It was early in the morning, the summer of 1990. Like most days in Ottawa in July, it dawned cool and vibrant, but the temperature rose as swiftly as the sun and moisture lived in the air…

When Great Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939, they were not prepared, despite the astonishingly ominous war cloud that had been hanging over Europe…

Le samedi 14 mai 2022, le commandant d’escadre James Francis « Stocky » Edwards, CM, DFC & Bar, DFM, CD de Nokomis, Saskatchewan, est décédé à un mois de son 101e anniversaire. Dans l’argot du personnel navigant de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, Stocky a « disparu vers l’Ouest »

Here in Canada, when you meet a pilot who owns his or her own airplane, it won’t be long before you ask him or her, “You on floats, amphibs, skis or wheels?” …

If you have been following American-style football and the National Football League lately (apologies to our brothers and sisters in Europe and the Antipodes), you can’t help but hear the drone…

The end of the Second World War meant many things to the pilots of the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF). It meant going home, eating mom’s cooking once again, breathing that particularly crisp, and…

It’s Christmas Eve and though just early evening, the dim light of winter is long receded, replaced by the orange vapour darkness of an urban night. Outside my house a Canadian hibernal front descends

When our veterans of the Second World War packed up their meagre collections of personal effects, uniform kit and documents and walked up the gang planks of hulking grey troopship…

In the summer of 1964, as a young fellow of 16, it was commonplace to come in contact with one of nature’s more disagreeable manifestations, especially when fishing with my grandfather. But, on one hot summer day,…

Late August 1983 in Winnipeg proved hot and muggy. Stretched out on a lawn chair in my backyard I studied condensation droplets dribbling down the side of the tankard holding my first ice-cold beer of the day….

Somewhere far off the unseen coast of North Africa, far to the east of Gibraltar, upon the open sea, David Rouleau was seeing his world in unbearable clarity. Everything he looked at held such sharpness and detail,…

As the 75th Anniversary of the Battle of Britain is upon us, it is important to honour those of “The Few” that gave so much. There is an intersection of two roadways in the city of Calgary …

Conversations are unpredictable things; the thread of an idea or premise of a joke can veer off a path and take us somewhere completely unexpected. A few months ago, a silly joke…

The summer has passed, my writing bones are rested and it’s time to get back to stories of flying and courage in the Second World War. It’s time to lap the laptop, open up my folder of random images …

In 1967, just 22 years after the end of the Second World War, when the producers of the epic motion picture Battle of Britain contracted with the legendary Group Captain Hamish Mahaddie,…

Albert Henry Brown was born in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, on 26 March 1923. His father, and namesake, Henry, was a retired Petty Officer Stoker in the Royal Navy who had served in the Battle of Jutland,…

Throughout the years since the Second World War, I have read many accounts of the sterling service given by so many. Many gave their lives in the service of their country while some survived …

I was at home on that September morning. I had taken a few days of leave, spending them at home with the intent on tackling an endless list of “to-dos”. I had just gotten out of bed, …

Each country in the world has its own first flight, its own J.A.D. McCurdy. While the Wright Brothers may have been the first to successfully fly a powered heavier-than-air craft, others around the world were not far behind…