Airman Allen (Al) Cameron was in London, England on May 8, 1945 when a massive celebration broke out in the capital, as thousands of people took to the streets to celebrate the Allies’ victory over Nazi Germany.
After six years of heavy fighting on the seas, on the ground and in the air, peace had once again returned to the European continent.
Cameron, then 19 and a leading aircraftman (LAC) with the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), had just returned to England with his unit after spending nearly two years fighting in Italy. Their war had ended on April 24, 1945, in the town of Bellaria, about 256 kilometres south of Venice, since the Germans there were on the verge of surrender.
There was tremendous relief on that eighth day of May — officially dubbed Victory in Europe Day, or VE-Day — since six years of heavy fighting against the German war machine had finally ended, Cameron recalled.
In total, the war killed 450,700 English military personnel and civilians. For Canada, about 45,400 soldiers, sailors and airmen perished during the conflict.
Celebrating with the English
“You can’t imagine how well the English handled the war in Britain,” said Cameron, now 95. “You never saw an English person (who) was down-hearted. They were all, ‘Get up, get at it and let’s get it done and over with it.’ They were amazing people.”
With a chuckle, Cameron acknowledged that he celebrated with the English on that joyous occasion. He and his fellow airmen had plenty of time to celebrate since their unit had been disbanded and they were waiting to go home. They would have roll call every morning to learn whether a ship could take them home.
Seventy-five years after the Second World War ended in Europe — it would rage on in the Pacific Theatre until Sept. 2, 1945 — some of Cameron’s memories are still fresh. Yet, as the years have gone by and Remembrance Days and VE-Days have rolled on, he has had fewer flashbacks to that period.
An emotional anniversary
“The emotion on the anniversary of VE-Day hits me a lot harder now than it used to because I’m starting to realize how many of my buddies and friends … are so few left,” he remarked, pointing out there are about 33,200 veterans still living in Canada.
“When you fought together, died together and came home together, the memories are forever close to the surface and are for keeps,” said Cameron, who believes he is the only Second World War veteran left with the Army, Navy and Air Force Veterans (ANAVETS) organization in Moose Jaw. “To go to the Remembrance Day services, it’s a lot more emotional because there are so few of us left.”
It is Cameron’s memories that fill him with emotion, he continued. Many of his buddies also survived the war, so they shared beers and jokes whenever they gathered after the war. However, that table became more vacant as the years went by.
“It does bother (me) a bit,” he said, adding he will celebrate VE-Day quietly.
For seven years, Cameron sang in a choir at the Remembrance Day services in Moose Jaw but eventually quit since it became too much. He sings at home — something he didn’t think was still possible at age 95 — but it’s tougher than before. One of his favourite songs is the Vera Lynn tune (There’ll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs Of Dover.
“It’s quite an emotional song when you have gone through what we went through,” he added.
Close calls with death
Cameron grew up in Saskatoon but trained as an airframe maintenance technician in Moose Jaw for a few months in 1943. He and his unit eventually went overseas to England before being sent to Italy to battle the Germans.
“I almost got killed twice, but the good Lord was looking after me,” he said.
The first incident occurred around September 1944 on the east coast of Italy in a town called Rimini. The Canadians were told to prepare for a possible German paratroop drop behind the lines, so everyone was on high alert.
Cameron and another airmen were patrolling a road carrying sub-machine guns when the airmen strumbled and dropped his weapon. It hit the ground and unleashed a spray of bullets that passed between the two men, just missing both of them.
The Moose Javian’s second close call with death occurred months later after the Allies have moved further up the east coast to another small town. One of the duties of Cameron’s unit was to build runways for the Spitfire fighter planes taking off to battle the Germans.
One day Cameron walked to a barbershop only to find six people ahead of him. He decided to come back and began to walk away. He made it half a block — about the same distance from Mosaic Place to Rosie’s on River Street — before a Spitfire accidentally dropped one of its bombs on the shop.
“I spent the next day-and-a-half digging out survivors,” he remarked.
Coming home and marrying
After the Italian campaign ended in late April 1945, Cameron and his unit went to Venice to celebrate hard “for a couple of days.” They rode the gondolas for 25 lira — about a couple of dollars Canadian — for a few days. However, by the end of the week, the price had skyrocketed to 1,000 lira.
After the war, Cameron eventually became an officer — he jumped five levels in rank but joked he lost $6 per hour in pay — and had the title of flight lieutenant. He also married his sweetheart, Yvonne Lenke, whom he had met while training in Moose Jaw. He had taken her to a few shows before he left for Europe. Much to his surprise — but great delight — she began to write him letters and they corresponded during the war.
When he returned, he learned she was still single, so they eventually married — they had known each other for about five weeks — and remained married for 69 years.
Yvonne died in 2016.
Having served in England, Italy, the Netherlands, France and Germany with the RCAF during his career, Cameron transferred to Moose Jaw in 1965 and remained at the airbase until he retired in 1969 after 26 years of service. He pointed out with much pride that, in 1966-67, the airbase had the busiest runway in all of North America since training planes were taking off every few minutes.
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them.
