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GLAZER, Albert Ernest Flight Lieutenant, Station Luqa (unit identified in AFRO only as \, C3422 Distinguished Flying Cross RCAF Personnel Awards 1939-1949
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GLAZER, F/L Albert Ernest (C3422) - Distinguished Flying Cross - Station Luqa (unit identified in AFRO only as "Attached RAF") - Award effective 14 September 1942 as per London Gazette dated 18 September 1942 and AFRO 1653/42 dated 16 October 1942. Born in Toronto, 1918; home there. The date and place of his enlistment is variously recorded as 15 July 1940 (London, Ontario), 29 November 1940 (Toronto) and 6 January 1941 (Toronto), but he was commissioned 29 November 1940 in the Signals Branch and was overseas as of 5 March 1941. Promoted Flight Lieutenant, 10 September 1942. Promoted Squadron Leader, 1 August 1943. Repatriated to Canada, 18 March 1944; to “Y” Depot, Halifax, 26 April 1944; reported to No.3 Personnel Reception Centre, Bournemouth, 9 May 1944; repatriated again 9 July 1945. Released 28 August 1945. In the course of a large number of sorties this officer has performed excellent work although a majority of them have been executed at night in all kinds of weather. His courage and devotion to duty are worthy of highest praise. NOTE: Public Record Office Air 2/9596 has a recommendation sent on 5 August 1942 to Air Ministry by Group Captain W.J.M. Akerman (Headquarters, Royal Air Force, Middle East). This identified his unit as Station Luqa and provided the following details: This officer has successfully carried out 63 operational sorties totalling over 475 operational hours as a Radio Observer. The majority of this flying has been carried out at night in all kinds of weather. Flight Lieutenant Glazer has flown as Radio Observer in both night fighters and Special Duties Flight aircraft on many successful operations. In particular on the night of October 8th, 1941, he was instrumental in the destruction of an enemy vessel of 10,000 tons off the coast of Sicily. Again, on the night of December 12th, 1941, he was on an operation which resulted in the destruction of two Italian cruisers off the North African coast. His courage and devotion to duty have been a marvellous example to others, and are worthy of the highest praise. GLAZER, F/O Albert Ernest, DFC (C3422) - Mention in Despatches - Award effective 1 January 1943 as per London Gazette of that date and AFRO 232/43 dated 12 February 1943. No citation. RCAF Press Release No. 811 dated 1 October 1942 reads: All he did was some 500 hours of operational flying, most of it at Malta, and the only action he saw was the sinking of a 10,000-ton freighter and a couple of Italian cruisers. Flight Lieutenant Albert E. Glazer of 210 Glenayrn Road, Toronto, can’t understand why he should have got the Distinguished Flying Cross. In fact, when he first heard about it, he said “Yeah, now pull the other leg”. But finally, they convinced him that he had been awarded the coveted decoration, so he went down to a tailor who was making a new uniform and asked him to move that Radio Operator’s badge up a little. “You work fast”, said the tailor and he sewed the blue and white diagonal striped badge into the new tunic. It still didn’t seem right to the Jewish University of Toronto graduate, and even after he had smudged it a couple of times with a damp finger, it didn’t seem like his, but now that he is back in Great Britain and his year in Malta is sorting itself out in retrospect, it seems to be taking on a greater semblance of reality. Al Glazer never was air crew despite all his operational hours. That is to say he never did fly with a regular crew. He came out of SPS at the University of Toronto in 1939 and worked for Premier Theatres, managing a house at Tillsonburg for a while. His dad is sales manager for Columbia Pictures in Ontario. On November 29, 1940, he joined up as a technical signals officer and took a ground course before going to Great Britain early in 1941. He did a tour of duty in Great Britain with a coastal command squadron and he began to take trips with the boys. Soon he found that he rated a radio operator’s badge but there were none to be had. He finally had to go to the firm that designed them before he could get one. He went to Malta in September 1941 and, almost as soon as he arrived, he made a trip with a crew that attacked and blasted a 10,000-ton freighter from the Mediterranean. Shortly after, he and his crew led a flotilla of destroyers to two Italian cruisers which the destroyers knocked out. These exploits were cited in his award of the D.F.C. All this time, Flight Lieutenant Glazer’s main job lay on the ground in keeping radio apparatus in shape. He kept the gear in shape with the help of his assistants, but he always found time to make operational trips against the enemy. There were long nights and days of sleeplessness and through his whole stay on the embattled island, there were almost incessant air raids, 2200 in all. Flying with night fighters, the young Torontonian helped to knock down more than one night bomber. From the middle of March to the middle of August, there were 41 enemy aircraft destroyed at night who did not dare to face the day defenses of the island. Flight Lieutenant Glazer is back in Great Britain in a radio post at Royal Canadian Air Force Headquarters. He still remembers when he used to measure the distance between Malta and Toronto on the map and shake his head. Sure, they all groused and wished they were back home but none of them could have been dragged away. The D.F.C. helped to make it all the more unreal because “I’m a radio engineer. I’m not a flier”.