Joey Jacobson's War

by Peter J. Usher

  You have given me a great deal of pleasure and the thrill of having a son I can be proud of without reservation and that is very important. Your mother, I do not need to tell you is a brick – she never lets on she worries, never complains about fate – or complains about how much she misses you – I know how much she does. If there were more Jewish mothers like her it would be better for our people. I read somewhere that a celebrated French statesman said that France lost the War because it had too many doting mothers who spoilt their sons and made them soft. I believe that is true. That is not the English way. Interested in what you say about Americans – in a way you are right – but keep tolerant. Don’t go off half-cocked – which is what I meant by emotional (glandular) thinking. … (PJL 10 January 1941)

  Joe in flying gear, No. 2 Bombing and Gunnery School, Mossbank, Saskatchewan, 1940. (Canadian Jewish Archives)

  Joe in service uniform, with Fairey Battle trainer, Mossbank, Saskatchewan. (Canadian Jewish Archives)

  Seven

  Rivers

  Joe and his class were posted to No. 1 Air Navigation School (ANS) for the final stage of their training in Canada. There, he wrote home “we will start on some real work – which will give us a chance to see who really has the superior race, among other things.” The airfield was located on the open prairie in western Manitoba, seven miles from the small town of Rivers, on the transcontinental railway line. There seems to have been even less to do in Rivers in off-hours than there had been at Mossbank, and none of Joe’s pals had friends or relatives nearby.

  No. 1 ANS, which had opened less than two months earlier, provided air observers with training in astro-navigation, an additional technique for finding one’s way in enemy territory where radio contact was forbidden and a forced landing highly undesirable. It consisted of taking successive readings on particular stars with a sextant, and using these to plot one’s position with the aid of star tables. By this means, and under ideal conditions, a competent observer could locate himself to within five to ten miles. The RAF had adopted astro-navigation, or celestial navigation, as a standard technique by the end of 1937, but did not provide a course of instruction to observers until just before the war began.

  Rivers, on account of its clear skies, was considered as good a place as any in Canada to learn astro-navigation. The school was supposed to open officially on Remembrance Day, but there was still no water, no heat in the hangars, and officers were still living off base. By February, there were ninety-one officers, 516 men (mainly ground crew) and fifty-seven civilians on the base. The standard course was four weeks and required, for the first time for Canadian trainees, much night flying. The course also included daytime flying for additional map-reading and navigation instruction. Flying was again, as it had been in Regina, on Avro Ansons. The chief instructor was already known to Joe: McGill math and astronomy professor, and now squadron leader, A. H. S. Gillson, who had previously been a navigation instructor for the British Admiralty.

  Joe wrote home the day after he arrived at Rivers:

  As expected we bumped into the gang from Malton including Lionel and we had a hilarious get-together. It was quite a thrill bumping into all our old pals after not having seen them for four months. In two weeks’ time the remainder of our bunch who went to Edmonton will be pulling in here which will complete the reunion of a hundred odd observers who were split up at the Hunt Club.

  Despite the considerable amount of work to be covered, we are not complaining for once as it is a really interesting course, including astronomy – navigation by the heavenly bodies. It is [a] rather interesting subject as you fix the position of your air[craft] by finding out its positioning in relation to some stars, a few billion miles away. … our instructors [are] all high ranking officers, either college professors or graduates in higher science. … One more month and we will start the bombs rolling, I hope. (JJL 21 January 1941)

  Then he wrote the Pony Club, reminding them of his newly bestowed status as a non-commissioned officer and instructing them to address their mail to Sgt. Jacobson:

  The course here is the nuts – a complete study of astronomy – and how to plot position lines from shooting the stars. Imagine gents how I will be able to slay beautiful Egyptian babes by romantically giving the history of every star in the heavens. The possibilities are unlimited anywhere and everywhere. …

  Twelve of our forty will get commissions. I will assuredly not be one of them. The marks don’t mean a great deal as long as you pass. … because of various adventures in other stations, I doubt that my recommendations are strong enough to get me under the wire. However, as sergeants with our wings we get $3.70 per day, okay for now – Then after 3 months service I can transfer to train for a pilot which I most definitely will do1 – added to that we will get plenty of opportunity to do our stuff in actual service which is where most of us will probably pick up boosts. For the present though we are all set. So you guys don’t have to worry about saluting me for a while yet. (JJL 22 January 1941)

  Late January was cold, with the temperature falling to –42ºF on the morning of the 24th, although with clear weather on that date, flying continued all day and all night. Joe wrote the Pony Club about:

  a harrowing 36 hour flight where my cool head saved the lives of scores of men – ah what a hero and with but four hours sleep I am rushing this letter along before participating in a hockey game for the “observers” vs “fitters.”

