Hamilton was abuzz with military activity. The James Street Armouries came alive with reservists from Hamilton’s famous infantry regiments, the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry and the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.

Their orderly rooms were converted into recruiting offices as the call went out in the fall of 1939 for young men to join up and serve their country. The allies, needing a vast air force, created the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan to train fighter and bomber pilots for war.

Two Mount Hope farms on Airport Road were purchased and construction crews moved in with the heavy equipment. Scores of huge“H” huts were erected to house the influx of hundreds of potential airmen from around the Commonwealth. Mess halls, tech stores, a bomb aiming tower and five huge aircraft hangars sprang up overnight. Tiger Moth pilot training aircraft were moved in as well as Anson bomber/navigation training planes.

Truckloads of fresh faced young men came in by the truckloads for their first taste of the military life. Lengthy lineups went through the quartermaster stores where the rookies were outfitted with their personal gear.

The rough serge battle dress uniforms in distinctive air force blue usually came in two sizes at first — too big and too small.

Barracks were assigned and they raced to pick a bunk bed, by a side window preferably. Changing quickly into their new uniforms under the watchful eye of an old flight sergeant, they scrambled outside to the huge parade square that was situated in the centre of the complex.

Their first taste of military life involved becoming an infantryman first. Rifle drill came next and the old First World War Enfield .303, weighing nine pounds, was torture on their tender shoulders. Slope arms, change arms, present arms and order arms, came the barked commands of the drill sergeant. The blazing summer sun scorched the parade square with a shimmering like mirage.

“Why on earth did I ever volunteer for this torture,” was on the lips of many as they crashed on their bunks after dinner at the mess hall. These guys were the ones that would eventually, with great difficulty, learn how to fly, how to navigate, drop bombs and fire machine guns. The real thing lay ahead of them in the famous Battle of Britain and the liberation of all Europe in 1944.

The training came with great risks, however, and several of these new airmen whose wings were “still wet” as they say in the service, spent the last days of their lives at Mount Hope airbase. Awkward landings, bad weather and human error took the lives of Dennis Donahue, Denis Drayton, Reggie Gillman, Johnny Kellow, Eddy Doughty, Colin Campbell, Herbie Preston, Jimmy Watson, Dick Board, Charlie Chadwick, Ernie Johnson, Pete Scott, Steve Proudly, and Taunton Pouyat.

These young airmen are still stationed at Mount Hope airbase in a cemetery not far north on Highway 6. There, beside St. Paul's Anglican Church, they lie in single rank, not unlike their stint on the hot parade square.

Their headstones tell their names, their ranks and their ages. They were from the Royal Air Force as well as other Commonwealth countries. Every Remembrance Day since their deaths, their graves are attended by veterans and young air cadets who reverently place poppies and hang their heads to the soulful echo of a duty bugler sounding the Last Post.

Mountain residents can join their neighbours at the Peace Arch in Peace Memorial Park on Wednesday, November 11th at 10:30 am.

Rev. Glen Wells of St. John United Church is conducting the service. Gratefully, street parking restrictions on East 36th St. between Crockett and Queensdale have been relaxed by the City of Hamilton.

Everyone is welcome. Wear a poppie or something red in honour of our veterans and those young soldiers currently serving and dying in Afghanistan.