Alphonse Violini

Alf Violini was born in Bankhead, Alberta (now a ghost town just outside of Banff) and lived the vast majority of his life in Calgary. He was the son of immigrant Italian parents who came to Canada, looking for a better life. Coming from a large family, out of necessity, he left school at 14 to work full time in an effort to support his younger brothers and sisters. After years of “night school” he eventually upgraded his education and completed his papers to become a First-Class Steam (Power) Engineer.

When WWII broke out, like many other Canadian descendants of Italian, German and Japanese immigrants, Alf found himself associated with a heritage that was on the wrong side of the war. You hear many stories of these people who strongly felt a need to volunteer to serve their country in order to prove their loyalty as Canadians first. At the time, Alf worked as a power engineer for the Provincial Government Department of Public Works at PITA (Provincial Institute of Technology and Art), now known as SAIT (Southern Alberta Institute of Technology).

On Sept 10, 1939, Canada joined Great Britain in declaring war against Germany. The following June, the Canadian government announced that as part of the War Emergency Training Program (WETP), the grounds and facilities of PITA would be converted into the No.2 Wireless School. The Calgary school was one of four wireless schools in Canada - the others were in Montreal, Winnipeg, and Guelph.

This training program was a major part of Canada's participation in the British Commonwealth Air Training Program (BCATP). Canada was chosen as the primary location for "The Plan" because of its ideal weather, wide open spaces suitable for flight and navigation training, excellent supplies of fuel, and industrial facilities for the production of trainer aircraft, parts and supplies. Most importantly, the location was far from the threat of bombings by the German or Japanese fighter, and at the same time, equal distance from both the European and Asian war centers.

BCATP remains one of the single largest aviation training programs in history and was responsible for training nearly half the pilots, navigators, bomb aimers, air gunners, wireless operators, ad flight engineers who served with the Commonwealth forces. By the end of the program, Canada had trained 131,000 pilots and crew under the BCATP, just over half of those, 72,000, being Canadians. This program of air training was considered to be Canada's primary war effort, and although operating on Canadian soil, it played a crucial part in the ultimate outcome of the war.

Alf volunteered with the Royal Canadian Air Force, likely because he was already on staff at SAIT, and  served as a civilian until Dec. 7  , 1942. He was a member of the Sergeants Mess at RCAF, No. 3 “M” Depot in Edmonton. He achieved the rank of Flight Sergeant and we know that he worked at the surrounding military airfields at McColl (now Calgary International Airport, Shepard Airfield, Currie Barracks, and Lincoln Park. It seems likely he was in charge of the various boilers that kept these facilities operational. We suspect this because on one occasion he was sent across the country to visit the Guelph Wireless School # 4, perhaps to consult on their operations. He mentioned traveling the 150 km south east to visit the state of New York .

We have 3 group photos of him from 1945, months before the Wireless School closed its doors. Two are photos of the staff from the Works & Building Section and one was of all RCAF Headquarters Staff of No. 2 WS Flying Squadron. He was honourably discharged and continued to serve in the reserves until 1946.

We also have a copy of the “Roll of Honour”, ​​a document which hangs in the Alberta Provincial Legislature Building. This Documents records “with pride and gratitude” the service of members of the Department of Public Works who served in WW2.

Sadly, like many men who served in the war, our Dad did not want to talk a lot about this time and so many of his experiences are lost. We do know he was impacted by the number of men who passed through the program and went on to die in the war. Sadly, a significant number died while still in training - close to 2000.  

Alf, his brother Charlie and a friend.	Alf and his sister Italia Violini (Sr. Antonia)