  Here’s the story. Started out on a 300 mile flight Sunday morning. Ran into a terrific snowstorm – viz zero, turned back – weather closed in over Rivers, had to land at an emergency landing field 100 miles away – Ran plump into the storm again. Emergency field out in no man’s land – missed it by 1/4 of a mile – couldn’t see – pilot stuck his head out one window I stuck mine out the other – I navigated him by power lines from 200 ft – radio went on him – gas nearly out – pilot didn’t know which way he was flying – for once I did – result happy landing after 3 hr 40 min in air. … Pilot was an R.M.C. boy who was pal of Chip Drury2 … Stuck at field two days as temperature dropped to 30° below – engines froze – had to fly mechanics out with equipment to start them. (JJL 25 January 1941)

  He provided his family with more details on his work at Rivers. He had done only daytime flights during his first week there.

  It is 2 AM I am still in the class – so are the rest of the gang. The scene is an amazing one for any service. Forty men with sextants and clusters of books and tables, running in and out, shooting stars, working out positions from them and practically going crazy in the process. Next week we will have to do all this in the air which means we will be kept plenty busy. …

  Will explain officer setup when I get home – ranks go – pilot officer, flying officer, flt lieutenant, squadron leader etc. An office clerk in R.C.A.F. gets the above named titles regardless of whether he flies or not – 10 pilot officers who have never been in air to every one that has – name deceptive but that’s all.

  One third of our gang will get commissions, the remainder will have a chance to earn them in active service – I will be in that latter group.

  (JJL 28 January 1941)

  Nearly half the flying time during January had been lost, but the weather improved in February, and Joe put in several long, late night flights. He commanded the Pony Club to be in Montreal for his arrival:

  New York trip out of the question – I have not been home for six months won’t be home again for longer – so will stick around, outside of trip up north and a few dozen trips at nights to various hideouts – but remember gents – a sergeant with his wing must act like a gent at all times.

  (JJL 8 February 1941)

  A few days later Joe wrote his pals about more delays. Bad flying weather was one reason. An outbreak of scarlet fever in the neighbouring barracks, with the possibility of a ten-day quarantine, was another.

  However, if all goes well we should have our first get together next week-end February 21st 22nd etc. I don�
��t know how long I shall get but it might be a couple of weeks … Note – missed out on the commission business until I get overseas. My record for independence didn’t go over so well even though I organized all athletics for our class in all stations. I won lots of dough by missing out because all the boys in the class took bets with me. They bet me that I would get a commission. Modest me, I bet that I wouldn’t and won darn it. Seven of our gang received brass hats, six more are pending for around six months. …

  Our instructor is Flt. Lieut. McClure of McGill – pal of Presty Robb’s3 – My pull here came too late – rowdy Joe had done the damage farther west. So you will have to put up with Sgt. Observer Joe for a while longer.

  … We had a humdinger the other night. This plane ran out of gas before reaching the emergency station when the weather closed in. The motors cut – & the plane dived down – and the pilot landed on his belly in the dark – no one hurt – pretty lucky and were their pants stained.

  Been playing hockey daily – in superb condition – raring to go – also roaring to go after six weeks of total abstention from women, from drink, from bullying, playing, pleasures, etc. – so here I come mates – gleamy eyed – roary old Joe – (JJL 14 February 1941)

  Joe squeezed in his last flight that night. He had been on a dozen flights over three weeks, traversing the southern Prairies between Regina and Winnipeg, mostly at night. Only half of Joe’s course was passed through on the 18th (three days after the scheduled date); the rest were quarantined due to an outbreak of scarlet fever and did not leave until the next week.

  The top third of each air observer class was commissioned immediately upon graduation. The remainder of the top half would be eligible for commission within a few months based on distinguished service, devotion to duty, and display of ability while on operations. Joe knew very well that he would not be among them. He had improved his marks at Rivers, where he finished (barely) in the top half of the class. His former professor assessed him to be an average, dependable air navigator, and slow but retentive in ground school, in sum that he would “make a very good air observer.” However, his overall mark for the entire training course was just under 68 percent, twenty-ninth in a class of thirty-four. Upon graduation, his commanding officer did not recommend him for a commission, but assessed him as “a good chap. Good educational background, very quiet and well mannered. Fine athlete. Will make a very good NCO, possible officer later.”4

  There is little doubt about why Joe was not commissioned upon graduation. The combination of his indifferent marks and the episode on his conduct sheet was enough for that, as he himself acknowledged. His irreverence, outspokenness and occasional cockiness, his insufficient deference to authority, and perhaps also his brazen persistence in pursuing leave requests undoubtedly rubbed some of his superiors the wrong way. He knew all that and was not surprised by it.

  There was still the college boy and the camp counsellor in Joe. Military life away from home was like an extended summer camp for him: sports, adventures, activities, all regulated by institutional routine, with meals and laundry service provided. Free from the constraints of home and community, he could let loose in boisterous all-male company. He may have been somewhat intimidated by older men, or at least less at ease with them. Many of Joe’s classmates were three, five, and even eight years older, but his closest friends were younger than he was, and perhaps it was only among them that he could be a leader. This too may have influenced his superiors’ assessment of him as not yet suitable for commission.

  Yet he was no longer the same young man who had gone west five months earlier, as Percy would immediately recognize upon his return. Death was no longer an abstraction, risk was ever present, and mistakes had consequences. Men he knew had already been killed, and Joe himself had survived some tight situations. He had adopted a calm and fatalistic outlook, which he found easier to do as a flyer because, as he told the Pony Club, “best of all you are either alive or dead – no in between processes.” So he would live to the fullest while he could, and hope for the best.

