seen since childhood. Lionel had been a reporter for the Windsor Star when he first sought to enlist in the fall of 1939, by his own account to see first-hand the biggest story going. He had been called up two weeks before Joe.

  It didn’t take long for Joe to resume hectoring the Pony Club about enlisting. Joe’s decision to enlist, made abruptly during the third week of May while both Monty and Herb were still in New York, had set the Pony Club’s conversation on a new course. The day after he got to Toronto Joe wrote:

  Naturally the question has to do with the war – and signing up. … The angle I wish to emphasize is the idea of doing something together.

  Most of the odd thousand fellows at Manning Depot are from out west. The most apparent thing is the number of pals that joined up together. And there is no greater chance for pals to have a marvelous time than in the air force.

  You can bunk, eat, play, go out and do everything together – the officers are all young clean cut – efficient. There is almost total lack of red tape, prejudice and formality and routine which was so apparent in the army. It would be better than a summer vacation here for guys that go around together – everything possible is done for your health, comfort and enjoyment. … Mind you I am not saying you should all immediately apply in the air force – there are lots of ways in which your applications can get separated and in which you yourselves can get weeded out and separated. But that is one of the risks you will have to take.

  But if you were skillful or lucky enough to stick the whole thing out from beginning to end together – think of how much you can actually get out of the war in the way of real friends. For no matter where you are, or what you do, it will seem a thousand times pleasanter, a thousand times more interesting and a thousand times more important if the balance of the Pony Club acts together. (JJL 3 July 1940)

  Monty reminded Joe that the rest of the Pony Club could not leave civilian life behind as casually as he.

  From Joe’s reasoning, the only way we can all do our duty properly is to all join the air force. He is right in a way – we would be combining duty with pleasure. All other factors ruled out, I would gladly be in the Air Force today. So would Smith, likely so would Herbie. BUT the whole of Canada and United States cannot enter the air force. …

  All this, we know, does not entirely answer Joe whose accusing finger points at the issues at stake, we Jews, the future of the world, and so on –

  We are fully conscious of the issues at stake; agree wholeheartedly with Joe on the necessity of winning the war.

  In fact, quite obviously, it is our feeling that there will be some kind of a world left for us to come back to when it is all over. It is our feeling that whatever we can do toward our life’s work now is worth ten times any rehabilitation that will come about after the war. Quite obviously, too, we know we will be in it soon. The armed services are being kept plenty busy until we come along. In the meantime the next few weeks can be valuable to Gerald and me in our regular work. Conscription awaits me if I wait too long; Gerald has no alternative. He is in training, is not subject any longer to the conscription and in the meantime continues his work. Herb has made his choice to stay in New York.

  Joe’s letter is a masterpiece, a marvelous effort. We have not meant to criticize it one whit. We just feel that he has lost the perspective for the moment of our personal positions and has started to talk in broad generalities – possibly forgetting that the bulk of the Canadian people still has not come to realize the situation as acutely as he and even we do. Our position, instead of being laggards, is amongst those out in front. (
21 July 1940)

  Joe had all along been enthralled by the prospect of a happy-go-lucky band of brothers in the same branch of service, sharing excitement, adventures, and danger at the sharp end of the coming struggle. Joe’s enthusiasm was, unfortunately, matched by his naïveté. No such scenario could possibly have unfolded in the air force, even if all four had marched arm in arm down to the recruiting office on Dorchester Boulevard. The air force was organized very differently from the army, which commonly recruited men into locally based regiments, so that those who signed up together might well stay together for the duration. Such a “regiment of chums” is what Joe had imagined would happen if his friends had signed up with him. As he soon learned, however, air force recruits were quickly separated by trade and assigned to any one of several schools, where they trained with men from all across the country. They went overseas unattached to any territorial unit.

  As Monty noted with annoyance, Joe had made his decision on his own, and had returned to Montreal to enlist when he and Herb were still in New York. Taking a shot at Joe’s claim that his work and career were no longer important to him in light of the wider issues at stake, Monty remarked to the Pony Club:

  With all due respect … that is the way everybody feels just prior to signing up. Very few people sign up until they reach that stage. In Joe’s case that feeling came before it came to Gerald, to you, Herb, or to me. It came about, as has been pointed out so many times to us guilty Ponyites in New York, as a result of different circumstances. Joe’s position, his work in Preston, his general sensitiveness about anything that smacks of duty, and his particular enthusiasm for adventure – all these things permitted him to see “the wider issues” and face them squarely before we did. (21 July 1940)

  In Monty’s more sober view, if the issue was serving one’s country, there were many ways to do so. Each had his own skills, talents, and inclinations to bring to the struggle. More to the point, Monty reminded Joe of his good fortune and circumstance that the others did not share. Joe had his father’s business to return to, and thanks to his father, he had secured employment over the winter. Monty, Gerald, and Herb had all struggled that winter to find work or to qualify themselves for it. They had nothing to return to except what they could secure for themselves, and so had to think about how and when to enlist without unnecessarily jeopardizing their chances to make a living when it was all over. Joe could afford to be idealistic – as his interviewing officer had noted: “keen to join though he doesn’t need it to live.”

  In a mood to goad rather than inspire, Joe fired off a jeremiad to the Pony Club.

  Mr. Walker told Bernie Tritt to join up a home defense course because the govt were going to force firms to fire all single guys who are not doing anything. Naturally, the Jews here are all flocking to the Non Permanent unit.1 It’s a scandal – they are sluts – I would like to run them thru. Whatever you guys do – do it voluntarily. I would hate to see you guys classified with these yellow bastards here. It really makes my blood boil to see how the Jews are behaving here. Win, lose or draw 80% of them deserve what they get – and they will get it.

