Reviews

From Esquimalt News, Wednesday July 24, 2002

Letters recall life during war

Dr. James Baker always made a point of writing to his parents when he was overseas during the Second World War.
In fact, the Plaskett Place resident wrote so many letters to his parents that he decided to put them all together into a book which has just been released by the Greater Victoria-based Trafford Publishing.
Baker's book, Odyssey: Coming of Age in World War II, also contains letters he received from people as well as some of the poetry he wrote while serving with the Canadian military during the Second World War.
"I wrote a letter probably every week of the war," Baker says.
Baker was hoping to join the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) at the outbreak of the war. But that goal had to be delayed because the air force wasn't taking any more people as it already had a huge number of recruits. So Baker joined the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI) at Work Point Barracks in Esquimalt in 1939.
I live about 300 yards from where I used to train for the snipers course at Macauley Point," Baker points out.
Baker's dream of joining the RCAF was realized in 1942 when he was able to get a transfer out of the army.
He notes he was very happy about being allowed to transfer to the air force as the PPCLO spent the first years of the war on garrison duty in England, which proved to be very boring.
"I was sick and tired of standing duty for no apparent reason," Baker says with a chuckle.
Joining the air force turned out to be a good move for Baker. He points out that everyone in his former platoon in the PPCLI was killed, in a bloody battle at Monte Casino in Italy, later in the war.
Upon joining the air force, Baker became a bombardier-navigator (observer) with the 6th Bomber Group of the RCAF. While German fighters attacked the bomber he was in a couple of times, his gunners prevented them from being shot down, says Baker.
He says he was too busy to be scared of the reality of being shot at while flying above the enemy.
But Baker wasn't too busy to keep writing letters home. While he wrote to both parents, most of the letters were written to his mother.
His father spent much of the war in the hospital, according to Baker's daughter, Suzanne James, who edited Baker's book.
Baker notes that he had to be careful with the original letters that he compiled for his book as the English-made paper he wrote on easily fell apart. Reading those letters after so many years proved to be an interesting experience for Baker.
"It brought back a lot of memories of things that I completely forgot about," he says.
Reading the letters also had a powerful impact on James. "As I was reading them I would tingle," she says.
After the war, Baker attended Acadia University before moving on to Dalhousie University where he earned his medical degree in 1953.
Baker, now 81, later became a doctor in the RCAF.

-Mark Browne
from Goldstream News Gazette, Wednesday July 24, 2002

War letters compiled

A Metchosin woman's love and dedication for her father has inspired her to produce a book about life in war-torn England from 1939 to 1943.
Suzanne James spent the past two years compiling a collection of about 500 letters written by her father, Dr. James Baker, to his parents "back home" in White Rock while he was a Canadian soldier posted to England during the war.
The book is entitled Odyssey: Coming of Age in World War II
Publishing the book is the second literary accomplishment for James, who self-published Another Sound of Music in 1998.
That book told the story of how music, a loving family, and strong religious convictions rebuilt her life after she survived a terrible car accident in 1965, at the age of 13. James was an aspiring pianist and championship swimmer before the accident plunged her into a coma for 10 weeks. James told how music from The Sound of Music brought her back to consciousness, but she had to learn to talk, walk, and play the piano again.
The accident happened as her family was traveling from Victoria to San Francisco in their Volkswagen van for Christmas vacation. The van hit a patch of ice outside Medford, Oregon, flipping end-over-end, tossing James and her brother from the vehicle.
Blinking back tears, James said she owes the gift of life to her father. As a doctor who had been recently appointed as head of surgery at HMCS Naden, he was able to keep his children under control until the ambulance came.
"My dad saved me," James said. "I've wanted to do something for my dad."
James said she first learned of her father's letters in 1972. Her grandmother had kept the letters for over 50 years. But James wasn't able to look at them until 1998, after her grandparents died.
Seeing those letters awoke in her the desire to publish them in book form, something her father had always wanted and referred to frequently in his correspondence from England.
"I just love it," said James, after exuberantly reading a selection from the book describing her dad's passage from Halifax to Scotland on the SS Orama in December 1939. "It makes my stomach tingle."
Baker joined the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry in September 1939, went overseas in December, and served in England as a private until 1942, when he transferred to the Royal Canadian Air Force. He ended the war as a navigator-bombardier, flying over 23 bombing raids over Europe.
In the preface of the book, Baker writes, there is very little "blood and guts" in his letters, because he wanted to shield his parents from the gory reality of war, and because he was always very conscious of censors, "whose dark visages hovered threateningly over my shoulder as I wrote." There were episodes which could be characterized as "sheer terror", he wrote, but these were few and far between and did little "to disturb the tenor of my days."
Those days, James said, are seen in the book through the eyes of a soldier who was a keen observer of life. Her father was also a poet, she said, and his poems, which are found throughout the pages, provide a glimpse into the artistic soul of a young man.
James said publishing the book has brought her family closer together after being distant from one another for many years.
"I've got so much praise from everyone and they haven't even seen the book yet," she said.
She said her father, who is now 81 and lives in Esquimalt, has read a rough copy of the book and is really pleased with it. In the preface, he wrote, "I would have the reader know that I have found great fulfillment in that my boyhood dream has become a reality in 'the evening' of my life."

-Andrew Topf