Joey Jacobson's War

by Peter J. Usher

  Europeans are still looked down upon – they are definitely inferior according to the English. What they fail to realize is that lack of education and opportunity does not make a man inferior. They lack understanding and a certain amount of humaneness.

  I never feel warmly attached to an Englishman – you might admire them – you often do – you might respect them but you certainly are not devoted to them.

  Strange as it may seem most of the “colonists” here would like to take a good solid crack at many of these birds here – they just infuriate you at times with their shortsightedness – lack of understanding – stupidness. Then you watch them under fire – the real test – and you forget all your little grievances.

  This fact seems obvious – they have the qualifications and the qualities – they need to travel a bit – learn a bit about others. That has not been necessary up to the present – but a new day is dawning. The world is now a small family – they will have to travel and mix and live with others – and they will.

  Most of the first class leaders have been around – most of the deadheads have stayed put – their day is over – at least I hope it is because England is finished if they are not chucked out – and I don’t think England is finished yet. They rise to the occasion – this is a vital moment – they have never failed yet – I feel sure they won’t fail now. (JJL 22 July 1941)

  Percy remarked:

  Joe’s letters are very interesting. … Of course we keep all his letters. Some of them deal quite exhaustively with the characteristics of the British … the lad shows that he is not satisfied with surface values but digs for essentials. He writes with rare understanding of people.

  (PJD 30 August 1941)

  Other readers also found Joe’s letter worthy of attention. Two weeks after he dropped it in a letterbox in Doncaster, the Post Office sent it, along with other overseas mail collected that day, to the London branch of the Postal and Telegraph Censorship Department, which handled all airmail to Canada. Some days later, in the large hall where many thousands of letters were vetted each day, Joe’s letter was delivered to the table of twenty or so “censorettes” charged with reading Canadian servicemen’s letters. There it was assigned to Examiner 743.1

  Joe’s eight-page handwritten letter took a little extra time for her to read and consider. It contained no offending indiscretions that might reveal sensitive military information, or impair morale on the home front. It gave no suggestion of activities or infractions that should be brought to the attention of his commanding officers. There was nothing to which she was authorized to apply her scissors in defence of the realm. Nor even did Joe’s letter provide any hint of a lovelorn or libidinous condition that might at least lighten her long day’s work with a giggle. Nonetheless, after considering the letter in its entirety, she passed it up the table for the attention of the deputy assistant censor, who confirmed that the letter would indeed be of interest to the appropriate military authorities.

  So it was that, on 7 August, nearly six pages of Joe’s letter came to be typed onto the standard censor’s report form, which, at the top of the first page, noted the origin, destination, date, language, and disposition of the letter, and provided with the subject heading “A Canadian’s Estimate of England.”2 The original letter was then released uncut and sent on its way. The Jacobsons knew it had passed through the censor’s office because, like many of Joe’s letters home, the envelope had been reclosed with a censor’s seal.

  One copy of the examiner’s extract was forwarded to the Directorate of Intelligence in Britain’s Air Ministry, where it was received on 12 August. From there it was sent on to RCAF Headquarters in London where, two days later, at the direction of the Air Officer Commanding, the extract of Joe’s letter was again typed out in full. He then dispatched this memo over his signature to the Department of National Defence for Air in Ottawa, with the advice that it was written by an RCAF sergeant and forwarded for information only.3 The Jacobsons would have been quite unaware of the letter’s readership in Ottawa, where the extract may have already been circulating by the time the original reached them in Montreal.