  (JJL 20 July 1940)

  Joe’s letters from Preston make clear that he took seriously his father’s view that Jews had to do better than others to vindicate their place in Canadian society. By actions not words, Joe would show the world that Jews were as good as anybody else in any endeavour, and no less willing to risk their lives for their country and their freedom. So he was absolutely insistent that his best friends redeem the honour of the Jewish people, and earn respect by getting off the sidelines and into the game without regard to comfort or risk.

  The next stage in becoming aircrew was Initial Training School (ITS). There recruits would be selected for training as pilots, air observers, wireless operators, or gunners: the trades that would make up the bomber crews needed for the war in Europe. Most of Joe’s fellow recruits had wanted to be pilots, some had wanted to be air gunners. Few expressed a preference for air observer, perhaps because the majority hadn’t a clue what it involved.

  No. 1 Initial Training School, located on the former Eglinton Hunt Club grounds on Avenue Road in Toronto, opened its doors on schedule at the end of April 1940, again with the lingering smell of horses. The buildings were still under renovation, the water mains and drains still being installed, and the parade ground was not yet paved. Yet the school was soon processing several hundred men every four weeks. Joe Jacobson was in the fourth intake, arriving on 22 July. As at Manning Depot, military discipline and parade square drill were an essential part of the program. But in view of the urgency of technical training, rather less time was spent on these matters than in the other services.

  Joe wrote home about ITS in glowing terms.

  This is a swanky joint of the first order. Meals are dished up piping hot, varied, well cooked and of good quality. It is similar to a classy restaurant. Then we have a swimming pool here, a bowling alley, ping pong tables, tennis courts and various other attractions. The sleeping accommodations are excellent. We even get sheets and pillow cases here. Of course we sleep where the horses once passed their evenings but I feel highly honoured to be allowed to sleep in the same stall as the fine horses once occupied. I am sure the beasts were rare specimens with a high price tag on them. Naturally I wangled the most comfortable bed in the joint, right beside a door which allows a refreshing breeze to pop in.

  We are here for about an 8 week course. No weekend leaves until around August 10th and then only for 36 hours, starting Saturday noon. Unless I can talk the P.O. into giving me a 48 hour pass that week I won’t be home until the end of September. The last gang here abused their privileges and they are taking it out on us. Moe Usher and his gang probably. My only chance of getting home will be after my course is over here and before I go on to the next stage. Unless of course I am in as a gunner and wireless operator, in which case I take a 16 week course in Montreal. (JJL 23 July 1940)

  Over the next four weeks of ground school, the aspiring airmen would study math, armaments, drill, and air force law and discipline. Joe soon realized that party time was over, and he was effectively a university student again. The key challenge facing the new Air Training Program was to determine how to direct recruits into the trade for which they had the greatest aptitude and the greatest likelihood of meeting the required standard in the limited training time available. At the outset, the answer was based largely on physical testing not much changed since the First World War, and a mélange of stereotypes about race, empire, and class that permeated both the military establishment and society in general.

  A few weeks before the school opened, a senior RAF officer arrived at the Hunt Club with some University of Toronto psychology professors to address the problem of determining aptitude for training in the different aircrew trades. These men would pioneer the use of psychological testing in the air force, which eventually replaced the academic record and the subjective recruiting interview as the basis for trade selection. This new system was not yet in place when the ITS opened, and recruits were provisionally assigned trades at their first interview, taking into account their physical and educational background. Pilots had to have good reflexes and flying sense. The Link Trainer (a rudimentary flight simulator consisting of a plywood box, a shroud, and a control stick) served to weed out quickly those least likely to succeed. The bright students, especially those with ability in math, would presumably make the best navigators. Less promising students were more likely to be selected for wireless and gunnery training. Pupils were tested for their physical fitness for flying, particularly their reflexes, coordination, vision, and sensitivity to oxygen deprivation. But knowledge of the physiological dimensions of air medicine, and especially oxygen requirements for optimum performance at altitude, was at as early a stage as that of the psychological dimensions. Neither testing for trade selection nor for physical fitness could predict performance or leadership under the stress of combat.

  Joe’s medical
board re-examination two weeks into the course confirmed him fit and healthy, but he seems to have rubbed the president of the medical board the wrong way:

  Athletic and educational qualification good. Rather off hand and sure of himself. These plus racial characteristics maybe a factor in his relation with associates. Good average – doubtful of his ability to handle men.2

  Final selection came at the end of each four-week course, by a Board of Selection consisting of senior officers who relied on the second medical board report and instructors’ recommendations. Joe wrote to the Pony Club the day the selections were announced:

  A great day in Canada’s history is in the making. The future of the world itself will probably be affected by the tremendous events of the day – yes gents, to-day our fate was decided and we have been divided up for the duration of the war into gunners, observers and pilots. The ratio is as follows:

  observers

  18%

  100

  pilots

  35%

  200

  gunners

  46%

  250

  Ace Jacobson is I am unhappy to announce an observer – my pal Jenson is a pilot and vows by all that’s holy that I am going to be his observer. Be that as it may I am not as yet too excited about it all.

  First of all our rowdy flight has been decimated, most of them being gunners. We start from scratch again also we don’t do too much flying. We learn navigation, photography, gunnery & piloting but our position is still that of the master minds – we don’t get the real kick out of the thing that the pilots do. For once I was hoping to get a job where brains don’t count. … However, a college grad. has no chance of becoming a pilot under present circumstances, but is compensated by being booked for the responsible jobs from the beginning. So that’s the story – everything will probably work out for the best and we will all get there sooner or later.