The obscenely violent cataclysm we call the Second World War reached deep into the hearts of many social structures and tore from them the very best young boys and men from a generation of sons born to survivors of the First World War…

Spend a few moments on or around this Remembrance Day to read a story from our website about one of our heroes of the Second World War or Cold War. Scroll down, find a story that interests you and click on the image. You will be taken back to a time when duty, honour, leadership, courage, dignity and humility reigned supreme.

If one spends any amount of time researching the stories, memoirs, photo albums, service records, operational record books, logbooks and sound recordings of men and women engaged in the services during the Second World War, one begins to detect…

I’m certain that wherever you live on this tiny planet, it is for you the finest place imaginable. I understand that. That’s why people from Syria don’t really want to become refugees…

Most of us lucky enough to have flown the RCAF's de Havilland Comets had many "interesting" experiences. While having to shut down an engine shortly after departure and dump fuel…

On 15 September 1940, the future of Great Britain was unknown. The Luftwaffe’s Heinkel and Dornier bombers, accompanied by hordes of Messerschmitt fighters, had been hammering cities and airbases on an almost daily basis for more than two…

When the Westland Lysander was first conceived, it offered on paper an exceptional flying platform for reconnaissance, artillery spotting and general liaison duties. Despite its rather strange and perhaps ungainly appearance, the Lysander was…

In the late winter of 1944-45, Warrant Officer Harry Hannah had been sitting, alone, with nothing to warm him but his thoughts, in a small, cold, and damp solitary confinement prison cell in Poland for the worst part of a year…

To this day, I cannot stand the glutinous, faux-fruit taste and slippery lack of texture of Jell-O desserts. There was a time many years ago though when I just couldn’t get enough of the stuff…

A seemingly desperate scheme to fly an entire fighter wing to Normandy in gliders proves to be practicable... though luckily for the author and his fellow Spitfire pilots of 401 Squadron it was never put to the test on operations…

When the Japanese finally surrendered without conditions, battered, nearly hollowed out and war-weary people around the world stood in disbelief …

We live in a world connected by electronic means of communication. It is indeed a blessing. But it is also a loss. Let me explain. My wife and I stay connected to our son in London, England through Skype, FaceTime, smartphone texts…

Young men and woman who are killed on active service are said to have paid the “supreme sacrifice”. I guess that is true. There's not much more than you can give than that. But I posit that the greatest sacrifice …

There is a story told on the sides of every aircraft of the Second World War. It’s there in visual code written in worn and tired war paint, easily interpreted by those who speak this language of history.

The name, sight and sound of the powerful, piscine and stingray-like Avro Vulcan, after all these years, still generates a thrill in my gut that starts somewhere down low below the belt and rises up to fill the heart. The chest-pounding concussion…

As reliable as Canada geese migrating, every year on a weekend of July, the aviation community heads for the little town of Geneseo, New York, home of the 1941 Historical Air Group (HAG). …

In 1947, Pan American World Airways began the first regularly scheduled “Round-the-World” passenger service. Each day, a flight would depart from the East Coast (New York or Philadelphia), heading east towards Europe and another on …

Harry Hannah was a Spitfire pilot during the Second World War. His story is like that of so many men and women of character from that time—it is both ordinary and extraordinary. It is ordinary in the sense that strange, extreme and …

In a world where “leadership” is commoditized and sold to us by life coaches, in professional development workshops and self-help books, one thing is clear — true leaders are born, not certified. Of course, certain aspects of leadership can be quantified and shared and even learned, but the true apex leader is one who …

Initialement prévue comme une série en deux parties, ce récit des expériences d’un homme pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale s’étendra désormais sur trois épisodes. C’est l’histoire d’un pilote ordinaire de Spitfire à la toute fin…