“I’ve had an interesting life”: LeRoy Wagar

LeRoy Wagar was the recipient of this year’s First Poppy from Royal Canadian Legion Merritt Branch 096.

Wagar served in the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) for five years, first joining in Brooks, Alberta in 1952 and receiving an honourable discharge in 1957.

Wagar was born in Medicine Hat, Alberta on Jan. 3, 1934. The Canadian prairies had been badly affected by the Great Depression and it wasn’t unusual at that time for women to have homebirths, rather than travel and bear the expense of a hospital visit.

“My older brother was born at home, but I got to go to the hospital to get the job done,” Wagar joked.

When he was a young boy, Wagar’s mother contracted tuberculosis and had to spend a year in Calgary. Hospitals for people diagnosed with tuberculosis, known as sanatoriums, were common at that time, but periods of treatment were long and required patients to live on site.

Wagar and his brother were sent to live with their grandparents on their farm in Whitla, southwest of Medicine Hat on the highway to Lethbridge.

Here, they enjoyed a typical childhood for rural Alberta boys.

“We played outside and dug in the dirt and snagged gophers,” Wagar remembered.

When his mother was released after her treatment for tuberculosis, the family was reunited in Brooks, Alberta.

“Mom came out of the hospital and Dad was working at Brooks. He’d use Brooks as a kind of land base, he’d go up to Calgary and see her then he’d go back to Brooks to work, so he moved us up to Brooks and we started school there. I started grade one and I was there until I was 18, and then I joined the Air Force.”

While at school in Brooks, Wagar joined the Air Cadets and began to see a future for himself in the military.

“I was in the Air Cadets when I was a youngster in school, and the Air Force guy came through recruiting one day.”

At the age of 17 he approached his parents for permission to join the Air Force, but his mother was against the idea.

“Mom wouldn’t let me join the Air Force when I was younger, in them days you could join when you were 17 and she wouldn’t let me,” explained Wagar, who was not to be deterred.

“So, I went up to Calgary one weekend with a buddy of mine from Brooks, and happened to walk by the recruitment office. I was 18 then and I went in and talked to them, next thing you know I’m over getting a medical and all that. It took me most of the afternoon and then I was all signed up.”

That afternoon turned out to be the first of many times that the service took care of Wagar, who returned to his hotel to meet up with his friend.

“By that time, we were going to hitchhike home because we’d spent all our money the night before,” explained Wagar.

“But when I spent the time joining up, the Air Force paid me for that time that afternoon and it was enough money to buy the two of us our train tickets. It worked out good, until I got home. I got a little bit chicken and didn’t want to tell Mom.”

Instead of telling his mom, having lost his nerve on the ride home, Wagar went straight to his grandmother’s house and told her and his aunt what he’d done.

“She got mad at me and said she wasn’t going to tell my mom, and grandma’s not going to tell her either, you’ve got to do that yourself,” Wagar recalled of his conversation with his aunt.

Admittedly, having just joined the Air Force, Wagar knew he could be facing any number of dangers and enemy offensives in his future deployments, but those seemingly paled in comparison to upsetting his mom.

“So, I went downtown and spent the afternoon,” said Wagar.

“When I got home around supper time, I could tell she’d found out. And she gave me a chewing out, I’ll tell you.”

From the hamlet of Brooks, population 1,648, Wagar was sent to Saint-Jean, Quebec for basic training and then on to Camp Borden (now CFB Borden) for trades training, where he became an Airframe Technician.

As an Airframe Technician, Wagar was responsible for maintenance and repair of the wings, legs, wheels and main body of the frame, amongst other systems.

“We didn’t want to be called mechanics,” Wagar joked, after comparing the position to that of a mechanic.

Wagar was then posted to Edmonton to the 418 Reserve Squadron before being transferred to France where he worked on F-86 Sabre Jets.

“Grostenquin, France was a little village, there wasn’t much there but we had our base just out of town, and we used to go into Metz for holidays and off duty stuff,” explained Wagar, who was overseas for two years.

“We used to go down to Rabat in French Morocco and put on air firing exercises against the Americans, because they had Sabre jets, too. But ours was a point or two higher in power than what there’s was, so we whooped their behinds all the time.”

Asked if beating the Americans was a point of pride for the Canadians, Wagar responded with a grin, “Oh, you betcha.”

“We used to go up to Germany, to a German base we had… I went over there around 1953, and that was only eight years (after the end of WWII). There were a few bullet holes all over the place, especially up in the northern part of the country, it’s not as rich as the south. All the little towns were pretty well shot up from the war. In the stone buildings over there, if you had a bullet in the side of the wall, you couldn’t get it out. You’d have to plaster it all over, but it was poor country, and they didn’t have a mind to do that,”

France at that time was not much different.

“Everything after the war was still full of holes and as far as fixing it all up, they just left it,” said Wagar.

As in other parts of Europe, France and Germany were also faced with the issue of unexploded wartime ordnances, with some estimates suggesting that as many as 10% of Allied bombs failed to detonate, leaving not only bullet holes but tons of unexploded munitions to mar the landscape and pose a danger for civilians and troops alike.

“The best part about being over there was that the money was rated four to one,” said Wagnar, who also noted that Canadians were welcomed with open arms everywhere he went in Europe. “I was getting about $220 a month in the Air Force, and four times that much was what I got over there. The quarter was only worth about a nickel, and we were just like millionaires.”

Following his two years overseas, Wagar returned to Edmonton where he joined the 105 Search and Rescue Squadron, “Looking for lost souls up around the north country there.”

In 1957, after five years of service, Wagar received an honourable discharge, after which he returned home to Brooks and took up truck driving. After moving to BC he worked loading and unloading CPR containers and barges. A friend then started a mobile home business, so Wagar bought a truck for moving them and hauled them from Calgary to Vancouver.

Wagar has been active in the Legion since his discharge from active service.

“When I got out, one of the old veterans in Brooks, he grabbed me right off the bat and we went to meetings in a schoolroom,” said Wagar.

“We didn’t have a lounge or anything yet, although they have now.”

Wagar served as a Legion President for several years, as well as being on the Executive. At the Merritt Legion he lends a hand wherever he can these days, and also looks after the popular ‘meat draw’.

From the Air Force, Wagar said he learned discipline and how to see something through to the end; there’s no quitting when you’re under orders.

“I had a lot of fun too, there were a lot of good times,” said Wagar.

“I’ve had an interesting life; it hasn’t been boring. And when you get a buddy in the service, they’re a real buddy, you really look after each other.”

While in the service, Wagar and his fellow serviceman encountered some mean streets and rough customers.

“These guys they’re going to whip you or something, well you stick together and take them on. That’s the best thing about being in the service, is that camaraderie.”