Message from Stephen Scriver who is sharing this picture.
Here is Sid Seid’s ITS class. They were at the Normal School (teachers’ college) from February 1 to April 11, 1942. The top was cut off in my scanner. It was a simple “R.C.A.F.” in Old English font.
West’s Studios were in business in Regina for decades, a father and son venture. They took most of the Regina ITS and EFTS group photos.
I had posted a few pictures about Sid Seid who was also at No.2 SFTS Uplands.
He became a Mosquito pilot.
+(414651) Godfrey Alan McKoy,
+(414721) Harry Keith Williams,
+(414677) Arthur Lyall Ray,
+(41430) Bruce Mackenzie Hirstich,
Died 20 February 1943
+(413858) Maurice Carson Jolly,
+ (414380) Douglas Robert Bannerman,
+(413875) Frederick Thomas Martyn,
+(414664) Andrew George Patterson Newman,
+(414278) Raymond Cyril Going,
+(414321) Mervyn Jack Mills – 132 Sqn.;
+(41141) Jack McRae Brigham – 243 Sqn.;
More information in French here.
http://www.nordlittoral.fr/pays-de-calais/hommage-au-pilote-godfrey-alan-mckoy-ia0b0n65542
Godfrey MCKoy est né le 1er septembre 1920, à New Plymouth, sur l’île du Nord en Nouvelle- Zélande. Il est l’aîné de 4 frères. Sportif, il travaille comme commis aux écritures aux postes et télégraphes. En septembre 1940, il postule pour servir dans la Royal New Zealand Air Force, comme opérateur radio, car il pratique couramment le morse.
Le 17 août 1941, il signe son engagement, et ses bons résultats généraux le désignent comme élève pilote dès la fin du mois de septembre. Il apprend les rudiments du pilotage dans son pays natal, avant d’embarquer le 17 novembre pour le Canada afin de poursuivre sa formation. Le 27 mars 1942, il reçoit son insigne de pilote et une promotion au grade de Sergent. Il arrive le 13 mai de la même année en Angleterre, et continue de se former sur le Super Marine “Spitfire “.
Le 6 octobre le Sergent McKoy, surnommé Bill par ses camarades d’escadrille, est affecté au No, 64 Squadron de la Royal Air Force, basé à Fairiop dans l’Essex, et dans l’escadrille “A “dirigée par le Flight Lieutenant Mike Donnet (ce dernier, devenu général après la guerre, est décédé il y a à peine 6 mois). Avec cette unité, “Bill “McKoy prend part à 11 missions opérationnelles souvent réalisées dans le ciel du Nord – Pas-de-Calais. D’après le journal des opérations pour la mission du 26 janvier 1943, il était noté : « à 11h50 (heure anglaise) le Squadron (12 avions) décolle pour la mission Circus 256, franchit la côte française à dix milles à l’Est de Dunkerque, à 19 000 pieds, pour survoler Dixmude puis de là vers Saint-Omer à 23 000 pieds, où trois avions ennemis sont aperçus derrière et à la même altitude, et douze autres à 13 000 pieds. Le commandant emmène les sections Rouge et Charlie vers les trois avions ennemis, tandis que George Mason attaque les douze de manière propre et nette. Les trois ennemis parviennent à nous échapper, tandis que nous réussissons notre attaque surprise sur les douze et George Mason en détruit un, le Sgt Burnard en endommage un autre. Le S/L Corkett, le F/L Charles et le 2nd Lt Lindseth ont tiré de bonnes rafales. Triste à dire que personne n’a vu ce qui était arrivé au sergent McKoy qui n’est pas rentré. Le Squadron s’est posé à Manston, a pris un déjeuner rapide, et dix avions ont décollé de nouveau à 15h50… » Par l’intermédiaire de la Croix-Rouge Internationale, les Allemands informent les alliés que le sergent McKoy a perdu la vie et qu’il a été inhumé au cimetière militaire des Bruyères, à Saint-Omer, le 29 janvier. Il y repose encore de nos jours. Il totalisait 310 heures de vol comme pilote. Ce jour-là, Bill McKoy est tombé sous les balles d’un as allemand, le Hauptmann Wilhelm-Ferdinand Galland, qui revendique sa 24e victoire, à 6 ou 7 kilomètres au Nord-Ouest de Watten, à 12h52. Le Spitfire de Godfrey Alan McKoy, qui volait en tant que “Charlie 4 “, s’écrasait à Ruminghem, dans le bois à quelques centaines de mètres de la Chapelle Saint-Antoine. Le jeune Yves Tilly, âgé d’à peine 17 ans à l’époque, parvient à se rendre sur place. Il y trouvera quelques débris, dont un morceau de bakélite marqué des lettres T.Y., ses propres initiales.
Source : Historique réalisé par l’Association Antiq’Air. Flandre-Artois
Part of Lawrence Walton Montague’s Silent Secretary
Courtesy Dunnville Museum
Raymond Joseph Hetherington
Mervyn Jack Mills
(414667) Albert James ‘Jimmy’ Osborne – 165/185 Sqns.;
Arthur David Leese,
(414238) Alfred William Burge DFC),
George T. Couttie,
+(414651) Godfrey Alan McKoy,
+(414721) Harry Keith Williams,
+(414677) Arthur Lyall Ray,
+(41430) Bruce Mackenzie Hirstich,
+(413858) Maurice Carson Jolly,
+ (414380) Douglas Robert Bannerman,
+(413875) Frederick Thomas Martyn,
+(414664) Andrew George Patterson Newman,
+(414278) Raymond Cyril Going,
+(414321) Mervyn Jack Mills – 132 Sqn.;
+(41141) Jack McRae Brigham – 243 Sqn.;
R.R. Horo,
(414330) Vincent Orr;
(413924) Roger Wing;
Stewart Matthews – 45 Sqn.;
Thomas (David) Stewart – 165/185 Sqns.,
James E. Shields,
Thomas Alexander,
Wallace M. Sampson,
Raymond J. Hetherington,
Raymond S. Campbell,
James J. McMath – 110 Sqn.;
(George?) J.N. Buchanan,
(414689) David Gordon Simpson – DFC 603/143 Sqns.;
(414645) Jeffrey Maxwell McCarrison – 254 Sqn.;
Warren P. Bennett;
(414374) William Frank Bern – 64 Sqn.
