"Wally MacLeod" by Keith Dyon

Few people would know who Wally MacLeod was ~ a Canadian Fighter Ace in WWII. He was reputed to have twenty-one confirmed kills (twenty-one enemy aircraft shot down) and another twenty which were unconfirmed. He had a very distinguished career. He himself, near the end of the hostilities, was shot down over France. Wally never got the recognition he deserved for some reason or other.
I knew Wally at the start of the war, years before either of us had enlisted. Wally had gotten a certificate for teaching from Regina Normal School. He was teaching around the Oxbow area I believe. He told me he didn't go in for the teacher bit and so he quit. He told his folks about quitting and his dad, being the Chief Inspector of Schools, was not pleased.
Wally bought an old '32 Ford V8 and got himself an 8mm movie projector and set out to show films in small towns in the Southern part of the province. Some of the towns included Antler, Gainsborough & Pierson in Manitoba. His showing in Antler was on Saturday nights. We had laid a floor in our rink for summer dancing and this was where the films were shown. The whole outfit was pretty rickety but we were happy to see a show of any kind living our here in the sticks. (I wanted to tell you this yarn about Wally to show you that he had the carefree, reckless attitudes that probably contributed to his becoming a Fighter Ace.) The hardware store was not far from the rink and sometimes Wally would put a reel on to play and slip over to gab with the patrons until he thought that the reel was about finished. Back he would go to put on another one. A lot of things could have happened to the machine but it did not worry him.
Having shown his film on Saturday night, Wally would take a room at Mrs. Brown's rooming house and then go back to Regina on Sunday to pick up another film for the following week. Sometimes he would linger around part of Sunday with some of us local characters. On one of these occasions he suggested we put some gas in his old crate and we would go up for the day to Carlyle lake. It sounded like a fine idea so about four or five of us packed into the car and away we went. We got to the lake OK and drove down into the Sandy Beach ball diamond. Do do this we had to come down a steep hill. That went fine but when we went to get back up the hill, his old car wouldn't climb it. He had no low gear. What did Wally do but let the old car roll back, turn it around and then, in reverse, backs up the hill to the amusement of the crowd at the ball diamond!! When it got dark we decided that we should head back home.
Wally eventually quit this showing films racket and joined the Air Force, becoming an Ace and died in the Service. I think I read one time that a relative had given his decorations to the R.C.A.F. museum in Ottawa. I am glad I knew Wally Macleod.