Suzanne James Baker

My name is Suzanne James Baker. I was born in 1952 in Halifax Nova Scotia but I now reside in Metchosin - a suburb of Victoria British Columbia. I am married with four sons who are now young men - my twins are now the age my father was when he joined the PPCLI in 1939! During the past two years, all my spare time has been taken up with the preparation of my father’s book for publication. My family’s forbearance is gratefully acknowledged, for they did not "see" very much of me during that period.

During WWII, my father spent the entire war in what is now known as the ‘Canadian Armed Forces’ in England, minus a few months in 1943 which were spent in Canada training for aircrew. He joined the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry in Sept. 1939 and went overseas with them in the 2nd Canadian Contingent which landed in Scotland Dec. 30th. The PPCLI spent the years 1940-43 as garrison troops in England - an extremely boring period for a young private anxious to prove his mettle in battle so, in ‘42 he transferred to the Royal Canadian Air Force as potential air crew: came back to Canada and eventually graduated as a Navigator Bombardier (Observer). He was again posted to England and ended the war on 426 Thunderbird Squadron in the RCAF 6th Bomber Group in Yorkshire as a commissioned officer with twenty-three operational missions to his credit.

During the war years, my father wrote well over five hundred letters - mostly to his mother who not only saved but passed them on to ‘me’ in her will. These have since been assembled into a book entitled "Odyssey: Coming of Age in WWII" which is an intensely interesting read, as my father was also a keen ‘observer’ of life all about him. His descriptions of the war’s effect upon the ordinary British people amongst whom he was living, provide a unique insight into a facet of the war which has never been described to my knowledge. My father was also a poet, and his poems provide a glimpse into the artistic soul of a young man. All in all, this book provides a valuable and rare record of those "wasted" years from 1939-43 before Canadian troops finally "went into action". Of course by that time, my father had "Crossed his Rubicon" and embraced the RCAF as his chosen field of action and though his descriptions of aircrew training and operations are sparse or "bare bones" in style (as had to be), one can readily read that he was happy and felt fulfilled at last. Yes! there were "moments of terror" from time to time, but they are lightly passed over and do not seem to disturb the even tenor of his life unduly.

In these letters (or book), Dad describes a vast panorama of life in wartime England: life, death, friends, enemies, authority, self-doubt, travel, travel destinations, churches, steeples, music, concerts, birds, famous and not-so-famous landmarks - cities, towns, villages and hamlets either intact or scarred by bombs, euphoria, loneliness, flowers, weather, dances, literature, educational experiences of all kinds, ambulances, hospitals, military training, food, the Blitzkrieg, follow up of sporadic bombings, sentry duty on lonely outposts, casualties in cities or on the plains but above all, he describes the people he met - both the high and the low born: the ‘tinkers, tailors, publicans and sinners’ all form grist for his mill and subjects for his pen. T’is most readable and one regrets it has to come to an end, but as Alice said:

"You cannot read past the end or it would start all over again!"

This then is my Dad’s journey thru the entire period of WWII: his ‘coming of age’.