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98-year-old Bill Jukes of Bakersfield, CA appears on episode #715 of Hometown Heroes, airing January 8-10, 2022. A native of Croswell, MI, Jukes moved to Nova Scotia as a boy, and served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II.

Bill was just an infant when his father, the rector at an Episcopal Church in Croswell, died as the result of infection in the wake of an operation. His mother took the family back to her native Canada, where the Great Depression was just as evident as it was in the United State. You’ll hear Bill’s boyhood memories from those Depression years in Sydney, Nova Scotia. His stepfather was an Anglican priest, and needy families from their parish would look forward to young Bill delivering packages of food prepared by his mother. His uncles were all “seafaring men,” so early on Jukes was more interested in boats than aircraft. When he turned 18 in 1941, he tried to enlist in Canada’s Navy, only to have a sergeant tell him to join the Royal Canadian Air Force instead, due to the pressing need for pilots. That conversation would change his life.

“Flying was my life, and is my life, still,” you’ll hear this 98-year-old say. “I think it all the time: flying.”

The teenager would spend the next year digesting a crash course in all things aviation. It was all brand new for him, but captivating. An ex-bush pilot named Mac Harris was a particularly helpful instructor at flight school in London, Ontario. You’ll hear Jukes relate some examples of why the experience, insight, and steady hand of Harris proved invaluable for this young pilot.

“We were brainwashed into thinking you were so much better than you really were,” Bill recalls of that training. “That gave you the courage to continue.”

Initially assigned to a P-40 Warhawk squadron in Vancouver, BC, Jukes reflects back with gratitude on a redirection that sent him to eastern Canada and an aerial gunnery school, where he piloted single-enginge Fairey Battle bombers for the would-be gunners’ training missions. Instead of the 150 hours in the cockpit he had amassed when he earned his wings, he would build up to 600 hours by the time he headed overseas.