  Why did Joe Jacobson’s letter attract the attention not only of the British postal censor but also of senior Canadian air force staff in both London and Ottawa? Perhaps it was the concluding paragraphs about “colonials.” Wartime relations between Britain and Canada were not without irritants, despite unity of purpose. Just as there were differences of culture, attitude, and outlook between British and Canadian airmen, so there were at the highest levels of their respective political and military leadership. Canada’s Minister of National Defence for Air and his entourage were meeting with Air Ministry officials in London at that very time to resolve a host of concerns relating to both RCAF personnel in Britain and the implementation of the Air Training agreement. Some related to the status of Canadians in the Royal Air Force with respect to postings and discipline, pay and taxation, mail and accommodation, and promotions and commissions. Since the mass arrival of Canadian airmen in the spring, these issues could no longer be ignored. They were evident from postal censorship reports, and more importantly from numerous disciplinary incidents at RAF schools and stations, including a near-mutiny by Canadian wireless operators in April. Rightly or wrongly, many Canadian airmen expected better conditions and better treatment than what they actually encountered on arrival. Most of these problems that threatened to undermine morale were improved within months. Yet the two air forces would continue to hold fundamentally different views on the basis for commissioning NCOs for the remainder of the war.

  Equally important was the future of the Air Training Program, soon due for renegotiation, with the question of forming all-Canadian squadrons at the forefront. Many Canadians, both serving airmen and senior politicians, believed that this measure would be an important means of resolving ongoing personnel issues. More importantly, perhaps, it would go some way to address the sense that Canadians were being taken for granted, as though it was entirely in the order of things that the right sort of men from the Dominions should ascend to the service of the mother country. “Ready, aye, ready” in this war as in the last. Joe’s letter hints at something that was already troubling England about its Empire, that the tail might someday wag the dog. The RAF would only begin to take the problem seriously in 1942, first with its Dominion servicemen, and in later years with those from its Caribbean and African colonies.

  Whether Joe’s letter alerted British intelligence to trouble ahead, or provided Canadian authorities with an articulation of the national aspirations of their own troops, can only be a matter of speculation. But whatever the reason it attracted attention, it is by far the longest extract to be found in the entire censored letter file for 1941 and 1942, and the only one that reads like a considered essay.

  That a young man so recently arrived in Britain could come to such assessments, and with such conviction, was unusual. Joe Jacobson had already taken an interest in current affairs before he left Canada. His letters home from Ontario and Saskatchewan revealed a young man of strong views, given to writing both humorous stories and serious jeremiads. Once in England, he was quick to engage people of all types in conversation, whether on base, in the pubs, on the trains, or in the street. As with many Canadians, rubbing shoulders with British and other Empire servicemen fired up his national pride. He was also quick to conclude that England needed to get rid of its deadwood and modernize its ways and attitudes if it were to win the war.

  Joe was an avid reader of the popular press, especially Lord Beaverbrook’s Daily Express. Beaverbrook worshipped Churchill and had recently served in his Cabinet as minister of aircraft production. John Gordon, the long-time editor of the Sunday Express, revered Beaverbrook. Gordon wrote both the Sunday editorial column and a weekly analysis of the war situation over his own byline. Gordon was a conservative and intensely patriotic Briton, and, moreover, viscerally anti-German. He was convinced of the need to wage absolute war until complete victo
ry. To that end he advocated no less than total mobilization, unstinting preparation and vigilance, and Stakhanovite effort by civilians and servicemen alike. He also considered that new ideas and new men were needed, and frequently called for the removal of deadwood. In his mind, this included whichever bureaucrats and experts, along with the “Colonel Blimps” in the army, he regarded as obstacles to reorganization for greater effort and efficiency. Gordon was also an advocate of air power and unrestrained strategic bombing. With Russia now fighting on Germany’s Eastern Front, Gordon asserted that Britain should redouble its efforts against Germany, and not fall for the idea that the fighting could now be left to the Russians. The Daily Express editorials were likewise filled with non-stop exhortation in support of greater production effort and efficiency, total mobilization of Britain’s people and resources for war, and ousting those who stood in the way.

  Joe, confident in Churchill’s leadership and wholeheartedly committed to the war effort, readily took up these ideas. As a commerce graduate with practical experience on the factory floor, he took an interest in the organization and methods of industrial production. In that desperate summer of shortages in equipment and qualified instructors to deal with the flood of aircrew from Canada, Joe encountered plenty of bottlenecks, disorganization, and delays in his own daily experience of operational training. He took these frustrations as ample confirmation of England’s insufficient determination to rid itself of the old guard.

