Editing Pierre Berton (section)

==War-time career==
He spent his early newspaper career in [[Vancouver]], where at 21 he was the youngest city editor on any Canadian daily, at the Vancouver News-Herald, replacing editorial staff that had been called up to serve in the [[Second World War]].<ref name="Starting Out"/> On 7 December 1941, the Japanese Navy bombed the American naval base at Pearl Harbor while on the same day, the Japanese Army invaded the British colonies of Hong Kong and Malaya.{{sfn|McKillop|2011|p=140-141}} The extent and rapidity of the Japanese victories in the winter of 1941-1942 came as a considerable surprise, and Berton stated that from his vantage in Vancouver that the war felt much closer than it had done before.{{sfn|McKillop|2011|p=140-141}} In February 1942, he noted Japanese-Canadians being held in Vancouver's [[Hastings Park]] prior to being sent to internment camps in the interior of the province. Meanwhile all over Greater Vancouver the businesses and homes of Japanese-Canadians were seized by the federal government, which proceeded to promptly auction off most of the assets it seized.{{sfn|McKillop|2011|p=117-118}}

Berton himself was conscripted into the [[Canadian Army]] under the [[National Resources Mobilization Act]] in 1942 and attended basic training in British Columbia, nominally as a reinforcement soldier intended for [[The Seaforth Highlanders of Canada]].<ref name="Starting Out"/> Under the National Resources Mobilization Act, the government had the power to impose conscription for the defence of Canada and only volunteers were sent to fight overseas until late 1944. The men who were conscripted and chose to remain in Canada were popularly known as "the Zombies", a term that was highly disparaging.{{sfn|McKillop|2011|p=145}} Because the "Zombies" refused to fight overseas, in many quarters they were viewed as cowards. He elected to "go Active" (the euphemism for volunteering for overseas service). By 1942, the Axis powers were winning the war, and Berton came to feel that the two very different visions of the world offered up by the respective sides were such that he had to take a stand by "going active", instead of remaining safely in Canada as a "Zombie".{{sfn|McKillop|2011|p=140-145}} His aptitude as a soldier was such that he was appointed Lance Corporal and attended [[Non-commissioned officer|NCO]] school, and became a basic training instructor in the rank of [[corporal]].<ref name="Starting Out"/> Due to a background in university [[Canadian Officers' Training Corps]] (COTC) and inspired by other citizen-soldiers who had been commissioned, he sought training as an officer.<ref name="Starting Out"/>

Berton spent the next several years attending a variety of military courses, becoming, in his words, the most highly trained officer in the military. He was warned for overseas duty many times, and was granted embarkation leave many times, each time finding his overseas draft being cancelled.<ref name="Starting Out"/> A coveted trainee slot with the [[Canadian Intelligence Corps]] saw Berton, now a [[Captain (British Army and Royal Marines)|Captain]], trained to act as an [[Intelligence Officer]] (IO), and after a stint as an instructor at the [[Royal Military College of Canada|Royal Military College]] in [[Kingston, Ontario]], he finally went overseas in March 1945.<ref name="Starting Out"/> In the UK, he was told that he would have to requalify as an IO because the [[syllabus]] in the UK was different from that in the intelligence school in Canada. By the time Berton had requalified, the war in Europe had ended. During his time in Britain, he dated a woman named Frances who informed him on V Day that she was pregnant with his child and did not want him involved, as told by Berton in his autobiography and retold in his Biography.{{sfn|McKillop|2011|p=169-170}} Berton never knew his British child.{{sfn|McKillop|2011|p=170-171}} He volunteered for the [[Canadian Army Pacific Force]] (CAPF), granted a final "embarkation leave", and found himself no closer to combat employment by the time the Japanese surrendered in September 1945.<ref name="Starting Out"/>