Military
During World War II Hammy served overseas as a Flight Lieutenant in the RCAF. Hammy had learned to fly before the war. A doctor in the Fleming community in which he grew up had a plane and taught him and several other boys how to fly. By virtue of this fact, Hammy was one of the very earliest pilots in the RCAF. Until 1944 he flew a Spitfire with real distinction. He was shot down several times, more than once in Europe and made his way back through enemy territory to fly again. He was shot down in the English Channel and spent several hours in his Mae West. By sheer luck he was picked up by an English fishing boat and was flying again in Europe a week later. He came back from the war having won several medals including the Distinguished Flying Cross.
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Famous quotes containing the word military:
“Weapons are an important factor in war, but not the decisive factor; it is people, not things, that are decisive. The contest of strength is not only a contest of military and economic power, but also a contest of human power and morale. Military and economic power is necessarily wielded by people.”
—Mao Zedong (1893–1976)
“I’m not a military man, Captain. War holds no romance for me. The side effects are repulsive.”
—Richard Bluel, and Henry Hathaway. Major Hugh Tarkington (Clinton Greyn)
“Personal prudence, even when dictated by quite other than selfish considerations, surely is no special virtue in a military man; while an excessive love of glory, impassioning a less burning impulse, the honest sense of duty, is the first.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)