Born 18/01/1918 at  Amsterdam, North Holland. The son of Mrs. Elizabeth Van Horne. Mike who was his next of kin and was living in Wallaceburg, ON. at 417 Albert St., when he enlisted in the RCAF in Windsor, ON. 12/07/1942.

The Husband of Elizabeth Rodermand, they had a daughter.“In 1940, Mike attended a baseball clinic organized by the Washington Senators (more recently known as the Texas Rangers) at Wigle Park in Windsor, and signed a conditional contract.  In 1941, while waiting to be called up to the minor leagues, Mike became the manager of the plant softball team but because of the war the league folded.  With no league for his team to play in, Mike arranged as many exhibition games as possible that summer.  The plant worked three 8-hour shifts, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  Later in 1941, Mike’s contract was acted upon.   In that year he played professional ball in the Rookie League in Orlando, Florida with the Orlando Senators for 6 weeks, then went on to play ‘A’ ball in Dayton, Ohio with the Dayton Diamonds for 7 weeks until late June.  He then moved up to ‘AA’ ball in Minneapolis, Minnesota for 7 weeks where he finished the season playing for the Minneapolis Millers.    In the course of that one professional season he batted a very respectable .289.             

In early 1942, Mike received notice that he was to report to the Dutch Army Depot in Ottawa to be trained to serve overseas in Indonesia.  He and his father had applied for Canadian citizenship earlier that year but the papers were not received until the following year.  On June 22, 1942 Mike went to Windsor to enlist in the Canadian Armed Forces, thus putting an end to his baseball career.”  

So…he was still Dutch, waiting to be Canadian and playing ball in the US.  He took the bull by the horns apparently and enlisted in Windsor.  This all from a tape which he recorded in the 1970s. – Courtesy of: Shirley Sturdevant.

Mikes daughter writes: – Adrian Michael VanHorne enlisted in the RCAF in Windsor, Ontario 12 July, 1942. He was immediately transferred to 2 M.D. Brandon, Manitoba to begin his training. Later training occurred at 3 S.W. Winnipeg, Manitoba and T.T.S St. Thomas Ontario. His field was aero and later engineer. His first posting in 1943 took him to Churchill Manitoba on Hudson Bay where was part of a joint operation with the US Army Air Force to sweep the bay of submarines, Due to the secrecy of the operation, no entry appears in Mikes log book for that period.

In 1944, Mike was stationed at No.4 Bombing and Gunnery School in Fingal, Ontario. Which trained gunners and bombers from Canada as well as other Commonwealth countries. In March of 1945, Mike was posted to Trenton. During his military career, Mike was promoted to LAC and later Corporal. Although Mike was injured on three occasions during his service he volunteered to go to Burma, he was never called upon to serve overseas. He was discharged from RCAF Rockliffe 19/02/1946.

 

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Sources

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