Our first stop was on our tour at Million Air, where Bob Jens keeps his Spitfire Mk 14 and Mosquito Mk 35. They were very excited to see both airplanes and as it was the first occassion I got to meet them, I could very quickly see the strong relationships they had with eachother. A few of them had actually been in the same Squadron and flew together many times during WWII. In fact, one had been the other's wing man on the mission he was shot down on. You can now start to picture the silly comments being tossed back and forth about that day. While walking around the two magnificent machines at Bob's place, some of the pilots mentioned that they had been on Spitfires before being selected for ops on the Typhoon. Some also recollect flying the Hurricane earlier in their air force careers. From talking with all of them I also learned that most of them had trained in the BCATP in Canada on either the Tigermoth or the Fleet Finch. They also mentioned once they got to England that they got some training on Miles Masters (of which I had never heard of). When I was asking one of the pilots about their flight training the topic got onto the Harvard and how there were actually a very high number of casualties during training, when newly graduated from the Moth or Finch pilots got to solo in the much faster and more capable Harvard. The Transition from a slow biplane straight into a Harvard gave some pilots the temptation to do silly/risky things like fly too low and/or under bridges; quite often with tragic endings.
After leaving Million Air, we had about an hour to kill before the restaurant where we were having lunch was to open. We ended up going to Aviation World. It's an aviation supplies and book store, but also has model airplanes, mahogany models, t-shirts, and other aviation trinkets. We had arrived at the store a few minutes before it opened so we were forced to wait outside until an employee came and let us in. Being quite a windy day, when the employee opened the door for us it flung open very quickly. He remarked “Boy it’s like a TYPHOON out here,” and after he said that everyone started to laugh and I piped up, “It’s funny that you would say that, because these guys are all WWII Typhoon pilots!” He had a chuckle and let us in. One of the Tiffy guys went and found a few books on the Typhoon and low and behold, there were pictures of two of the guys from our group in one of the books. The Manager of the store was very excited to have our group in the store and asked if he could get a picture of the group to frame and hang on the wall. He also got them to all sign a book about the Typhoon.
Our next stop was having an early lunch at the Flying Beaver Bar and Grill. It's a wonderful restaurant in the Harbour Air terminal right on the Fraser River where countless DHC-2 Beavers, Twin Otters, Turbo-Otters, Cessna 180's, and Caravans operate from. I had run ahead to make sure that there would be enough tables for our group and mentioned to the waiter that I was bringing in a group of WWII pilots and he told me that he was born and raised in London, England during the war and that when he was little he could remember watching the allied fighters flying around where he lived. He expressed a great appreciation for our group members and we were treated very well. (I gotta hang out with these guys more often!!) We all had fantastic meals, great conversations, and a few pints of Ale. At my table was the woman who had recently lost her husband, and two pilots who had both been taken prisoner during the war and put into POW camps. It was very interesting to learn about their attitudes toward the enemy while they fought, while they were in the camps, and how they were treated by their captors in the camps. I hung on every word they said. I hate how my memory, even at my age, is very bad, so I wish I had tape recorded everything they said. The woman I sat across from told me all about her time in the RCAF as a decoder in the Canadian Maritimes. She explained to me about how every morning they were sent a new code key in order to understand the day’s messages. She told me about one time when she had decoded a message sent from an anti-submarine aircraft after it had sunk a U-boat. That must have been very exciting to decode!
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