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Here's some more Self Indulgent Tripe;
Jack Rees and his B-25s
This anecdote was provided by Greg Rees, whose father, Jack Rees, flew B-25s first with RCAF, then with his own company, and then for G&M Aviation in Alberta, Canada.
I will begin with a little aviation background on my father. He joined the Canadian Navy in 1949 and served aboard aircraft carrier H.M.C.S. Magnificent as an aircraft handler. His duties were moving and securing Fairey Fireflys to and from the flight deck. After first arriving on the carrier he was instructed to take cover whenever a Firefly Mark I was landing. They had wooden propellers and if the pilot missed the arresting cable the Firefly would fly into a safety net which would ultimately cause the prop to shatter into a million pieces causing great harm to anyone in the vicinity. Being a young lad of 17, this really sunk into his head. When a Mark I finally did plow through the safety net, Dad was 3 decks below and still running for cover before he realized he could turn around.
After serving for 1.5 years on the carrier he had seen enough wrecked Fireflies and decided to transfer to the Canadian Air Force. After trades training for an aero engine tech. at Camp Borden he was posted to Training Command at R.C.A.F. station Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Here he was introduced to the B-25 Mitchell. There were approximately 30 Mitchells based here for training pilot trainees on instruments. A number of these Mitchells are still flying today, including N41123 (44-30254 CF-MWC)), N325N (44-86698 CG-UNO), and N62163 (44-86697). He worked and flew on these Mitchells from 1952-1959. A few funny stories came out of this stint with the Mitchells. Such as the time when a few B-25's had a training flight from Saskatoon to Penticton which is approximately 700 miles to the west, across the Rocky Mountains. Going along as ground crew support he didn't have much to do upon arrival as the 25's ran like a Swiss watch. So after securing the aircraft he proceeded to the local tavern for a few beers. Seeing that Penticton is in the heart of fruit country and the cherries were in season, the crew decided to fill the back of the aircraft with cherries for the folks back home. This trip wasn't an overnight stay and after the cherries were loaded, they proceeded back to Saskatoon. Dad volunteered to stay in the back with the fruit. After they were airborne and everyone settled in for the trip home, Dad got hungry. So thinking that no one would miss a few cherries, he proceeded to inhale a crate of them. Sometime later with a belly full of cherries and a few beers sloshing around in his stomach the natural occurrence happened at around 10,000 feet. "I'm going to get sick." There was no place to puke as every available spot was full of cherry boxes. So thinking quickly, maybe not so clearly, he decided to open the drop door and puke into the air stream. Anyone who is familiar with the workings of a B-25 personnel door knows that it opens downward and a sliding mechanism extends a ladder from within the door. So when you are cruising along at 180 knots it is pretty much impossible to open the door against the slip stream. As the urge to puke was overwhelming him he decided to stand on the door to try and force it open. He managed to get the door open a crack which was enough to stick his mouth into and let his guts reel in relief. When they touched down back at base the evidence was apparent to what happened in the back of the plane. The aft belly of the Mitchell was covered with a thick red stain all the way to the rear gunner turret. So, needless to say my father spent the rest of the following day scrubbing down the aircraft. Another interesting story to mention about his days in Saskatoon was when two pilot trainees were given some solo time. This pair were nearing the end of their training and were unleashed to play with the mighty power of the B-25 on their own. After departing the airport and flying to the required sector, they returned a short time later. After taxiing up to the ramp and shutting down the engines, the ground crew suddenly realized why the pair returned so soon. The leading edge on each wing was dented and both engine cowlings and oil cooler vents were plugged solid with wood and leaves. The ground crew was surprised to see that the pair managed to even get back alive with the amount of wood plugging the air flow through the engines. An investigation ensued and it was discovered that the two trainees had tried looping the B-25. The story goes that the pair took the plane up to altitude and tried to loop it. As anyone familiar with a 25 knows this can't be done. Evidently the plane stalled and they finely recovered the plane just as they were smashing through the tree tops. Surprising enough they didn't kill themselves and still amazingly enough they managed to get the plane back to the airport without the engines giving up on them.
With every memorable story comes the not so memorable ones but are still considered noteworthy. Anyone who is familiar with aviation knows that tragic accidents occur. This particular story was witnessed by my father while he was still stationed in Saskatoon. A flight instructor from Summerside, Prince Edward Island who trained pilots on Lockheed P2V-7 (CP-122) Neptunes was transferred to Saskatoon around 1956 or 1957. This instructor being new to the B-25 was taken out on a circuit around the field by his two pilot trainees. After landing and taxiing up to the ramp, the instructor jumped out while the engines were still running. Anyone familiar with a Neptune will know that the front personnel hatch is forward of the engines, so if a person gets out while the engines are still running will have to walk forward to stay clear of the propellers. This flight instructor being a creature of habit walked forward after exiting the running B-25. Just as he realized what he had done, he dropped to his knees to clear the propellers but was too late and got caught by one of the propellers and was decapitated in an instant.
The last memorable story my Dad recalls from his time in Saskatoon was when he made his last fruit run to Penticton. On the way home in the summer of 1959 the spur gear on the port engine which only had 30 hours on it, dropped into the reduction gear and smashed it all to hell. The propeller started free wheeling after this, and the young pilot trainee quickly had to try and feather the prop. The quick thinking pilot had to slow the starboard engine almost to a point of stalling so that the feathering pump could take hold of the free wheeling prop. After successfully feathering the port engine they quickly let down in Lethbridge, Alberta for repairs. Upon inspection of the port engine it was obvious the damage that occurred, as huge holes were in the front of the engine and all around the engine cowling.
