Baptism Under Fire

Ernest Peyton

Ernest Peyton is known in the Gander area as the former owner of Peyton's Flowers. Like thousands of Newfoundlanders, he went overseas to fight in World War II. He enlisted in the Forestry Service before signing on with the Royal Air Force.

I WAS BORN IN TWILLINGATE, but I was living in Grand Falls when war was declared. I was sitting in a boarding house, and the radio was on. That's when I heard the Declaration Of War.

There were four of us, good friends, working in Grand Falls. I was working in the paper mill, part time. The four of us enlisted and we all came back safely.

They weren't recruiting for the armed services, but they were recruiting for forestry workers. We signed up to go overseas with the forestry unit in 1939. After being in the forestry, we figured we could go into the forces, if we wanted to. Which is what we did.

We tried to get in the navy, but the navy wasn't hiring. The air force was hiring, and all four of us got in the Royal Air Force.

We had foot drill down in Blackpool, England. After that we got shipped to the same air base. It was in 1940, and Hitler was trying to knock out the air force. We got bombed just as we got off the truck at the base.

One of the buildings was knocked apart. Some of the hangars were damaged. We had to crawl under the buildings while they machine-gunned us, flying over. That was a baptism under fire. Our first training was just as ordinary soldiers.

We were given rifles, and we had to patrol at night, between air raids.