You are now a Corporal my son! |
A nobody... not even a small 'prop'. Clinton, 1955
As an L.A.C. (Leading Aircraftman), you carried a little propeller on your jacket sleeves. Not very impressive. Every Tom, Dick and Harriette seemed to be sporting that prop! In order to be a 'somebody', you had to at least sport those two big chevrons on you sleeves: the Corporal hooks! In order to fully appreciate what happened the day everybody and his neighbour suddenly was promoted to corporal, I should give a bit of an insight on the 'social' make up of a large RCAF Station such as Bagotville and Trenton.
One must realize the simple fact that in those early days, the Air Force 'was' different. The whole social concept was very different. Rank meant something in those days. When a Corporal addressed you, you answered (most often standing at 'attention') Yes Corporal! And, when a Seargent asked you to jump, you politely inquired as to just how high he wanted you to jump. I'll let your imagination figure what the attitude was when an officer condescended to talked to you!
How times are a-changin, as they say. I remember, years later (many, many years later) shortly before retiring, a young Private addressing me as 'John'. I was then a Major (or, as the old rank structure would have called it: a Squadron Leader). I didn't have the chance to 'straighten him up' on that one. My Chief Warrant Officer, who was a man from the old school, immediately took over and attempted to make the fella see the light. Not with much success I am afraid to report as it seems it was then politically correct to address a Senior Officer by his first name in the mid-eighties! But, I digress...
While on the subject of 'rank', I would like to open a parenthese here and discuss the rank structure a little. If you're not interested in that subject, just skip to the next paragraph but, I think you should read this because it will explain a little why us airmen were so affected by the amalgamation of all three Services in the mid sixties.
Slowly getting there... The 'hooks'. Group Captain Herbert officiating
Now... there was one fine gentleman! (the one on the left!)
One year later , that is, eighteen months after signing on the dotted line, you all of a sudden became a 'somebody'. You had a small propeller on your jacket sleeves to prove it. You were a Leading Aircraftman! (If you look closely, [very closely] at the first photo above, you just might see the propeller. Well... as I said, it was 'tiny) This usually called for celebration. You'd buy a round for your friends (and all other barflies who usually knew the 'good days' when beer was flowing freely at the Airman's Mess) and you visited your folks at the first occasion so they could 'see' that big prop on your sleeve.
Being promoted to LAC usually brough about a major change in your lifestyle, not only because of the great increase in your paycheck (about twenty dollars a month or so) but because it meant that you probably had graduated from your Trade's Training and were now a 'Staff' on some Station and not a 'Student' on some Training Station (such as Clinton, Trenton etc). As a 'student', you had to share a room with seven other nobodies and you had to honour a bedtime curfew of 11 PM. Your movements on and off the Station were also quite restricted . For example, you could not, during working hours, proceed on your own to the school. You had to 'form up' and 'march' to school etc etc. Hell! You even had to ask your Station Commanding Officer permission to get married (not kidding folks!). Perhaps a good inducement to get married was the fact that you paycheck then ballooned by a whooping $125.00, a fortune in those days. But again, I digress...
But, as an LAC, you could even live 'off station', as I did when I was in Saint-Hubert. For a while, I was living with my parents in Montreal. Notice that so far, even with the lowest three ranks, the names made sense. They related to aircraft! To this day, I still don't know just what I was 'leading' as a Leading Aircraftman but at least, it had something to do with 'aircraft'. In the Army, those first three ranks were labelled 'Private'. Period.
The Wild Days Borden - 1978
A large section such as the Radar section in Bagotville usually had fifteen to twenty or so AC1's and LAC's and two or three Corporals!. Already, you can see why it was difficult to make it to Corporal. The next rank was Seargent, (noticed the 'British' spelling here?) just like in the Army. But... the next one was typical Air Force: Flight Seargent. He was usually called "Flight." Makes sense.
Where the rank structure really made sense was the Officers' cadre. It began as a Pilot Officer (the nobody equivalent to our AC2). After the fella had learned to fly (read:bringing back every aircarft in one piece) he was promoted to Flying Officer! This made sense as he was now 'flying', and, he 'was' an officer! See the common sense here? Then, after a few more years of keeping his nose clean (or not being caught) and landing many more aircraft in one piece, he was promoted to Flight Lieutenant ! Again, this made sense because if required, he could 'lead' a 'flight' of aircraft (usually 4 or six).
A few of those 'Flight Lieutenants' were then given charge of a 'Squadron' to lead and, you guessed it... they were promoted to 'Squadron Leaders'. How it all was coming together now. They were Leaders and they were in charge of a Squadron. A number of 'squadrons' would form a 'Wing' so, I'll let you guess for a moment what the next rank was... Guessed it yet?
Right on... our Squadron Leader was then promoted to 'Wing Commander'. He was not only 'leading' anymore but 'commanding'. Then of course, so many squadrons would form a 'Group' so it only made sense that the next rank would be... of course: 'Group Captain'. Don't go away as it now really gets interesting. We have reached the 'Army's General rank level but, sensibly enough, there were no 'Generals' in the Air Force in those days.
