Norman Bond enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) in May 1943. He completed training in Sydney before being sent to Canada to train under the Empire Air Training Scheme (EATS). He attended Course 42 at the Advanced Flying Training School in Alberta.
Norman enjoyed his time in Canada and relished the open spaces. He was particularly enamoured of the holiday town of Banff and visited it whenever he could.
He discharged from service in June 1946 with the rank of Flying Officer.
Of course, the Air force meant everything to me. When I was out farming, I'd be lying on my back, looking at the aircraft chasing one another, I said: "Norman, you have to fly"
While I was in Sydney, we did about a two-month course on familiarizing yourself with what happens in the Air force, it was in the suburbs on the outskirts of Sydney. When I passed that okay, they said: "Look you're right for a pilot's license to go out west and do it". And that's when I headed out west to do a 60-hour flying course.
We all went to Sydney and we were told, that those who wanted to go to Canada, were free to put their hand up and go, and there was about 30 of us I think and they all wanted to go to Canada, so that's how it all started.
Canada's a good place to learn because it's all spaced out in Calgary, and that area and they run north and south, east and west to fly all over the country, so it made it very easy. So, there was no trouble ever getting lost while there, in that part of Canada.
It was summer when we left here and the middle of winter when we arrived, it was all snow, we arrived in December, end of December and there was snow everywhere and I remember looking at the runway, these white strips down to the snow, yet we took to it all right, I don't remember ever getting any jitters or anything about it, I just said, "That's what we did in Canada", that's what I did. It was a great experience, we used to go up into Banff, Banff was the greatest holiday place in Canada, we were only 80 odd kilometres from Banff, so we'd shoot up there regularly during the school break.
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