"Lest We Forget" ~

Veteran R. Clark MacDonald was born and raised in Cayuga, Ontario. He left his job as butcher at Harold Reece's grocery store to join the Royal Canadian Air Force in April, 1941 as a radar technician. He was shipped to numerous locations by various means of transportation, enduring conditions and risks that many of us would consider extremely uncomfortable. In India he was shocked to witness the poverty; in Ceylon he was isolated from any news from home.
"I was then posted back to Bombay to a place called Juha Beach and assigned to a Combined Operations Unit. This consisted of army, naval and air force personnel. There was intensive training with various small arms including submachine guns, anti tank rifles, mortars and anti tank grenades."

In central India, he removed radar equipment and FFI equipment from Liberator bombers in temperatures reaching 150 degrees Fahrenheit inside the planes ~ 120 Fahrenheit at night.
MacDonald welcomed VE Day*, May 8 1945, while in England on a two week leave. Back in Cayuga in July 1945, after four and a half years in the RCAF, he married Ruby Hedley and traveled Haldimand County lecturing and moderating discussions with the National Film Board and the Federation of Agriculture.
Clark MacDonald's brother-in-law, Lloyd Hedley, a Spitfire pilot, was shot down and killed over Verden, Germany, on an air reconnaissance mission on April 26, 1945. He is buried in Soltau, Germany.
* Victory in Europe Day
~ Soldiers' Stories, 2009 Local Author, Kirk Du Guid