If you met an officer and he said he was an Air Commodore (you usually took his word for it and didn't argue), you knew not only that he was a fairly 'big wheel' but, an Air Force 'big wheel'. It made sense. And it was good for the morale too because you knew the orders came from somebody who knew a little about the Air Force and was probably on 'your side'. Then, there was the Air Vice Commodore, the Commodore, the Air Vice Marshall (many 'vicious' people in those days) and, finally, the Air Marshall, the biggest cumpadre!
Now, you try to figure out the new Air Force rank structure. Good luck! As the new rank structure bore no relation whatsoever to the actual position held in the Air Force, it became fashionable to think of Air Force Majors as meaning Major Disasters (hell... I know what I'm talking about: I ended up being a Major diosaster too.) Air Force Generals as 'General Nuisances' etc etc. When you heard of a certain general so and so from headquarters having promulgated some new rule or what have you, you didn't have a clue if he was a General in charge of an Air Force related department or a General in charge of some troop logistics department or what have you. It left one in a limbo.
The 'stripe' - The General is the one with the BIG stripe
Chilliwack - 1977
I also served two years on a Navy Base in charge of a School teaching Navy and inter-service personnel about Navy aircraft. Before taking my post, I had spent many hours learning about Navy history and protocol etc as I am sure my staff to be had, in turn, spent many hours studying Air Force ways so we all could communicate with a semblance of efficiency. Go figure. To be fair, I must say here that those two years served with the Navy were among the best years ever. What a nice bunch of people they were. Then at least, I was fortunate enough to serve my last two years on a totally Air Force environment, as Base Aircraft Maintenance Officer in Bagotville!
Having said all of the above, I may now get on with that Corporal Promotion Day thing. I believe you will now be in a better position to really understand what happened when, all of a sudden, the 800 member Airmen's Club became a 100 member club and the exhalted 50 member Corporal's Club saw it's membership shoot to 850 members! It was catastrophic! But, again, I'm getting ahead of myself here.
How did this happen? Well, it's a long story but worth reading about. You see... on a large Base such as Bagotville, there might have been, as mentioned already, some 50 or so Corporals and perhaps as many as 800 other 'lower' ranks. It did not take a doctorate in rocket science to figure out that unless some miracle happened, the majority of those 'other lower ranks' had no hope in hell of ever making it to Corporal, and much less to the first rank up the corporate ladder: Sergeant!
Something had to be done and fast. The Air Force had only recently lived through the traumatic CF 105 Arrow episode (to be featured in another chapter) and was in the throes of an even more dramatic upheaval: the integration (or, as the sarcastic minds put it 'the disintegration' of all three Services). The morale was down and sinking even faster to the abyss. The brightest minds in the country were hard at work on the problem and a solution was at hand, or so we were told. We were all very eager to learn of this new 'magical' solution.
Given enough time... anyone can make it!
Sleep tight! Your Air Force is Awake!
Well, not quite, as fate would have it. Shortly after the beer ran out, the more sober minds among the lot soon realized that 60,000 new 'problems' had surfaced. Now that there were 60,000 'new' corporals flashing 60,000 'new' pairs of 'hooks' about, the 'old' Corporals suddenly realized the competition for the third stripe (that of Sergeant) had increased 60,000 fold, or at least it appeared that way!
On that first Friday night, every 'newbie' Corporal wanted to celebrate their new rank in the until then inaccessible Corporal's Club but, alas, there was no room at the Inn. The Club had never been built to accommodate that many whatever they are. The 'old', genuine Corporals were none too happy as one can easily imagine. There was a sudden demand for old, worn out 'hooks' as no 'real' Corporal of the old days wanted to be seen wearing those 'brand new' hooks! Within days, the local Pawnshops had been emptied of all old hooks they had in stock. The Pawnshop owners could not fathom just why there was such a sudden demands for mere rank insigna that had gathered dust on their shelves until then. Yes... there were now many, many unhappy puppies out there. What was one to do?
In due time, a solution was found, as expected. Coming from the same thinktank which had produced the mass promotion saga came another one which made the first one look just dandy dandy. But this time, there would be no 'promotion' per se. Oh no. Couldn't make the same mistake twice. Instead, it was decided that a special 'appointment' would be made. Not a rank, mind you. An appointment. All deserving members (read:new Corporals) who had accumulated so many years of service and otherwise met certain other criteria would be 'appointed' Master Corporals. In addtion to a small increase in pay, those new Master Corporals could sport an added crown above the regular stripes. And voila... end of the problem!
Oh yeah? Well, as it turned out.... not quite. Sorry!
In order to merit this new 'appointment', a new requirement was promulgated. One had to attend a special 'leadership' course to make sure one had the 'right stuff'! This included all Air Force personnel. Even those 15 year service technicians who long had been eligible for promotion to the 'old, real' Corporal rank! I will let your imagination do some work here and let you discover by yourself the overall reaction to all these new 'good news'. Especially since the new 'Leadership' curriculum was totally based on Army style and included ordering people on parade, crawling in mud, calling 'O' Groups (O Goups?????) etc etc.
And thus ends, for now, the saga of morale building and promotion to the rank of Corporal.
Pity! Only in Canada you say?
Let's end this on a cheery note....
Then... there were those good times....