And no wreaths remembered them

After attending the national remembrance day ceremony. I wound up visiting the Ottawa memorial for lost aircrew. It commemmorates nearly 800 pilots, aircrew, and related ground staff who have been lost and who have never been found and buried properly.  There are usually grave markers for pilots and aircrew lost in training, they are spread all around the towns where the BCATP flight training schools were. At times painting a plane yellow was not enough to keep pilots out of trouble.

If I were time-warped as an aviator to the same level of experience in a different time. By WW2 standards at this point in my aviation career I would have completed Service flight training school and flying Harvards or Ansons in preparation to qualify and ship out. I visited that site because in a different time that could easily have been me or someone I knew whose name was on the rounded walls.


It bothers me greatly that the memorial in Ottawa to the aircrew who never made it home and who never were found is truly lost and ignored. Canada is too big and wide to find every plane crash site especially over trackless wilderness.

Most of those dead were likely student pilots, Some were in ferry command but in no way should they NOT be commemorated by any of the Ottawa aviation organizations.

The four regional fight schools, Vintage wings of Canada, The Canadian Air and Space Museum; None. That upset me greatly, I'm a member of two of the organizations I mentioned and I will NOT remain silent about this next year. I will press the full list I mentioned about that and will lay a wreath personally if my suggestion gains no traction.

Lest we forget

Remembrance day

As a semi experienced and young Private pilot I've realized I was born at the right time in aviation.

This only expands my respect for those who came before to allow me the freedom to do flight training, and especially those of fighter and bomber command who never returned home.

Had I started my training in 1939 opposed to 2009; If I was extremely lucky I would be flying a Hurricane or Spitfire facing an almost insurmountable horde of German fighters and bombers in the battle of Britain attempting to defend England. As a fighter pilot or perhaps Mosquito pilot I have the luxury of possibly being able to maybe fly my way out of trouble, Most likely I would be flying a Bristol Blenheim, an Armstrong-Whitworth-Whitley or Halifax. If I was slightly lucky and slow in my training maybe an Avro Lancaster as pilot or co-pilot with a dozen scared to death crew trusting me to take them home safe as the fighters cut us to ribbons. All this with a scared young crew trusting their lives to me to deliver them safely as I unfortunately regularly let members of my crew down.

Its entirely likely that myself or many members of my crew would never have seen even 1944. As a bomber pilot I may have lost dozens of crew members in the same aircraft. I'm fortunate I don’t live with that burden in my career and I wonder at those pilots and crews who have been able to cope with that.

The privilege of flight has been granted to me thanks to; the hard work and sacrifice of the pilots of the RCAF mainly in WW2 and the legacy of the British Commonweath Air Training Plan.

If any veteran wishes to have a flight the only questions I have are when, where, and how soon; they have made the sacrifice to allow me to be a pilot and owner that is the least I could ever do in return.

Brent