Past Tense: Charlie's Story

J.L. Granatstein is a history professor at York University and the
co-author of the Dictionary of Canadian Military History and Empire to
Umpire: Canada and the World to the 1990s.

There are still relatively few biographical accounts by Canadian Forces
men and women, though interest in the ceremonies commemorating the 75th
and 50th anniversaries of World Wars I and II, respectively, has
produced a small spate of books. This volume, by an RCAF air gunner who
survived being shot down over France, is very much part of this trend.
No one will argue that this is a great autobiography; instead, it is
simply the story of an ordinary young man from Toronto who went from
working in a bank through RCAF training and on to service overseas. He
has a few adventures; makes friends, male and female; flies a number of
successful hops; and then his aircraft is shot down. The remainder of
the story concerns his time in a POW camp, and there is much of interest
here on camp life, POW organization, and the importance of Red Cross
parcels in keeping POWs alive. Such books, while they are primarily of
interest to the author’s family and friends, add substantially to our
understanding of the impact of war on ordinary Canadians.