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Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF)

For the Australians on their way to Canada, their journey often began with a grueling train ride across their own huge country. Coming from all over the continent, the Australian heat and lack of sleeper cars on the train made for some uncomfortable trips.

Next came a boat trip across the Pacific Ocean. Sailing to an unknown destination somewhere on west coast North America, the ships took a longer route in order to avoid areas known to be active with Japanese submarines. To hide at night, the ships were blacked out and smoking was prohibited after a certain hour.

The Australians usually unloaded in California. If they were lucky, they would get to spend a few hours or a day in San Francisco before hopping on another train for the 30-hour trip to Alberta. In its entirety, the journey from Australia to Alberta took several weeks.

Australians came to Canada to attend Service Flying Training School (SFTS). Australians completed their initial and elementary flying in Australia.

Some recruits were just past their 18th birthdays, and these men found themselves over 20,000 kilometres from their home and families. There was no airmail to Australia at that time and regular mail took weeks to go back and forth between Alberta and Australia.
In wintertime, Australian trainees could be identified by their uniforms, which were a unique shade of deep blue, as opposed to the dull grey of the other divisions. Unfortunately, their summer gear was the same khaki as everyone else, although one group did manage to escape this fate. And while nicknames abounded among all the divisions, the Australians seemed to come up with the most creative ones. One group, for instance, included a Bob "Shagger" Clarke, a Ken "100% Good" Wright, a Keith "Horizontal" Quirk and an "Ozzie" Osbourne. Not the Ozzy Osbourne that is on TV!

Flight Pennant

Flight Pennant

Meeting with The Prime Minister Mackenzie

Meeting with The Prime Minister Mackenzie