When we graduate from here we get our wings and get boosted to sergeants – the pay will be $3.75 per day – pretty snappy. When we get over in England we get R.A.F. pay and the balance is held for us by the Canadian govt. (JJL 15 December 1940)
Joe was again very enthusiastic about his bombing and gunnery training, as he wrote home.
We have an English bloke as our sergeant, instructor and mother and he is one of the first really popular chappies I have bumped into. He is only a young fellow, very bright, friendly, typically reserved but a bit of all right. Most of the English N.C.O.s here are hard-bitten old timers who don’t understand the class of boys they are dealing with. None of the R.C.A.F. gang need very stern discipline. The better they are treated, the better they act as all are extremely anxious to really do a job.
Most of our gang would like to go down to Egypt. … the lads are sort of getting the bug to travel and would really like to get around to the other half of the world. But I don’t think we are going to have any choice.
(JJL 15 December 1940)
We have been having quite a time in the air. First of all bombing. I don’t know why it is but you get a real kick out of letting the bomb (real bombs) drop and watching them explode. The same holds true when firing the machine gun, 1150 shots per minute – quite a gun. Incidentally we have an officer on our station who was with the Canadian fighter squadron in England. He brought back a much used German machine gun, and when you see the cheap affair that they have to use, you feel pretty confident in our own equipment. We have had many interesting chats and discussions with him – and he said that the Canadian boys over there do not have to take any backwater to anyone – they really hold their own and are the toast of England.
… Incidentally, don’t worry about me flying – I am not the pilot – I can’t do anything about the driving of the ship. Our pilots are all American aces – and how. I have been thru a loop, barrel roll, power dives and everything else imaginable with them and are they aces – and do I love it – what a thrill … (JJL 2 January 1941)
You probably read of quite a few R.C.A.F. accidents from time to time. I advise you not to let the reports disturb you any more than reports of railway accidents, motor fatalities or every day accidents would. … We develop a fatalistic outlook. If it’s in the cards you get it – if not you don’t … that has to be our strong point – remaining calm under pressure. (JJL 7 January 1941)
Joe also turned to a theme he would revisit frequently during the coming year:
There is one very noticeable difference we have observed between the English and American methods. All our planes and equipment are English made. Although they are durable they make no attempt to make use of modern gadgets or improvements. For example the Avro Anson training planes we used at 3 A.O.S. and which are still used in coastal patrol [have] a landing undercarriage that has to be wound by hand every time you take off and rewound by hand when landing. That has nothing to do with the quality of the plane but there is not a U.S. plane today that has not an automatic landing gear. Then the bombsight we use is really a joke. It has so many gadgets and devices to set and compute for and is so complicated that they have to train their best men (observers) to use them. The U.S. use general duty men as bomb aimers who require 10 minutes instruction before mastering the simple device – but the good old English plod along. But here’s hoping they have the U.S. bombsight when we get over. (JJL 15 December 1940)
Joe was describing the course setting bombsight (CSBS), developed during the previous war and recently modified as the Mk IX, now standard equipment on all RAF bombers. It worked by combining the triangle of velocities, which air observers had already learned to determine, with the expected trajectory of a bomb of known characteristics falling from a known height. Because the CSBS could account for wind drift (assuming the observer could determine it), it enabled an aircraft to approach its target from any direction, not just directly along the wind line. It was challenging to use because the bomber had to preset the key values of altitude, air speed, wind speed, and wind direction before starting a bombing run, and the aircraft had to fly straight and level for several minutes before reaching the drop point. The U.S. Norden bombsight was an improvement in both simplicity of use and because it was gyroscopically stabilized. Days before the war started, Chamberlain made a desperate appeal to Roosevelt to obtain it, but Roosevelt denied the request on the grounds of American neutrality. It would be another year before Britain developed its own version.
Joe wrote his father at the end of the first week of January, full of Canadian pride:
We have done amazing things, the Empire Air Training Scheme being the greatest.
Americans of future generations will be ashamed and angry at the length of time it took their fathers to sum up enough courage to face the facts and a bully and then act accordingly. … Why our fellows are deliberately flunking so as to avoid being made instructors as we want to really give the Germans and Italians a double dose of their own medicine. But the American youths are trying to figure out ways of avoiding conscription. Not much fight there. (JJL 7 January 1941)
Joe had discerned in his last summer in Vermont that while his American friends were in moral support of the democracies, they had no taste for volunteering to fight against Nazi Germany.
Poor weather had shut down the airfield in the second week of January, so there was still a lot of flying to complete. In the meantime, he had finished his exams and was playing hockey and basketball. Joe put in three successive days of bombing practice during his final days there. Before leaving for the hangar he wrote home:
We are on bombing today, which means we will hit everything but the target. They say the safest place to be when we are bombing is on the target – the C.O. proved that by standing on the target during a bombing exercise. (JJL 16 January 1941).
