In the summer of 1941, Bob Swannell was in a naval convoy, steaming across the North Atlantic, destination unknown.
Having turned 17 when the Second World War started in 1939, Bob served in the British Home Guard until he could train as a pilot. From his home village of Woodford Bridge, he saw the bombers flying overhead and the docks of London in flames.
By 1941, Bob had completed training with the Royal Air Force's Initial Training Wing at Stratfordupon-Avon, where hotels servicing the Shakespeare industry had been converted into classrooms and dorms. His next stop was Iceland.
The convoy was a few days out from Reykjavik when a slim blue pamphlet was distributed among the future aviators. In 12 pages, When You Go To Canada revealed their destination and introduced the customs and habits of Canadians.
Under the Empire Air Training Scheme, British aircraft and personnel were transported en bloc to the wide prairies and wider skies of Canada. Here in the vastness of the Dominion, far from the battleground of Europe, pilots and aircrews could be trained and aircraft tested.
Bob and his mates boarded a train in Halifax, travelling in the colonist cars built to carry immigrants after the First World War. Imagine, he says, coming from England where, "you couldn't turn around without running into another town," to a land with a horizon so distant that, "a dog could run away forever. We had no conception of the size of Canada. I know we were moving, but the train never seemed to get anywhere."
On April 22,1942, Bob got his wings and a new assignment. Pilot Officer Swannell would not be returning to England the fray. He would remain in Canada, assigned to train pilots for the RAF. "I was devastated in a sense but also proud to be considered able to train," he says.
Before he entered instructor training, Bob went on leave to Vancouver.
"We were at the Devonshire hotel until a lady in uniform approached us, explaining she was there to help service people. 'Wouldn't you be more comfortable in a home?' From that home in Kerrisdale, we made our way across to West Vancouver, where we hiked up the mountain and went skiing for the first time," he says.
Bob was posted to Moose Jaw as a flight instructor. On Aug. 21, 1942, at a dance at Temple Gardens, he met Dorothy Moulding. That dance led to an engagement and a marriage of 66 years.
In 1944, Bob was assigned to return to England and fly operational missions.
"Should we marry or stay engaged? It was a tough decision. We've had such a run of luck, what if our luck ran out? We decided to wait until the war was over, whenever that might be," he says.
Back in England, Bob trained on the Lancaster and Warwick bombers and wrote to Dorothy every day. By the time this training was complete, the war was over. Bob stayed on in the RAF, retraining British pilots to fly troop transport aircraft.
At last the time came when Bob and Dorothy could marry. Arrangements were conducted by flurries of aerogrammes and finally, via a trans-Atlantic telephone call.
"I had to go to the General Post Office in London to book a time to make the call," he says.
When Dorothy arrived in Southampton aboard the Aquitania, she saw a lone figure in a blue uniform waiting for her on the dock. They were married in St. Paul's Church in Woodford Bridge on May 15, 1946.
The newlyweds returned to Canada in November 1946. After a winter digging Canadian Pacific Railway trains out of snowdrifts in Moose Jaw, they moved to Chemainus where Bob found work at the sawmill.
"That was the beginning of my career with H.R. MacMillan and 40 years later I retired," he says.
Bob and Dorothy raised their children in towns across Canada, settling in West Vancouver in 1961, close to the mountain where he skied back in 1942.
Certified to fly fighter planes, transports and bombers, Flight Lt. Bob Swannell never flew an operational flight during the war. He taught the pilots that flew in battle and he built a life for his family in the "great country of Canada that was so generous and welcoming to us."
Laura Anderson works with and for seniors on the North Shore. 778-279-2275 [email protected]
