Jack Correll was the first born of his parent's blended family. His father, Samuel Keogh Correll had been born in 1863 in Camolin, Co. Wexford, Ireland, near the southeast coast. His family was Protestant. He left Ireland for Canada in 1886, the same year as his first wife, Eliza Correll. She also came from Camolin and most likely was a relative of Samuel's. They married in Toronto that year and had three children. Samuel worked as a printer, eventually becoming a foreman for the Southam Press on Duncan Street.

 

Jack's mother, who was born in 1880 in Toronto as Caroline Jane Hodgson, but later went by the name Jane Wastell Hodgson, was the daughter of a carpenter who lived on Munro Street near Broadview and Queen. She married William George Dunham in 1901 and had seven children with him. When Mr. Dunham died suddenly in 1915, Jane was a widow who had to support her children and the oldest was only 12. Jane took work as a housekeeper.

 

Samuel's wife died in 1917 and his children were grown and had left home. Fifty-five year old Samuel married thirty-seven year old Jane on July 27, 1918 and Jack was born on September 28, 1919. The family was living on Bedford Park Avenue near Yonge and Lawrence. By 1921 they had moved to Saunders Avenue in Parkdale, near Sorauren and Queen. Their other two children, Elizabeth and William arrived in the early 1920s and the family moved to 269 St. John's Road, directly across from Strathcona school. Jane had lived a few blocks away on Gilmour Avenue when her first husband died. Strathcona had opened in 1909 and the Dunham children had attended the school. The Corrells were members of St. Paul's Church Runnymede.

 

Jack started at Strathcona in 1925. He was a musical boy and very proficient on piano. When he continued to Humberside Collegiate in the mid-1930s, he was an integral part of the school's dance band on the piano. In January 1939, during Jack's final year at Humberside, he was part of a nine-piece orchestra that played for the annual at-home dinner dance. He left Humberside with a first in Chemistry, then he attended Western Commerce for a year. When he graduated, he found a job as an office clerk for Harold P. Ritchie and Company, which was a manufacturing agent's on McCaul Street. Jack liked to collect stamps, he swam and played tennis.

 

In spring 1941, Jack left his job to join the infantry as a trainee and completed 120 days of basic and advanced training at Camp Borden on July 23. He was accepted into the air force and enlisted immediately, admitting that he hoped to return to his job and that he aspired to be a salesman one day.

 

After his initial training in Toronto at the RCAF's school near Eglinton and Avenue Road, Jack's less than perfect eyesight immediately streamed him to the air gunner/navigator courses. He had been wearing glasses for close work for several months before he joined the air force. He had a week's leave and in late October, he proceeded to London, Ontario to the Air Observer's School. While there he spent a week in January in the station hospital for an undisclosed illness. Upon graduating on February 2, 1942, Jack took the courses at Fingal, Ontario's Bombing and Gunnery School, and won his Observer's badge and a promotion to Sergeant on March 14. On March 16, he was at Pennfield Ridge, New Brunswick at the Air Navigation School. The base was halfway between Saint John and the Maine border and taught advanced navigation.

 

Jack returned to Toronto on April 14 for his two week embarkation leave, bidding his family good-bye before sailing for Britain at the end of April. He landed in Britain on May 12 and after spending a month in Bournemouth, England at the Personnel Reception Centre, he was deployed to No. 3 (Observers) Advanced Flying Unit in Staffordshire for six weeks of courses. The school had been established only two months previously, to train the mushrooming number of airmen. Jack was designated a navigator on July 23 and reported to No. 20 Operational Training Unit (OTU) on July 28. No. 20 OTU was located at Lossiemouth in northeast Scotland and trained night bomber crews on the Vickers Wellington, the main medium bomber of the Allies at the time.

 

It was at the OTUs where in the first few days the men would form crews, usually at a social event. Jack joined the crew of William Booker Kenny, a 24 year old from Saskatchewan. They were the only Canadians on their crew, the rest were RAF men. They spent the next ten weeks learning their jobs on the Wellington and once they graduated, they had a week's leave from October 11. They reported to No. 12 Squadron on October 21, one of three new crews that arrived that day.

 

No. 12 Squadron had operated out of France at the beginning of the war, but after the Blitzkrieg in May 1940, it returned to England and when Jack joined it, it was based at RAF Wickenby, 16 kilometres northeast of Lincoln. It was flying Wellingtons but at the end of November it converted to the Lancaster heavy bomber and operations began again on December 28. Jack on Kenny's crew spent several weeks training on the Lancaster and had their first mission on January 21, 1942, to bomb Essen. It was abandoned as the plane's air speed indicator failed. Their next mission was January 23 and the crew successfully bombed Dusseldorf. A week later they bombed Hamburg and were given leave from February 3 to 9. On February 11 they bombed Hamburg again, and it was the first time the squadron had taken carrier pigeons with them on the Lancasters, two on each plane. If an aircraft had to ditch, the plane's co-ordinates were sent back with the pigeon to the RAF base so that search and rescue teams could save the airmen.