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.
Read more about this topic: Alexander Hamilton Mc Donald
Famous quotes containing the word military:
“There was somewhat military in his nature, not to be subdued, always manly and able, but rarely tender, as if he did not feel himself except in opposition. He wanted a fallacy to expose, a blunder to pillory, I may say required a little sense of victory, a roll of the drum, to call his powers into full exercise.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Nothing changes my twenty-six years in the military. I continue to love it and everything it stands for and everything I was able to accomplish in it. To put up a wall against the military because of one regulation would be doing the same thing that the regulation does in terms of negating people.”
—Margarethe Cammermeyer (b. 1942)
“The transformation of the impossible into reality is always the mark of a demonic will. The only way to recognize a military genius is by the fact that, during the war, he will mock the rules of warfare and will employ creative improvisation instead of tested methods and he will do so at the right moment.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)