  The editorial line of the Express papers encapsulated a view that had gained traction on both the left and right of the political spectrum since the shock of the Dunkirk evacuation the year before. One of the most widely read books in England in 1940 was Guilty Men (anonymously authored by “Cato”), a charge sheet against the appeasers in Chamberlain’s circle that called on Churchill to finish turning out the remaining old guard still clinging to positions of power. It was a call not simply for victory but for uprooting the old order. A year later the setbacks were continuing: a string of German successes in Greece, the Balkans, and North Africa, followed by British naval defeats and the rout of British forces in Crete. By 1941, the country had settled in for a long war, a “Peoples’ War,” a total mobilization for victory that would necessarily require a new order.

  George Orwell provided one view of that new order in his long essay The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius, published only a few months before Joe arrived in England.4 Neither Orwell’s nor Cato’s names appear in Joe Jacobson’s meticulous record of his reading material. Yet Joe’s views on the English character and on England’s prospects in wartime – the lack of imagination and foresight, yet the ability to act when needed; the English sleepwalking through the first eight months of war, suddenly waking up, then a “prompt relapse into sleep”; their insularity and stubborn adherence to old ways, the need for new blood – were as much echoes of The Lion and the Unicorn as they were of the editorial views of the Express papers. With his political ideas not yet fully formed, he seems to have been open to both the intense patriotism of the right and the class-consciousness of the left. And he was beginning to inform himself on political issues through books and film.

  Fifteen

  A Home Away from Home

  Joe used his first weekend pass to visit his father’s relatives in Manchester. Dan and Henriette Kostoris were enormously indebted to the Jacobsons for having taken their two young daughters into their home in Montreal, far from the dangers of wartime life in Britain. They were eager to have Joe visit them. As he recounted the visit to his parents:

  I doubt if I ever got more in such a short period of time as I did over the weekend. I found time to smoke some of [Dan’s] best cigars … and had my share of the Laura Secords. … Then I worked my way thru the Scotch – and generally did a first class job of things. … Dan insisted I leave my shoes outside the door to be polished – since the maids had the night off when I arrived I didn’t know who shined them and so … I thanked [Dan] and he nearly passed out – Evidently the maid did them but that made me feel bad because I would prefer taking her out to having her clean my shoes as she was fairly cute.

  … they speak of you two with reverence – you are God as far as they are concerned. Such voluntary hospitality more or less has bowled Dan over and the letters that the kids write have really made you appear Heaven sent.

  Everything that takes place has to be looked upon in this light. I myself am deeply obliged [to the] old boy. … He kind of looks upon me as a combination of son and a brother. I work with him in the garden, listen to confidences and appreciate his hospitality. …

  [Dan] is a likeable fellow who can be simply marvelous to you. On the other hand he is a hard working, hard headed … business man and plenty shrewd. … Henriette … has quite captivated me. … she is as kind as they come and what’s more she has a keen business head and marvelous artistic ability as far as interior decorating and designing is concerned. I had some lovely chats with her … I think she would behave the same to me whether or not the present circumstances existed.

  Dan … is really too busy at work and in his garden to experience the loneliness that his wife feels. However, it is tough in a way on both of them, but they are pretty level headed and realize that as far as the kids are concerned – they are, if anything much better off than before. …

  Henriette wants me to bring my pal next time – Dan didn’t think it such a hot idea – I guess he feels so far but no further. … They were delighted to see me whilst it was nice for me to be in a home again amongst friends. … (JJL 3 June 1941)

  Their house, which Joe characterized as a mansion, was well stocked with the best of food and drink, and staffed by maids, a cook, and a gardener. As Joe later commented, “I believe they could go thru the 100 yrs war without being pinched or running short.” But the house was also an empty nest: the children were in Canada and Dan’s son was in the army. Dan, and especially Henriette, took an instant liking to Joe, and he would visit them many times in the coming months. On that very first weekend, Joe arranged to designate the Kostoris as his legal next-of-kin in England for official RAF purposes, listing them as his uncle and aunt. He used their address as a convenient mail drop. So began a relationship that would provide Joe with both material and personal support, and sustain his spirit and well-being over the coming months.

