My 83 year old father has been visiting and over the past few days I have heard many stories about his life during the Second World War. In 1944 there were young men from all over the Commonwealth who came to western Canada to learn to be airmen in the Commonwealth Air Training Plan.
He considered the New Zealanders to be the most polite and civilized of all the countrys and a real story of the Australians is interesting.
One Sunday morning, everyone was ordered to the parade ground where a civilian man and woman followed the base commander to the front. The officer said there was a complaint that a woman had been indecently accosted, the offenders name was unknown, but she knew "Australia" was sewn on his arm. He continued with something to the effect that we are honorable men and would the guilty party please step forward. The words had hardly left his mouth, when in unison, the entire group of 40 Australians took one pace forward. Everyone was dismissed.