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My Years in the Royal Canadian Air Force - Part 12 (Notes to “My Years in the Royal Canadian Air Force”) By Ronald Gaudet Aircraft I flew Fleet Finch Yale Harvard Miles Master I, II, III Miles Magister Hurricane I with 8-303 Browning machine guns; IIB with 12 guns; IIC with 4-20 mm Hispano cannons. Defiant rigged for drogue towing Spitfire IIA;IIB; with 8-303 machine guns; VC,IXB,with 4-303 and 2 20mm cannons. XVI with 2 20mm cannons and 2-.5 machine guns. Also a passenger in a Fairey-Battle,Hudson,Lodestar,Anson and DC3. Sailed on the following ships Warwick Castle (liner) from Canada to Scotland Can not remember the name ?-Castle line freighter from Scotland to Cape Town South Africa. Ile de France (liner) from Durban to Tufik, Egypt in 1942 also from Tufik to Scotland in1943. Had a trip on the Mediterranean in an air-sea rescue launch and was a WWI torpedo boat with three W engines in it. LST (landing ship tank) from Hornchurch, England to Ostend, Belgium. Notes: The information in this was taken from my Log Book and diary of 1943 and 44 some of course from memory. The events in between these are all blank at this time. The summer I arrived home I visited Tommy's (his real name was John Thompson) family and I still keep in contact with his sister Isabel. This was in Ottawa and one day while down town met Red Rodney but he was not the old one I knew as the look in his eyes were not the fun loving Red I was familiar with. Guess he had a hard time as a prisoner of war. In Dec.1951 met Mac (his name was also John) and had a good talk with him. At one of the Fighter Reunions had a talk with Judy(whose name was also John Garland thus called him Judy) At another reunion I met Robbie (Robertson) At another met Stan Turner our Group Captain in Europe. At an air-crew reunion in Winnipeg met Johnny Johnson our Wing Commander in Europe, Douglas Bader, Jimmy Doolittle and Adolf Galland the head of the German fighter command in WWII. At another met Art Nitz. On a visit to England on the 50th Anniversary of the battle of Briton we met again and traveled a lot to-gather. Also those of us who flew with Johnny Johnson held a dinner for him and his wife. Seems as if fate goes around in a circle. At these reunions I meet a lot of 443 Sqdn. boys that I flew with although I guess we are not boys any more.
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My Years in the Royal Canadian Air Force - Part 12