Sailed from Auckland November 17, 1941 aboard the S.S. Monterey to San Francisco.
Description
Postcard Sydney 1941_RMS Monterey
1940s Postcard:- Bearing the flag of the Royal Mail Ship/RMS Monterey passes under Sydney harbour bridge.
My father, together with enlisted men with the RAAF, boarded the SS Monterey in Sydney on November 13, 1941. The SS Monterey was a South Pacific cruise ship and the men travelled as ordinary passengers, calling into port at Auckland, Fiji, Samoa, and Hawaii and San Francisco where they disembarked and travelled onto Vancouver, Canada, then by rail to their training camps.
The United States had not entered the war at this time. Pearl Harbour was bombed on the morning of December 7, 1941 by Japanese aircraft. On 16 December 1941 the SS Monterey travelled to Hawaii with troops, and returned with 800 casualties of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Extract from website – In the 1920s and 1930s ocean liners reached a peak of expansion and the great Matson line built the Monterey and her maiden voyage was on 3rd June 1932. She and the Mariposa inaugurated the new South Pacific service from San Francisco to Hawaii, New Zealand and Australia. After her years with Matson Line she continued in service for a variety of owners before sinking off South Africa in 2000 while under tow to the ship breakers.
Opened in Belleville by the RCAF in August 1941 at the Provincial School for the Deaf. It was initially a five-week, later expanded to 10 week course in armaments, aeronautics and navigation. It was here that personnel were funneled into either pilot, observer, wireless operator or air gunner trades. The school closed in June 1944 and the school returned to its original function. It is now the Sir James Whitney School for the Deaf/Hard of Hearing.
Source Material: “Abandoned Military Installations in Canada Vol I: Ontario” by Paul Ozorak.
Source: http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMEH48_No_5_Initial_Training_School_RCAF_Belleville_ON
I met the kid on the left, but not the one on the right.
Allan Todd had his picture taken with Neil Hammond. It did not take long to find him on the CVWM Website. He was the only Hammond who died in 1943.
Leading Aircraftman
Richard Neiland Hammond
Royal Canadian Air Force
22nd September 1943, aged 20
Beechwood Cemetery
Ottawa, Ontario
Richard Neiland Hammond was born August 8, 1923, on the family dairy farm in Ironside, a village in West Hull that was then four miles north of Hull’s city limits. His parents were Watson and Jane (Barber) Hammond. Neiland, as his family called him, attended the local elementary school and then Hull Intermediate for high school. When he was a child both parents died- his mother in 1930 and father 1935. The farm was then managed by two uncles, who hired housekeepers so that Neiland, his sister and two brothers could stay on the family property.
A short time after finishing high school, Neiland started work at the Electric Reduction Plant in Buckingham, Quebec, but gave up this job to enlist in the RCAF in 1942. He went to Belleville Training School, and then on to elementary flying at Pendleton, Ontario (east of Ottawa). After his graduation from Pendleton, he came back to Uplands (Ottawa) for his service flying training. Here he had to learn to fly the Harvard, a powerful, heavy, single-engine aircraft. On the night of September 22,1943, he was assigned to practice night take-off and landing at a relief field near Carp, Ontario, the present site of Carp Airport. During take-off something went wrong, and he crashed into nearby bush. The authorities listed the cause as “obscure.”
Left to mourn were his girlfriend Frances Copping, his sister Jean and brother-in-law William Brisenden, brother James and sister-in-law Mabel (who still live in Chelsea), and brother Felton. Jim Hammond recalls that the news of Neiland’s death was delivered to him on the family farm at Ironside on the night that his wife Mabel was in labour for the birth of their first child, Barbara.
Neiland was doing well on the course and would have graduated in a few weeks. He is buried in Beechwood Cemetery’s Veterans Section.
Source: http://www.gvhs.ca/publications/utga-chelsea-cenotaph.html
From AC2 to LAC, to pilot to navigator…
Think again!
Flying Officer LeVerne Haley’s private collection
Images used with permission.
Images may not be re-published or re-used
without prior written consent of the family of LeVerne Haley
Walter Neil Dove’s notes are so interesting when you read what he wrote about LAC St. Marseille, a student pilot determined to…
But sometimes his comments tell a lot about other student pilots… like “Whitey” Jones.
These names were found on this Website, and they have to be on this group picture. Four are identified.
(J/22036) Sidney Platt Seid – 418 Sqn.,
Frank E. Adams, Whitby;
Frank Alton, Lindsay;
Clarence F. Armstrong, Parry Sound;
Bruce A. Christie, Toronto;
William A. Gray, Toronto;
Donald B. McLaughlin, Toronto;
Bruce F. Beare, Port Perry;
David W. Burke, Hamilton;
Morris E. Gulliver, Leamington;
Oke Olson, Woodroffe;
Wilson N. Rivers, Ottawa;
William E. Smillie, London
29 young men.
I could only find information on Sid Seid.
British Commonwealth Air Training Plan 