Alberta veteran, 103, recalls war service spent boosting morale at home

Canadian Second World War veteran Elmer Friesen, 103, speaks during an interview with CTV News.

A 103-year-old Second World War veteran from Alberta is reflecting on a unique chapter of his military service. One spent not overseas, but at home where he helped maintain aircraft and later performed in an entertainment troupe to support morale during wartime.

Elmer Friesen enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force in the 1940s as a young man and thought he would be deployed abroad.

“I thought, ‘Oh boy, I’m going overseas.’ I really wanted to go,” Friesen said in an interview with CTV News.

“Just before they loaded the ship, I and several others were taken away and told to serve in Canada.”

Friesen was assigned the duty of a Leading Aircraftman and stationed in Scoudouc, N.B.

“I served in a repair shop doing repairs on items like outriders and batteries,” he said.

“In my first six months there, we got Hawker Hurricane fighter planes as kits, and we put them all together. I did the electrical work on it.”

He worked in maintenance for roughly a year-and-a-half. Outside the shop, he was known for singing casually around base.

“I was always singing wherever I went,” he said.

That talent was eventually noticed. Friesen was recruited into a Royal Canadian Air Force entertainment group that travelled across Atlantic Canada.

“We did two variety show tours, and we also did Gilbert and Sullivan operas,” he said.

“We performed in Moncton and Nova Scotia and P.E.I.”

Friesen says the shows carried weight at a tense moment in the war.

“We had pilots flying up and down the coast looking out for German submarines, and people knew it was possible that a submarine could come along and start shelling Moncton,” he said.

“It was really good to see the reception we got when we entertained them. I know it took some relief out of their concerns.”

He performed with the troupe for a year or two. Eight decades later, he still occasionally sings, including “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” – one of his favourites.

Friesen says he has always respected those who saw combat overseas, but he remains grateful that his own contributions mattered.

“I really wanted to go overseas,” he said. “But you go where you’re told, you go where you’re asked to serve.”

This year, Friesen will travel to Ottawa to attend the national Remembrance Day ceremony in person, to mark 80 years since the Second World War.

“I just want to be there when we’re honouring the veterans who have gone before me,” he said.

“To do that in person is so important to me.”