Air Force

When Manitoba farm girl Merle Taylor joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, she proved to be such a whiz at Morse Code that she was assigned to instruct the air crews.

RCAF photographer Ruth Owen Whitelegg of Brantford, Ontario, served at an air training base at Centralia, Ontario, during World War Two. Her photo album gives us a fascinating glimpse into wartime history, crammed with snapshots of life on a Canadian air training base. RCAF Photographer Bio Ruth was born on March 12, 1925 to parents […]

This year, 2016, marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of the writing of one of the most beautiful poems ever composed, “High Flight,” by John Gillespie Magee Junior.

Author and journalist Tony Cashman is famous for his lifelong contribution to the history of Edmonton, Alberta — but less known for the significant role he played in World War Two, completing a full tour of thirty operations as the navigator in a Halifax bomber. Tony Cashman passed away on June 3, 2024 at the […]

Bomber crews who flew toward the end of the war, when there were fewer German fighters in the air, were sometimes considered to have an easier ride. But not always, as told in this hair-raising excerpt from Leo Richer’s own memoir.

A career in photography was the goal of Lou Marr, who called herself “the original turnip who fell off the back of the truck” when she joined the Royal Canadian Air Force Women’s Division.

Seventy-two years after my uncle RCAF pilot trainee Alan Light died in a training accident, I discovered a dramatic oil painting that shows the last moments of his life.

Operation Manna saved thousands of Dutch civilians from starvation when the Allies stripped their bombers of weapons, and dropped tons of food instead. It was too late to save twenty thousand others who starved to death as the Second World War drew to an end. One woman describes how Operation Manna delivered her family from […]

Jewish pilot Georg Hein, sent to England as a teenager to escape certain death in a concentration camp, changed his name to Peter Stevens and became a decorated RAF pilot. This daring young man was shot down, captured, and spent four terrifying years as a German POW.

Air force accidents in wartime involving new recruits training under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan were almost commonplace in Canada. Here’s one example. On September 8th, 1944, a Royal Canadian Air Force aircraft was flying near the air training base at North Battleford, Saskatchewan when it went into a spin. Killed was Flight-Sergeant William […]