Mail is undoubtedly one of the biggest boosts for morale to any soldier, sailor, airman or airwoman serving in wartime. There is nothing like a letter from home or even a copy of the old school newsletter.

Danforth Technical School in Toronto knew the importance of news from home and tried to keep in touch with its former students and staff who were serving during the Second World War. Regular copies of the newsletter, the Tech Tatler, were sent to the ones for whom the school had a current address.

The Archive Committee at Danforth Tech consists of (from left) Ron Passmore, Bryan Bennett and Howard Mann.

TOM MacGREGOR

In return, the grateful recipients wrote back, expressing thanks and giving news of themselves or others with a Danforth Tech connection. Some of the letters were typed up by the typing classes for all the school to read, but then no one thought more of them until the Danforth Tech Society, an alumni association, discovered them while doing research for the restoration of memorial windows in the library in 2003.

“We found all these cards and letters in cardboard boxes,” said Bryan Bennett, chairman of the Archive Committee of the Danforth Tech Society and a member of the Legion’s Highland Creek Branch in Scarborough.

The committee consisting of Bennett, Ron Passmore and Howard Mann, all of whom worked in the printing business, sorted through the boxes and found about 500 cards and 1,500 letters.

Since then the group has its own room in the school, now known as Danforth Collegiate and Technical Institute. They have been identifying the authors and gathering what information they can find. “When Bill Caskey heard what we were doing, he wanted to be part of it. His older brother had been at the school when he joined up and Bill has been able to tell us who a lot of these fellows are,” said Bennett.

The Tatler kept the readers up to date on school activities but also listed the latest news on the students and staff who were serving in uniform. The school also sent self-addressed cards for the recipients to scribble a quick thank you or an update on his or her service.

“Some were just thank you notes for the cigarettes that had been sent. Some of them wrote long letters of where they were and what they had been doing. Some even told of seeing their buddies being killed,” said Bennett.

The committee says that 2,235 graduates and students of the school volunteered for service during the Second World War. Of them, 241 died, including one woman. Maud Steane trained as a radio operator in Toronto but, since Canada didn’t allow women to serve on ships, she went to New York where she joined the crew of a Norwegian merchant navy ship. She died on board and is buried in Italy.

One of the standout correspondents was Pilot Officer Jack Cobean Fisher, a navigator in the Royal Canadian Air Force. “He survived five near-fatal crashes. They began to call him Lucky Fisher,” said Passmore.

In one letter, used in a Remembrance Day display at the school, Fisher recalls his narrow escape when his aircraft’s engines failed off the coast of Scotland.

“The pilot couldn’t hold her up and told me over the intercom to open the hatch and warn the gunner. In about 30 seconds we hit the deck going about 150 [miles per hour]. The next thing I remembered was a scraping and sinking sensation with water pouring in over my head. I took a deep breath and groped around for the hatch. Finally I got a hand on each side and pushed my way up as the water was rushing in. Was it ever a relief to crawl out on the wing and see the pilot on the other wing and the gunner crawling out of his hatch with the dinghy!”

Fisher’s letter goes on to describe the sinking of the plane and being rescued by Scottish fishermen about 45 minutes later. “Incidentally, I was wearing a leather windbreaker that I used to wear to Tech day after day. It has the honour crest on it and some intramural crests on the arm. It was quite a curiosity to the Scotch sailors.”

Fisher’s luck ran out once he transferred to the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment. He and two crew members were killed when their Albermarle aircraft crashed near Hungerford, England. He was 24.

Other correspondents wrote of their hardships with a sense of humour. One letter from Art Bazett-Jones tells of living through the rocket attacks while serving in England. “I had one close call with a V-bomb. The worst part was that they always disturbed one’s slumbers at night and made our room quite drafty by blowing the windows all out of the house.”

Another letter, written from India by Flight Officer M.G. Beverly who was stationed with the Royal Air Force, says “The chap who told us of India when we were in England was either quoting [Rudyard] Kipling, blind drunk or dreamed it because it’s as different as black is to white.”

Helping with the research is school librarian Barbara MacKay who has those letters which were typed up by the typing class.

Much detail on those who attended the school was kept by Edyth Howison who, at the time of her retirement in 1968, had served as secretary to four out of the school’s five principals. “Each night she would take all three papers—the Star, Globe and Mail and the Tely (Toronto Telegram)—and clip out any reference to someone from the school. She called them ‘her boys’,” said Bennett. Those clippings are saved in a binder constantly consulted by the committee.

Many of the letters are addressed to Roy Foley, an English teacher who was chair of the Enlistment Committee and had encouraged many to sign up. Others were addressed to the principal of the time.

The letters and cards have been sorted and filed in 23 binders arranged alphabetically by author. Only six or seven letters remain with the correspondent unknown. The committee is in the process of making a photocopy of each item, but hopes to digitalize the collection for easier research and access.

“We hope to present the originals to the Canadian War Museum, or some such institution. We can have a colour party and some Second World War veterans and make a show of it for the school,” said Bennett.