MORE WARTIME ISSUES

Then Anna too joined the Air Force. Henry was the first to go overseas. In June, Lindo followed. On June 25,1944, the family received a letter from R190512 Sgt. Sauro O. This is his letter.

The next letter came from Henry on June 28.

By July 4, Lindo had discovered Hank’s situation for himself.

There was also a letter from the chaplain R. D. Binning dated July 5, who was surprised to meet the son of a fellow graduate of Emanuel College class of 1928 on his weekly rounds of the hospital.

Another letter from Lindo arrived.

Finally Hank can write on his own.

The last letter in this series was in December 1944.

Henry said that if he doesn’t see a doctor this week he doubts that he will be home at all. That was a prophetic statement. He didn’t come home until the war was over. Lindo’s terrible misfortune refers to a test that he deliberately failed so that he could be grounded and in less dangerous circumstances.

Lindo and Henry

In true bureaucratic fashion, the Government and the War Ministry totally screwed up in their communications or lack thereof of Henry’s accident.

This message on the back of the letter to Gen. Lafleche begs an explanation. It’s my writing. I would have been 13 years old. Toom is the nickname given to Silvio. My mother must have telephoned the message and I grabbed whatever paper was at hand to write it down. It seems that there was to be a musical evening at the church. Mr. San Mia was a tenor. If he didn’t show up, Silvio and I would have to fill in his spot with piano duets. We were quite accustomed to performing in these events.

Very interesting!

Rindo’s war experience occurred inside of Canada, as did Livio’s. They were both stationed at one time at Debert Nova Scotia. Rindo earned his sergeant stripes and was sent for officer’s training. Obviously he had demonstrated good leadership qualities. However, he was failed out of this training on the grounds that he failed to display the necessary leadership qualities. The real unspoken reason was that his name was Italian. His unfolding post-war career emphatically testifies to his innate talent for leadership.

With the end of the war came a new phase in our lives. Italo and Wanda began their married life in earnest as did Henry and Anna. Rindo and Lindo took advantage of the education programme offered to veterans and went to the University of Toronto, Lindo in economics which he later used to become a Chartered Accountant and Rindo for his B.A. and teacher training at the Ontario College of Education before he began his long career at Ryerson Institute of Technology.

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