Less modestly, he told the Pony Club:
I practically led the class in bombing results which pleased me no end as I didn’t use the bombsight, but trusted to my accurate, precise and sound judgement, and eagle eye for which I am aptly so famous. I was deadly with the machine gun and to top it all I swiped a real bomb and have it tucked safely away in my bag. If it doesn’t blow up before I get home, I am going to make a lampshade out of it – it weighs 11½ lbs and is a humdinger, wait until you see it. (JJL 22 January 1941)
Joe was evidently exaggerating, as he left Mossbank graded only as an average bomb-aimer, perhaps because he really didn’t use his bombsight. He received above-average marks in air gunnery, but overall he was graded unsuitable for commissioned rank, coming near the bottom of his class. But he had earned his Air Observer’s badge and was promoted to the rank of sergeant on 19 January 1941.
Joe had been scheming since October for a grand reunion with friends and family in Montreal over the Christmas holidays. As the train would take two days each way, flying was the only option, but a very expensive one. By mid-November Joe had persuaded his father to contribute $70 toward the cost. A month later he claimed he would pay for the entire ticket himself. But whether Mossbank’s scheduled Christmas break would be long enough to enable him to get home even by air was always in doubt. When Joe had thought that they might get a sufficient break at Christmas, he concocted a story about his sister Edith getting married at that time so that he could get an extension. When that did not happen, his story was wasted, but as he noted philosophically, “such is the fate of the story tellers,” and added “since joining the air force I have killed off an aunt, married my sister, shipped an uncle overseas and even got myself engaged – who is next on the list I wonder.” However, he added, there was talk of an extended break over New Year’s. So he asked his father to reserve a seat on Trans-Canada Air Lines on the 30th for a Pony Club New Year’s Eve reunion in Montreal, a project he charged Gerald, in his capacity as club president, with organizing. In the meantime, Joe’s entire bombing and gunnery class was invited to spend Christmas Eve and morning with families in nearby Assiniboia. As
Joe wrote home with some astonishment,
The various families took about two fellows each, put us up, had us for Christmas dinner, held open house for us, gave us parties, etc. … The spirit of these people out here is really something to rave about. We went from house to house, visiting, eating, dining and really felt at home. (JJL 2 January 1941)
With only four days leave over New Year’s, Joe’s fortunes depended on good flying conditions, but the weather did not co-operate on Monday night. So he found himself a hotel room in Regina, downed the rest of his “emergency” bottle of Johnnie Walker, and headed to what he characterized as a “sort of night club” to pick up some female company, which, after fast-talking his way out of a fight with some male competitors, he found. On the 31st he made his way back to Moose Jaw, where his classmate Les Jupp invited him to stay with his family for New Year. From there he wrote his parents about how he had inveigled his wing commander into granting him extra leave to no avail.
Perhaps the most disappointed of all were the fellows in my class. My proposed trip was the talk of the station. Our gang went around bragging about their pal who was flying to Montreal for New Year’s. Great discussions arose as to whether I was sane or crazy to spend a couple of hundred bucks to go home. Then I had letters to mail from Montreal, just to surprise the recipients, important phone calls to make, I was to keep a log of the flight, help the pilot navigate, etc. Well when the report of bad weather came thru the boys felt worse than I did. No matter where the fellows went for the holiday, Winnipeg, Fort William, Regina etc., they kept in touch with the T.C.A. offices to find out if the plane left or not. (JJL 2 January 1941)
Joe told the Pony Club how he saw the new year unfolding when he got back to Mossbank on Friday morning:
Regardless of what happens I for one get a real thrill out of life to-day – customs, conventions gone to the dogs, old barriers uprooted – It’s a day for swift action, cool thinking, daring performances. There is nothing beautiful or heroic about war. But there is something tremendous taking place from day to day as we battle with our backs to the wall to keep a few fragments of what is termed civilization – the worst elements in our society are rapidly disappearing – but make no bones about it we are locked in a real battle with real issues at stake and it gives a fellow a real kick to feel he is going to be an important cog in defending his own country and knocking the crap out of probably the foulest enemy any one could hope to have. … We either win or else, because there is not a man here who won’t go down before giving up. And so the old year fades away and another one dawns, we should have nothing to worry about though, as we are young and healthy and smart and so should be able to do what is required of us. (JJL 3 January 1941)
Of his social life in Mossbank, Joe told his pals:
The boys gamble here every night. I never play. I have not touched card playing since leaving school – I get more kick out of using the dough on liquor, women and various sensuous pleasures since they are the only ones available to us – no chance to see plays – or trips of interest for the time being. So don’t gamble with cards boys – we always lose and always will.
… I am on the shelf – injured my leg in a R.C.A.F. hockey game – my record so far 4 games – 9 goals – 5 assists out of 24 goals scored. Coach, doctors trying to revive me for game to-morrow night but game leg won’t heal before Tuesday’s big game. Now have many girl friends in many towns – Boy how the Pony Club could function in this outfit –
… The next batch [of mail] should be addressed to me at No. 1 Advanced Navigation School, Rivers, Manitoba - the place where five RCAF acquaintances ran into tough luck – they were all killed.1
… We never figure on anything in advance now. We just take things as they come – already 10 buddies who went thru the Hunt Club with us, including a former bunk mate and Billie – a school chum whom I palled around with a bit in Toronto, have bit the dust in training accidents. If it’s in the cards you get it if not nothing can touch you.
