My father was in the RAF from 1941 until 1945 or 1946. He would never talk about “What he did in the War” other than to say that he was a radar technician in the south of England.
We were from Northampton.
After the War he went on to manage a Radio Rentals business. In 1953 he emigrated to Toronto and my mother and I followed in 1954. He went to work for A.V.Roe in Malton and worked on the radar systems of the CF100 jet fighter. He took a three year hiatus to go to the Artic Circle on the DEW Line (Distant Early Warning) Once again, working on Radar installations.
When he returned to AVROs in 1958, he then went on to be instrumental in overseeing the radar systems in the AVRO ARROW supersonic Jet Fighter, and worked on all 7 prototypes.
All of this stemmed, I believe, from what he did in the War! When “Black Friday” closed down the development of the Avro Arrow and put everyone out of work, he was offered an opportunity to head up the Radar Division of the Toronto Police Force.
Instead, he decided to accept a position with Remington Rand Univac Division to become Toronto’s first computer operator in 1959.
My father was hired by the city of Toronto to oversee the installation and running of their first main frame computer in 1966. He retired after 20 years and passed away in 2007 at age 86.
Ken
`Radar Families' 