Harold McLean was born September 11, 1925 in Toronto, Ontario.  He grew up in the city’s Mount Pleasant area, attending Northern Collegiate.  His father worked for the Otis Elevator Company, so the family was able to make ends meet during the hard days of the Depression.  Harold was in Grade 9 when the war began; he took his Grade 12 graduation in 1943 and chose to enlist in the RCAF.  His British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP) began in Edmonton, after which time he was sent to Mont Joli, Quebec.  In both cases gunnery was the focal point of the training, as the RCAF was preparing Harold to be an air gunner in a bomber crew.  While there his training was interrupted:  the nature of the war had changed considerably in 1944-45, and the manpower needs of the RCAF had diminished, so Harold was transferred into the army.  Additional training took place in Quebec’s Easter Townships, and in short order they were on the troopship bound for England, where Harold spent a few days before being flown to Belgium.  He was assigned to the Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders, and he accompanied his new unit on the advance through Belgium and the Netherlands, even crossing the Rhine into Germany.  Most of the fighting had stopped by the time Harold reached the front lines, and not long after his arrival VE Day took place.  He decided to sign up for the Pacific War, which meant he was sent back to Canada fairly quickly.  He expected to do jungle training in Texas, but the dropping of the atomic bombs changed all that.  He was not immediately demobilized, but even so he went to a mining school in northern Ontario, and when he was on the bus he met a young woman named Audrey.  The two of them struck up a relationship and eventually married, and Harold finished school and began a career in mining.  Harold McLean was interviewed by Scott Masters at his home in North Bay in July 2025.