Danny:
Interesting that you had been to the CNE is Toronto in July 1941 and it as yet hadn,t taken on the role of No 1 Manning Depot at that time, so Dad,s arrival in January 1942 would have made him one of the earlier inductees to the Horse Palace. One thing that stood out in his memory ( aside from the lingering reminders of the previous tenants) was the sleeping arrangments-they were all in a large room together. I can,t recall where, if it were online, or in a book I read, but I remember a picture taken showing maybe 30 or 40 beds (perhaps even more) lined up in 3 or 4 rows, with about 4 or 5 feet of space around the sides and headboard and footboard. After lights out some joker would yell "Anyone from (insert town or province here) is a sissy!, and someone else would rise to the bait. The beds would be cleared and scores settled-at least till some other insomniac would repeat the process. After a week or so they either learned to get along as a team, or were simply too tired at the end of the day.
As far as being washed out of Pilot,s training, it may seem harsh, but it was because Dad did not follow his training by changing his selection of fields part way down. He wound up in a position where he could not reach the newly picked field, or once he realized that, get back to his originally selected field