Ron “Shorty” Moyes Ron “Shorty” Moyes

Sentinel—The Ron Moyes Story

During the Second World War, the Bomber Command rear gunner had what is arguably the most dangerous and ultimately deadliest job of any combatant in the war.

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Dave O'Malley Dave O'Malley

THE FIRST

Ellard Cummings, of Ottawa, was the first Canadian and just the second Allied serviceman to die in the Second World War.

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Dave O'Malley Dave O'Malley

THE LAST FLIGHT OF BUFFALO 33

One was the son of an Air Marshall, the other the son of a Farmer. They died side by side, and were buried a thousand miles apart.

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Dave O'Malley Dave O'Malley

Le dernier vol de Buffalo 33

Tout était fini en quelques secondes. Trop peu de secondes pour que les deux hommes à l’intérieur comprennent ce qui se passait.

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Dave O'Malley Dave O'Malley

L’aviateur fantôme

Pendant la guerre, la disparition d’un fils lors d’une mission aérienne portait un coup dur et douloureux pour toutes les familles. À l’époque, après le premier télégramme annonçant une disparition au combat, de nombreux mois sans nouvelle pouvaient s’écouler pendant que chaque piste d’espoir s’effritait une après l’autre au fil du temps. Une perte sans trace représentait, le plus souvent, une réalité écrasante que les parents devaient endurer pour le reste de leur vie.

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Dave O'Malley Dave O'Malley

LA PLUME DE DIEU

Malgré ces horizons ténébreux, l’impitoyable réalité de la guerre en 1943 a très peu atteint Haldensleben. La plupart des jeunes hommes sont partis vers l’est, perdus dans des défaites nord-africaines ou en danger en Italie. Les camions de l’armée traversent en grondant la ville tous feux éteints et les locomotives de ravitaillement halètent dans la gare de triage. Cependant, la ville elle-même est rarement visitée par les horreurs de la guerre totale. Malgré cette isolation, Ernst Heuer, âgé de 15 ans, n’a jamais connu le sommeil profond d’un adolescent.

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Dave O'Malley Dave O'Malley

The Phantom Airman

During the war, the death of a son on air operations was a heavy and lacerating blow to every family, but back then it was often drawn out for many months, revisited again and again as each layer of hope was stripped away after the first missing-on-operations telegram. Absolute disappearance was, as often as not, the unsatisfactory reality that parents would have to embrace for the rest of their lives.

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Dave O'Malley Dave O'Malley

THE HAND OF GOD

Despite the night horizons, the harsh reality of war rarely came to Haldensleben in 1943. Most of the young men were gone to the east or lost to North African failures. Darkened army trucks rumbled through town and supply locos panted in the rail yard, but the town was rarely visited by the horrors of total war. Despite this distance, 15-year old Ernst Heuer never slept the sleep of a teenager.

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Dave O'Malley Dave O'Malley

Les premiers vols à Ottawa - Épisode Trois

Cecil Malcolm Peoli construisait encore des modèles volants en 1911. Il a appris à piloter à l’âge de 17 ans en 1912, et un an plus tard, il pilote un avion Baldwin Red Devil autour de la colline du Parlement à Ottawa

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Dave O'Malley Dave O'Malley

Premiers vols à Ottawa — Èpisode 2

Lee Hammond a été le premier à piloter un avion devant la foule d’Ottawa à l’Exposition du Canada central en 1911. Il a toutefois failli mourir noyé dans un accident d’avion à Brooklyn la veille. Il s’est séché, a pris le train suivant pour Ottawa et le lendemain, il a sauté dans l’aéronef « Red Devil » de Tom Baldwin et ceci fait maintenant partie de l’histoire locale.

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Dave O'Malley Dave O'Malley

Premiers vols à Ottawa

L’historique de chaque ville du monde reconnaît le jour où est arrivé en soufflant le premier train à vapeur, où l’électricité a éclairé pour la première fois l’une de ses rues, où une automobile est apparue en effrayant le bétail. Peu après, un premier appareil plus lourd que l’air chancelant prend son envolée et franchit la dernière frontière, celle du le ciel.

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Dave O'Malley Dave O'Malley

First Flights of Ottawa - Episode Three

Cecil Malcolm Peoli was still building flying models in 1909. He learned to fly at age 16 and three yers later he was flying his Red Devil airplane around Parliament hill in Ottawa at just 19 years old.

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Dave O'Malley Dave O'Malley

First flights of Ottawa - Episode Two

The balloon ascents of the 19th and earlier 20th centuries made by Thaddeus Lowe, Miss Carlotta, the Lowandas and Professor Grimley (See Episode One) were more theatre than technology, more hustle than promise.

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Dave O'Malley Dave O'Malley

First Flights of Ottawa — Episode One

Every town in the world has, in its recorded history, a particular day when the first puffing steam train arrived, when electricity first illuminated one of its streets, when a motorcar first appeared to scare the livestock, or when the first wobbly flight was made in that last of frontiers — the sky above.

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Archie A. Robertson Archie A. Robertson

ON THE WAR PATH WITH 421

We weren't on the beach for more than 10 minutes when Jerry Kites came over and all hell broke loose. One AAA gun opened up right beside our truck and I thought, well, we tried anyway, let's go home, but they said we'd get used to it so I just tucked my head under blanket and started praying. …

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David O'Malley with Jeff Krete David O'Malley with Jeff Krete

DONALD LAMBIE’S WAR - Episode Three

When last we saw Lambie in Donald Lambie’s War — Episode Two, he was on his way to Bellaria from a Personnel Transit Centre in the south of Italy after having finished a short refresher Spitfire flying course at Guado, Italy.

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Dave O'Malley Dave O'Malley

GONE WEST — Stocky Edwards, dies at nearly 101

On Saturday, May 14, 2022, Canadian fighter pilot legend Wing Commander James Francis Edwards of Nakomis, Saskatchewan passed away a month short of his 101st birthday. In the argot of aircrew from the Second World War, Stocky has “gone west.”

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Dave O'Malley Dave O'Malley

The Return of the Reaper

The weather was overcast and cool, but the wind was steady down the runway and it was time.

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David O'Malley with Jeff Krete David O'Malley with Jeff Krete

DONALD LAMBIE’S WAR - Episode Two

When last we saw our intrepid aviator, in Episode One of Donald Lambie’s War, he had boarded His Majesty’s Troopship Andes in Halifax for a crossing of the Atlantic. …

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David O'Malley with Jeff Krete David O'Malley with Jeff Krete

DONALD LAMBIE’S WAR - Episode One

Don Lambie died before he even knew that his album was found. What right did we have to even have it in our possession, let alone pore over it with the intent of publishing it. It was, after all, his personal story not ours. What compelled us to tell his story, the story of a man we never met?

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