Four long years ago, reader Emily Tucker of North Battleford, Saskatchewan, asked me to find the owner of this RCAF bracelet. After an exhaustive search, I located the owner’s brother in Cambridge, Ontario! The mystery surfaced way back in 2013 after Emily Tucker of North Battleford, Saskatchewan sent me photographs of an RCAF bracelet bearing […]
An RCAF logbook belonging to Jim Milne has yielded some very amusing cartoons related to life in the Royal Canadian Air Force! When a case of mistaken identity thwarted Jim Milne’s plans to fly against the enemy, he spent the war in Canada serving as a navigation instructor instead. When not on duty, he spent […]
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 […]
There’s a reason why it’s called The Greatest Generation – and former RCAF photographer Yvonne Valleau Wildman of Kindersley, Saskatchewan is a shining example.
Georgina Harvey’s RCAF photo album reveals a fascinating slice of life in the wartime air force, compiled by a young woman from a well-known family in Kelowna, British Columbia who joined up in 1943 and trained as a photographer. Georgina Harvey was born in Kelowna to the distinguished Harvey family, still a well-known name in that community. […]
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.
When Janet Mears of Australia started searching for information about her great-uncle Maxwell Cassidy, killed in a 1944 training accident in Canada, the results were astonishing. Not only did she discover that Max had been in love, she found the Canadian girl he left behind – alive and well, and eager to share her memories.
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 […]
As a child, I used to lie in bed at night and imagine the air force ghosts all around me. That’s because the farm in Saskatchewan where I grew up is a former airfield, one of hundreds created during the Second World War through the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan.
