U.S. RCAF soldiers honoured

Calgary Sun ^ | 2007-08-26 | Paul Jackson

[Clive]

NANTON -- A First World War-era Tiger Moth biplane soared overhead and the engines of the famed Lancaster bomber were fired up yesterday during a salute to the Americans who served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War.

At a ceremony organized by the Nanton Lancaster Society, president Rob Pedersen noted prior to the U.S. declaring war against Germany and Japan in 1941, some 9,000 Americans had already made a personal decision to fight Nazism by joining the RCAF, with 800 joining Bomber Command. Of those, 379 lost their lives.

Hundreds stood before the Bomber Command Memorial Wall during the ceremonies to witness miniature Stars and Stripes flags placed next to the names of those Americans included in the list of heroic command airmen who perished.

One of the most illustrious among them was Wing Commander Joe McCarthy, who took part in the legendary Dambusters Raid.

His son Joe McCarthy Jr., of Virginia, Beach, Va., was on hand for the event.

"The Americans in the RCAF, and in Britain's Royal Air Force, were unsung heroes. The United States Force had its own American heroes, and the RAF its own Britain heroes, so, the Americans in the RCAF and RAF were forgotten," the younger McCarthy said.

He said it was wonderful to see so many now paying homage to the Americans in Bomber Command.

U.S. Consul-General Tom Huffaker praised the museum and those behind it, saying they were not only preserving vintage aircraft, but "memories and values, too."

In Alberta from Washington, D.C., was Clarence Anderegg, director of history and museums for the USAF, who said the valiant Americans in the RCAF will be "forever a part of the thread woven into the fabric" of the unique friendship between Canada and the U.S.

[Clive]

Just a couple of quibbles:

First:

The de Havilland Tiger Moth was not a WWI era aircraft. It was designed and built during the 30s and was used during WWII as a basic trainer, especially by the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan which trained pilots from across the Commonwealth at hundreds of airfields across Canada.

It was a forgiving little aircraft which made it ideal for teaching new pilots. I know an instructor who fell asleep in the rear cockpit and woke up when the aircraft spun into a tree. Neither instructor nor student were hurt apart from the embarrassment of having to be helped out of the tree by firefighters. Even the aircraft flew again after some fabric patching.

Second quibble, and more important:

Nobody who knows anything about the history of the RCAF and the RAF has forgotten the Yank pilots who joined up and fought while their country was still neutral.

[Clive]

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[Eric in the Ozarks]

One of those became my step dad, John H. Fuller of Mystic, IA. He left an assembly job in Detroit and joined the RCAF at Windsor.

[fanfan]