(JJL 10 January 1941)
Joe had by then developed a larger sense of purpose for volunteering. He was not in the air force just for thrills or to conquer his own fears; there was an existential struggle at stake and a world to rebuild afterwards. The year 1940 had brought the dangers of his chosen course closer to home. As a warrior he adopted, or feigned to adopt, a fatalistic attitude. But nothing in the last year had blunted his determination to get the most out of every day of his life, or his brashness in doing so.
Saskatchewan seemed new and raw to Joe, and he liked that. Given to keen reportage, as he had been in Preston, he wrote home:
The people out this way are becoming really air minded and air conscious as well they might be. Not only do they have a large representation in the air force, but there are dozens of flying schools all over the prairies, and there is hardly a spot in this territory that doesn’t see half a dozen planes every day. (JJL 16 October 1940)
I spent a fine weekend in Moose Jaw with a couple of the boys here who live there. It is a much nicer city than Regina with wide clean streets and a much nicer class of people.
The family we stayed with were really delightful. … The Pop is a government railroad man and since we know all the country from air observation, we had an interesting time learning what took place in many of the towns in particular and the west in general.
One thing noticeable about people and their thinking out here is the expansiveness and broadness of their thoughts. Since the communities out west are much smaller than in the east, and since they are also a lot more dependent upon one another’s success, there is considerably more community spirit and mutual co-operation than in the east. You never get that helpless feeling that there is nothing you can do about it – they can and do things here. They have medical insurance, wheat pools, etc., and are always gunning for something better. It would not be a bad place to live – less chance of becoming really wealthy but more opportunity to get something for your work in the form [of] taking an active interest in what is going on. (JJL 22 October 1940)
You can’t beat the western climate or the western people themselves. It will be a long time before you meet into people as easy to meet, as friendly and as hospitable as these westerners. I don’t know why it is except probably it is new country and people out here have not had a chance to clique up – old families sticking together, etc. Also there is not the disparity in wealth amongst groups, no snobbery or high hatting and probably more than anything else there is comparatively little to do which permits people to take more interest in one another. But it is still barren country to live in, nothing to do outside of the show and dances which is why I would not relish living here. I like hopping up to the country, out for a ski trip, picnicking, swimming etc. and you can’t do that here. (JJL 15 December 1940)
People in most towns out here absolutely accept people for what they are. There is no social or racial distinction amongst them. It’s the person that counts and they can’t do enough for you. … out here you have the real backbone of our country. The easterners are too wealthy, soft and spoiled. Out here they just can’t be counted out, 10 years of drought, one good year and no chance to sell, and they are still optimistic, still happy – still not kicking. (JJL 2 January 1941)
Going to leave a lot of good friends around the nearby towns, Regina, Moose Jaw, Assiniboia whom I expect to keep in touch with. … these westerners are just down my alley … – sure glad I got shipped out here – had some great talks on the wheat problem, railway question, population possibilities amongst other outstanding problems with top notch men – a real education. … need more interchange of young people between the East and West during holidays, just so as they will get to know something about each other. (JJL 13 January 1941)
Percy’s diary entries and letters during Joe’s stay at Mossbank were full of both pride and anxiety, along with high expectations for his son:
Joe writes that he is now settled in Mossbank Sask … a small village … there he wi
ll learn all about bombing operations for his work with the British Air Force when he goes across in the Spring … he is now at the final stages … the art of killing and all the work has led but to this objective. For six months the Government has given him the care that no loving mother could hope to give her child … security, the best of foods, the best of medical care, fine warm apparel, surroundings of comfort, recreation, companionship, excellent mental training (better than he received at College so he claims). His horizons have been immeasurably widened … he has learned more about Canadian geography than all the years he spent in school. He has become aware of his country … and for the first time in his life knows the pride of being a Canadian. This our government … and other Governments throughout the world have been able to do for their young men for war … Good God you would think that they could have done as much for peace … it’s a cockeyed world alright … (PJD 14 December 1940)
Swell letter from son Joe. He is quite mad over night bombing. After this war what civilian pursuits will satisfy these boys. I suppose some will go in for civil aviation. (PJD 5 January 1941)
Joe is getting a big kick out of his air experiences but naturally his mother and myself are undergoing a certain amount of nervous tension which we try and keep from each other. There was a sad accident yesterday. Five young trainees in a bomber at Rivers (the work Joe is now doing) were killed in an accident. Poor lads they didn’t even have a chance to show what they could do in action … as for their families … five families with the joy of life knocked out of them. So futile.
(PJD 8 January 1941)
He replied to Joe:
You will someday barring unpleasant accidents become one of the leaders of Canada. As you say we must all be fatalists. No use worrying about things beyond control. Civilian life has its dangers too – disease and accident and disaster.
Joey Jacobson's War Page 9