After working on and flying in B-25's for 8 years my father was posted to Trenton, Ontario in 1959. Here he was introduced to the Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar, DC-3, Northstars (DC-4 with rolls-royce engines), Grumman Albatross, DeHavilland DHC-4 Caribou, Canadair C-109 Cosmopolitan and Canadair C-106 Yukon. After 8 years of this he was transferred to Edmonton, Alberta for another 7 years on DC-3's and C-130B Hercules as a flight engineer. In 1972, while still in the Air Force a group of pilots and my father purchased a B-25 from Bendix aviation. (CF-DKU (45-8835) N5672V) They wanted to make some money so they installed a main tank in the fuselage and additional tank in the nose. The plan was to haul diesel fuel to isolated areas in the Canadian Arctic. So in the spring of 1972 they started hauling diesel fuel from Yellowknife, N.W.T. to Hope Bay silver mine approximately two hours flying time north on Bathurst inlet. They were carrying approximately 1300 gallons and landing on ocean ice. By this time in my father's military career he had a civilian VFR commercial pilot's license. Aurora aviation was the name of the company and consisted of 4 partners, of these partners, two were active military pilots one an active military navigator and one a military flight engineer (Dad). Each co-owner took holidays and took their turn flying the B-25 up north hauling diesel fuel.
Then in 1973, they started hauling diesel fuel from Smithers, B.C. to Chipmunk creek (150 miles north of Smithers) for a railway right of way extension. The old 25 handled this service for some time until one unlucky day when one of the partners had a nose wheel blow out on him while landing loaded in Chipmunk Creek. The blow out caused the nose gear to collapse resulting in the propellers eating dirt. No one was hurt and the insurance company paid the partners to fix the damage themselves. After the plane was repaired and put back into service, it flew for another year hauling fuel until once again in 1974 the same pilot had another nose wheel blow on him while loaded and putting the props through the same strip once again. Well, the insurance company wasn't going to go through this again and bought CF-DKU from Aurora Aviation and put it up for auction. G&M Aircraft of St. Albert, Alberta won the bid and owned it right up to 1991 flying it as a water bomber until selling it off after being considered undesirable as a water bomber by the Canadian government.
In the spring of 1974 Dad retired from the military and went to work for Northwestern Air Lease of St.Albert, Alberta. This company operated Mitchells CF-OND (44-28866) N225AJ and CF-MWC (44-30254) N41123 as water bombers. This was the beginning of his water bombing career which lasted until he retired from flying in 1991. Just a short note to add at this time, Northwestern Air Lease also owned an Avro Lancaster which was tanked for water bombing but it did not pan out as they couldn't get the tank doors to work properly, so Northwestern ended up selling the Lancaster in 1975 to a private collector in Scotland U.K.
This first year with Northwestern Air Lease was going to be an adventure and a mystery as he never knew what was going to happen next. On one of his first training flights, the pilot assigned to train him in the fine art of dropping a plane load of snot (water, dye and fertilizer) on a fire was interesting. The actual water drop was uneventful but the take-off from the strip was the hairy event. The home base for these Mitchells as previously mentioned was St.Albert airport which consisted of a dirt runway at this time and was more like a mud runway after it rained. On this particular take off it was a mud runway, after taxiing from the ramp to the main runway, Bob (not his real name) proceeded to take-off with Dad as his co-pilot. As CF-MWC got further and further down the strip the mud got softer and softer, so after making it half-way down the runway and gaining speed (estimated at 90 knots) the mud was just too much for the gear and MWC abruptly stopped dead in it's tracks. Surprisingly enough the gear wasn't ripped off by this point. After shutting down the engines and assaying the situation, they had to use two 4x4 agriculture tractors with heavy logging chains to get MWC out of the hole it created. There was so much resistance while pulling that the chain stretched so bad that the links would not loosen up after the tension was taken off. This sort of Sanford & Son operation went on for the remainder of that fire season. Both 25's flew that year in Wood Buffalo National Park (located in the corner of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Northwest Territories) The following year (1975) was just as much a mystery as the year before when it came to operations. During the early years of his water bombing career with the 25's, everyone involved shared the excitement and enthusiasm when called out on a fire. So even when the fires were small and insignificant, the B-25 crews were hipped up and raring to go if it meant some flying time. On one such occasion in the summer of 1975 the crews were so pumped for the thrill of flying the Mitchells, they almost forgot the inherent danger of flying on fires and almost traded their lives for the excitement of it all. A fire was reported in Nahanni Valley National Park, Northwest Territories and the crew of OND & MWC responded eagerly and struck off to put out the fire. After flying over a 10,000 foot mountain range they dropped down to get a look at where the fire was. The bird dog (Cessna 185) which was used to guide the bombers into the fire started up a spur off Nahanni Valley to look for the fire. The owner of Northwestern Air Lease was flying OND and wasn't as anxious to start flying up some mountain pass with 900 gallons of water aboard. So Ted (not his real name) the owner decided not to follow the bird dog up the pass blindly looking for some fire that wasn't worth his life. As it turned out the pass ended in a razor back and the bird dog had to take evasive action to pull out of the pass, mean while Ted and Dad were circling overhead. Finally they spotted the fire and made a run on it, and as it turned out, the fire was nothing but a small out cropping of trees on a rocky ledge. After dropping their loads they returned to base, and were a little more selective on their future fires.
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