When Clifford enlisted in the RCAF, he stated that he had attended Danforth Park school from 1923 until 1930. This is the only firm evidence that he was associated with the school. His family is not found in the Toronto city directories for the 1920s but in the late 1920s, Clifford's grandmother Elizabeth Hope was living at 274 Chisholm Avenue. Clifford's family is found in 1933, living at 81 Gledhill Avenue, but they were not recorded at this address in 1930. Clifford is commemorated on Maurice Cody School's Honour Roll, but his parents were living in North Toronto after the war which might account for this.

 

When Clifford left Danforth Park, he found a job as a clerk in a grocery store. In 1933 he started a job as a mechanic's assistant in a garage. A baby brother, Russell, was born in 1934. Hamilton's Mercury Mills were hiring in 1935 and Clifford moved to Hamilton to be a knitter in the mill. It appears that his parents and Russell joined him. In his spare time Clifford liked to golf, play hockey and baseball. He also played rugby in a league and liked to build model airplanes. He changed jobs again in 1940 and became a plate puller and machinist for The Steel Company of Hamilton.

 

Clifford wanted to join the RCAF when the war started, but discovered that at the time the force was only recruiting licenced pilots. He took up flying with the Hamilton Flying Club and he was awarded his pilot's licence in November 1940, flying 10 hours solo. That same month he joined the reserve of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada and completed his training by the end of the year.

 

Clifford and his family moved to Freeman, now a neighbourhood of Burlington. He was finally able to enlist in the RCAF on July 13, 1942. A week later he was in Lachine, Quebec to start his basic training. Although he had a pilot's licence, the RCAF's aptitude tests must have indicated that he was suited to be a gunner. On September 19, he reported to No. 6 Bombing and Gunnery School (BGS) in Prince Edward County, Ontario. It is unusual that he was sent straight to gunnery school as the average recruit spent four weeks at Initial Training School and was next given 50 hours of basic flying instruction at an Elementary Flying Training School. At No. 6 BGS, Clifford learned how to aim bombs and shoot a machine gun at a moving target. On February 21, 1943 he continued his training at No. 9 BGS in Mont-Joli, Quebec on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River near Rimouski, graduating with his air gunner's badge on May 14. He was promoted to Sergeant that day. He immediately returned home for his two week embarkation leave. His parents had moved to North Toronto, but he also visited his friends in Hamilton.

 

He reported to Halifax to await a ship to Britain. He embarked on June 16, arriving in Britain on June 24, when he reported to the Personnel Reception Centre in Bournemouth. On July 6 he was sent to No. 81 Operational Training Unit (OTU) where crews were trained on Whitley night bombers. The RCAF in Canada did not train using operational bombers and this would have been the first time Clifford was a gunner on a large plane. No. 81 was located at RAF Ashbourne, 30 kilometres east of Stoke-on-Trent in central England. The OTUs were where crews were assembled, mainly at a social gathering after the men arrived where they could get to know each other and team up. The crews were multinational. Clifford certainly joined the crew of air bomber Douglas Raymond Irvine, a 31 year old Torontonian from the west end who went to Humberside Collegiate. It is not known whether they joined a crew with the others that day, but ultimately Clifford's crew was comprised of 20 year old Australian pilot Ian MacDonald Scott, English navigator Samuel Joseph Peek, 20 year old wireless operator Sydney George Parrott from southern England and 20 year old Australian air gunner Kenneth Edgar Foxcroft. The air force had described Clifford as “wiry” and he was in the tightly fitting rear air gunner's seat.

 

By the end of August, the crew had graduated from the OTU and Clifford had leave until September 18, probably spending it in London as most airmen did. When he returned on September 18, he joined his crew at No. 1656 Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Lindholme in South Yorkshire. They learned to fly the Lancaster, a four engine heavy bomber, unlike the Whitley's two. The crew also gained a flight engineer, Charles William Collishaw, a 20 year old Englishman. They finished their training in mid-November and joined RAF's No. 97 Squadron.