  Joe’s classmates had now earned their wings as air observers, and would soon be on their way to Britain. How good was their training, and how well prepared were they to take the next step to engaging in battle? The Royal Canadian Air Force had undertaken to train an enormous number of airmen on short notice and in quick time. The Air Training Program was a stupendous achievement, even in those early days of 1941. But was it good enough? How did those first few hundred pupils stack up?

  Many experienced being in the very first class in a brand-new school on an aerodrome still under construction. Buildings and facilities were incomplete, staff was short, and curricula were still being cobbled together. Sometimes there weren’t enough aircraft, so pupils didn’t get to fly as much as they should have. Essential equipment – bombsights and bombs, machine guns, radios – if it turned up at all, was sometimes better suited to a previous war. What Canada did not produce for itself had to come from Britain or the United States. By the summer of 1940, air combat equipment was so desperately needed in Britain that shipments to Canada had been suspended. And the United States was neutral and wasn’t selling arms to combatants. In even greater shortage was time. Observer training, including bombing and gunnery school, was compressed to twenty-two weeks. The amount of flying time a trainee got during those weeks depended on aircraft availability, operability, and weather. For all that, however, the training schools had done the best they could with what they had.

  Flying training for both pilots and air observers concentrated on daytime visual flight procedures and there was little instrument flying. Joe Jacobson got in twenty minutes of night flying at Air Observer School, and none at bombing and gunnery school. Air Navigation School provided him with twenty hours of night flying, and he ended his training in Canada with ninety-five hours in the air. Joe’s experience was the norm, and the least that can be said is that the pupils of 1940 went forward with much more flying time than had their predecessors in the Great War. Yet the Royal Air Force was already committed to night bombing when the Air Training Program began in Canada, and it was already aware that both navigating to the target and bombing it in nighttime conditions over Europe was a significant problem. But the RAF needed men, fast. British officials acknowledged that the need for increased output had reduced the amount of training to the bare minimum. None of the early air observer graduates were retained as instructors in Canada. Not only were they desperately needed overseas, they were not yet good enough to instruct anyone else.

  Those who were commissioned were not given any different or additional training to prepare them for their new role. They were simply informed of their new status by telegram before embarking. The British Commonwealth Air Training Plan was not intended to be an officer training school. Trade selection at Initial Training School focused on the recruit’s aptitude for a trade and his ability to complete his training in the time allotted. Aptitude for a trade was not a predictor of courage and competence in the face of danger. Nor did achievement in ground school and air exercises necessarily provide adequate grounding in military practice and leadership beyond the confines of the aircraft itself. In the outcome, many operational aircrews in the early years of the war consisted largely or entirely of non-commissioned officers, and the basis for commissioning flying crew would be the subject of debate throughout the war, within and between senior personnel in the RCAF and the RAF, and in their respective air ministries.

  Not everyone survived training unscathed. There were many crashes. Those who got their wings that winter were pressed into service as soon as possible. They were keen to go, and they were confident that if they applied their training in battle they would succeed. Those early graduates did not yet know that they were at the bottom of what would be a steep learning curve. The next test would come in England, where they would learn to operate real bomber aircraft, in flying conditions closer to those over Europe at night. They still had a long way to go to match their
foes. While they were learning to fly by the stars, their counterparts in the Luftwaffe were learning to locate themselves far more precisely with radio navigation aids.

  Eight

  Montreal

  On Tuesday, 18 February 1941, granted three weeks’ embarkation leave, “a happy eastbound throng caught the train by the narrowest of margins.” It was the day after Joey Jacobson’s twenty-third birthday. Joe recorded the trip in his brand-new pocket diary emblazoned with the badge of the Royal Canadian Air Force on the front cover. He had received it as a birthday gift, inscribed “Lots of Luck, Love Cecily.” He would chronicle the rest of his life in it.

  This diary is being officially started aboard the Montreal bound train and will aim at recording events as they occur while serving in the R.C.A.F. overseas. (JJD 18 February 1941)

  Slept tight after drinking rum & cokes with Hugh Miller, G. P. McLean & Mac Keswick, fellows you can’t beat anywhere. Had a nip with a Group Captain & took pictures of ourselves in his hat when he wasn’t around. (JJD 19 February 1941)

  Arrived in Toronto with Hugh & Roger set up headquarters at the Royal York – contacted Cecily – … to wow the lass had her brought down in a taxi took her out to supper and gave her an orchid – supper dance and really started to fall for good old Cecily – a swell kid – lots of fun & life and pretty smart looking. (JJD 20 February 1941)

  Arrived home for supper and it made a fellow feel good to see what a kick he got out of his family & vice versa … a memorable day as far as feeling at peace with the world & being happy was concerned.

  (JJD 21 February 1941)

  Joe on eastbound train, 19 February 1941. “Had a nip with a Group Captain & took pictures of ourselves in his hat when he wasn’t around.” (Janet Jacobson Kwass)