In the wartime spring of 1940, during the London Blitz, Britain desperately needed aircraft from USA factories delivered by air across the North Atlantic as sea shipment was too slow.
The RAF said that flown aircraft delivery would be too risky. The Canadian Pacific Railway in Montreal then scrounged up 44 civilian bush pilots, mainly from war neutral USA. Along with three civilian Imperial Airways pilots, they were trained to fly light bombers across the North Atlantic to UK, in a matter of a few weeks with no navigation skills. They departed Newfoundland during November and December 1940 for Northern Ireland. No aircrafts were lost at sea and all 26 arrived safely.
The RAF took over the aircraft deliveries in July 1940, and by the end of the war some 10,000 factory fresh warplanes, were flown out of Ferry Command Dorval (Montreal) - East to the UK, North Africa, the Middle East, South Russia, India, Burma and West to Australia and the Pacific.
Selected examples of the unusual Ferry Command Dorval wartime air mails to and from air-crew world-wide will be shown in this talk, along with a few examples of aviation related wartime engineering innovations.
Dorval Airport was a key international military air hub in wartime; its cafeteria had seating for 3,000 people. At the end of the war, due in part to Dorval’s global flight expertise, the United Nations set up their I.A.T.A. and I.C.A.O. head-quarters in Montreal (Dorval Airport was close by). Many of the post-war UN staff were former Ferry Command Dorval aircrew and administrators.
Speaker
Robert G. Toombs
Mr. Toombs is a retired geotechnical engineer who worked on many earthworks related projects at home and abroad. In Canada - BC, Alberta, NWT, Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland. Abroad - the USA, the Dominican Republic, Dominica, Bolivia, Nigeria, Malaysia, Sarawak, Papua Niu Guinea, Taiwan, and Russia.
He specialised in geotechnical engineering – office and field design, field construction, and construction audit. His work included mill tailings dams; the oil sands dams, hydropower dams; mountain highways; tropical stability assessment; high speed rail earthworks; industrial millsite foundations; and reservoir dredging.