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:
“Who are we? And for what are we going to fight? Are we the titled slaves of George the Third? The military conscripts of Napoleon the Great? Or the frozen peasants of the Russian Czar? No—we are the free born sons of America; the citizens of the only republic now existing in the world; and the only people on earth who possess rights, liberties, and property which they dare call their own.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“War both needs and generates certain virtues; not the highest, but what may be called the preliminary virtues, as valour, veracity, the spirit of obedience, the habit of discipline. Any of these, and of others like them, when possessed by a nation, and no matter how generated, will give them a military advantage, and make them more likely to stay in the race of nations.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
“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)