A. Stewart MacDonald D.F.C., M.D. C..M. 
     
    
   
   
    
     teaching job as an AC2 ifI could leave with the group for 
     
     ITS (Initial Training School) in Toronto. This was a big 
     
     boost from a lowly AC2 to a Sergeant with three times 
     
     more pay. I went into the office teaching math, but a couple 
     
     of weeks later there arrived two Sergeant teachers. F/O. 
     
     Smith said that, since I was good enough to enlist, he 
     
     would keep me. He became a very good friend; in fact, he 
     
     offered me a promotion and a teaching job in London a 
     
     couple of years later, when he was a Squadron Leader. 
     
    

    
     As it was winter it felt great to be sitting in a warm 
     
     office and watching the rest of the class marching in the 
     
     snow. I had very little to teach, so I started to teach myself 
     
     Morse Code, which I taught to the gunnery class. When I 
     
     got to the ITS where we had to take Morse Code at eight 
     
     words a minute, I could take it at 30 words a minute. I also 
     
     got cards and taught myself aircraft recognition. 
     
    

    
     One of the pupils to whom I taught math, made 
     
     a bargain with me, that he would teach me on the Link 
     
     trainer, which was like a small plane and had all the 
     
     mechanisms of a plane. One could even drive it blindly 
     
     with a closed-in compartment. There were four directions, 
     
     up, down and two sideways, different speeds, etc. One 
     
     day I was teaching him square root and he said, ”Mac, you 
     
     are now 20 feet below ground level” after at least 20 hours 
     
     of training. When it came to take the five hours of Link 
     
     training at the Hunt Club in Toronto, they thought I was 
     
     one of those born to be a Pilot and offered me the Pilot’s 
     
     training but I refused, as my goal was to be a Navigator. I 
     
     still felt that Pilots were taxi drivers, and that I would get 
     
     more prepared for university as a Navigator. I was also 
     
     strongly pushed to be a Wireless trainer due to my skill in 
     
     Morse Code. 
     
    

    
     One day when I was reading in English back in the 
     
     Jarvis office, F/O Smith asked me how I liked it and I said I 
     
    
   
   
    
     6]