  The family connection was through Henriette. She was one of a dozen children of the Freedman family of Antwerp, whose prosperity had been built on the diamond trade. Some of her siblings had for reasons of marriage or business settled in Montreal and Toronto, and until the war began continued to shuttle between Canada and Britain. Joe already knew some of them, especially Henriette’s sister Rebecca, who had married Percy’s favourite cousin in Montreal. Joe would meet many other members of the Freedman family in the coming months, and he would prove himself to be an astute judge of their character. He admired their warmth, intelligence, talent, and education, but came to regard them as neurotic (having “quaint problems”) and impossible to live with.

  On Monday morning, 23 June, Joe learned that his pilot was going on sick leave, and the crew had been granted forty-eight-hour passes. He left immediately for Manchester for a surprise visit. There he found he had just missed Hy Abrams, who had flown in from Canada the day before, and who had visited Joe’s parents before leaving. Hy, with whom Joe had begun training at Manning Depot in Toronto the year before, was the first of several Montreal Jewish servicemen who would be welcomed by the Kostoris family over the next year or so.

  More importantly on this visit, Joe met someone new on the scene: the Kostoris’ niece, Janine Freedman. Janine and her mother Suzanne had moved in after her father was killed in the Blitz in London the month before. Joe would spend the rest of his weekend passes that summer in Janine’s company at the Kostoris household. Joe described their first meeting to his parents:

  It was a hot day so I decided Janine and I should go swimming. The women started and practically swooned
at my suggestion of encouraging her to skip her school classes in short hand and typewriting – the thought that frightened them most was Dan’s reaction I think. After a little chat with Janine who doesn’t look seventeen but talks and acts much older – incidentally, Janine is quite a girl – easy to get along with – a good sport and like most European girls I have met, surprisingly grown up mentally – But don’t get excited after that big build up – she’s just a pal of mine who is getting Canadianized … (JJL 24 June 1941)

  In short, Janine had class. Joe also told his parents about his increasingly complex and ambiguous relationship with Dan Kostoris:

  Janine and her mother have stuck it pretty well since their siege of tough luck – Henriette is marvelous to Suzanne – so is her daughter – … Janine is pretty smart – she has Dan sized up about the same as Pop and me – we hit it off pretty well together and her case is exactly what would happen to anybody else whom Dan put up – thank God my sisters aren’t in the same position as Liliane and Yvette because they would not make out nearly as well – … He’s a temperamental baby – his ambition is to be known as a “hale fellow well met” – he says so every time – he will do anything to impress you … But when the visitors are gone – when the gloves are off – he is a tightfisted bully – He hasn’t a friend – he is scared stiff of officers – policemen – bigger or richer men than himself. He takes it out on the women – It’s tough on a family like Suzanne & Janine – they appreciate his kindness and generosity – But they have no say equal rights or independence – he bullies them as he does all his household – I am happy to report that here’s a guy that puts and keeps him in his place while I am around. I kid him – I slap him heartily on the back – I make him feel a bit all right at times – But I decide what shall be done and he sputters a bit and takes it – What happens when I leave I don’t know – Now don’t get the idea that I am running the lad down – I like him – He can be a barrel of fun when he is in the right mood – which he is always in when I am around – He has to be because he wants me to write you what a marvelous fellow he is – He is a good enough egg. But I feel that you have to look at him in the proper perspective – I know him like a book – I have a great time with him – he really likes me – But I never want any of my family dependent on him … I think any of our women folk would size him up – pop him in the eye – tell him off and scram – Janine probably would too if she didn’t have to look after her mother. Henriette still has my unstinted admiration. She is marvelous – a real woman – which makes it all the more grating when I hear him behave badly to her. (JJL 26 June 1941)