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Newsletter #1317 | April 15, 2015 | |||||||||||||||
The NetLetterFor Air Canada Retirees |
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Hello , | |||||||||||||||
Welcome to the NetLetter, an Aviation based newsletter for Air Canada, TCA, CPAir, Canadian Airlines and all other Canadian based airlines that once graced the Canadian skies.
We've just upgraded to a new mailing system and website so many new features will soon be added. |
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ACFN/NetLetter News
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Reader Submitted PhotosRobert Arnold shares this information -
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Alan's Space |
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Readers Feedback
Two employees have a particular interest in seeing the Lancaster restored and painted to represent the aircraft in which Andrew Mynarski won his posthumous Victoria Cross. They are Jack Friday, a Passenger Agent in Thunder Bay, and Jim Kelly, Manager, Industry Systems Development, Montreal. Both were in the same crew as Mynarski and were on the same operation when they were shot down. They were to bomb enemy supply lines behind the Normandy beachhead, but before reaching the target, they were attacked by an enemy night fighter. With the port wing and rear fuselage ablaze, the pilot ordered his crew to bail out. While most of the crew escaped through the front escape hatch. Mynarski made his way to the door at the rear. He was about to jump when he saw his best friend Pat Brophy was trapped in the rear turret. Ignoring his own safety. he fought his way through the flames toward Brophy and began tearing at the turret doors which had jammed. After many vain attempts and with his clothing on fire, he finally had to give up and with a last anguished look at his trapped buddy, bailed out. He was found by French farmers but died of his burns. Ironically Brophy had a miraculous escape when the bomber crashed, and lived to tel! a tale which won Mynarski the V.C.
Jack Friday was the Bomb Aimer and Jim Kelly the Wireless Operator on that fateful flight. Friday and the Flight Engineer were both taken prisoner and spent 11 months in various POW camps. They became well acquainted with the German highway system having taken part in forced marches between prison camps, part of the way barefoot. Shortly after Jim Kelly landed, he managed to team up with Bob Bodie, the Navigator, and with the help of the French underground they managed to evade capture for three months, until the village where they were hiding was liberated by the British. ''It was a pretty grim three months'' said Kelly. "When the British arrived riding on top of their flower-bedecked tanks, wine and champagne that had been hidden away for years suddenly began lo flow and the gay abandon of the celebration as that village was freed was something I'll never forget."
Bill Evans referred to the photo if the IAMAW Maintenance Shop Committee in NetLetter nr 1314. The person at the front right includes Ken Deshauer, at one time Shop Committee member and member of the Negotiating Committee. Regards, Bill Evans Jim Douglas also gave us this identification.
Our family has continued the aviation tradition too - my father in law Victor Fulcher was one of the early station managers and then HR (I think) folks at TCA in the late 1930's and 40's.
Betty Draper turned up an article from the Winnipeg Free Press Manitoba, issue 1941-02-06 regarding the crash of CF-TCP fin #38 at Armstrong on February 6th 1941.
The crew on the aircraft were Captain W. E. Twiss, Winnipeg, formerly of Vancouver; First Officer C. E. Lloyd, Winnipeg, formerly of Ottawa, and Miss M. G. Mayne, stewardess, Winnipeg. Sadly all on board perished. The plane had apparently overshot its mark and landed one mile south of the north-south runway of the field. While the wild terrain of northern and northwestern Ontario is better suited for ski and float equipped planes, T.C.A. has minimized this hazard by establishing a string of emergency bases. Eastward from Winnipeg, these landing fields are located at Vivian and Whitemouth in Manitoba, and at Kenora, Vermillion, Sunstrum, Sioux Lookout, Allenwater, Armstrong, Nakina, Grant, Ogahalla, Pagwa, Nagogami and Kapuskasing in Ontario. The bases are just a few of a series strung along T.C.A.'s trans-continental route.
In November, 1938, when the company was making test flights preparatory to opening up a regular service schedule for passengers and mail, Captain David Imrie and Pilot Officer Jack Herald were killed when a T.C.A. plane CF-TCL fin #36 crashed just outside of Regina. Bill Cameron writes -
Cheers, Bill C.
I had the good fortune to have worked as an Agent, Radio Operator, Flight Dispatcher, Station Manager (Rome & Montreal), Regional Flight Operations Mgr (Tokyo), General Manager, Spain, General Manager, Mexico, and General Manager, North American airports - so had a finger in a lot of the airlines activities..!!
In my early years with the Airline – as a Radio Operator/Agent from 1948, and as a Flight Dispatcher from 1955 to 1966 – the Union representing the Airport and Reservations Agent (and Flight Dispatchers) was called: the “Order of Railway Telegraphers” or O.R.T. That all came about because Canadian Pacific Airlines was created in 1942, when the Canadian Pacific Railway bought ten small regional airlines to form the new Airline.
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Odds and EndsPeople FinderFrom: Marsha Terry
Hi - hope you find a place for this note in the upcoming Newsletter. I was asked by my friend to see if I could assist in finding his cousin who he lost track of 40 years ago. She worked in the office of Air Canada in Toronto. Her name is Adele (Smith) Russel. Her cousin Paul Pearson can be reached at From: Colin Parks Dear Sirs,
I was trying to contact Jon Pastuzynski whom I met back in the late 80’s in Vancouver and in the UK. Lost touch and would be nice to catch up.
Kind Regards, Colin Parks Info RequestFrom: Harvey Jones
Can you confirm that Canadian Pacific Airlines was located in the olf PBY hangar in Vancouver?
Thanks, |
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Terry's Trivia & Travel TipsTerry Baker, co-founder of the NetLetter scours the internet for aviation related Trivia and Travel Tips for you our readers to peruse. For a recent trip to Honolulu from Vancouver, here are the types of airport taxes, fees and surcharges which were charged in Canadian dollars.
Total charge was ca$106.91
Norman Hogwood sent us this information – Recently, a New Zealand media reporter took a trip on Air Canada and listed these "extras"
So make sure you have some money in your bank account. Have a good trip! |
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Aviation Humour |
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