Taylor Empire Airways » Historica

Felix dies natalis Christi

Chris Taylor — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 02:33:48 +0000

Cooper, Austin (1890-1964). For the Empire Marketing Board, c 1926-1934. (Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1983-27-89)

Cooper, Austin (1890-1964). For the Empire Marketing Board, c 1926-1934. (Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1983-27-86)

17 December 1939: British Commonwealth Air Training Plan agreement signed

Chris Taylor — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 13:13:40 +0000

Seventy-two years ago today, representatives of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand signed the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan agreement. This agreement committed the countries to training 50,000 airmen per annum until the conclusion of the Second World War—the goal was roughly 22,000 aircrew per year from Great Britain, 13,000 from Canada, 11,000 from Australia and 3,300 from New Zealand. Under the plan, the aircrews would receive introductory air training with their home air forces, then travel to Canada for advanced flight training. More than 130,000 Allied airmen—pilots, navigators, bombardiers, wireless operators, gunners and flight engineers—had received training in Canada by war’s end.

Here are some photos of BCATP activity drawn from LIFE magazine’s online archive:

An aerial view of RCAF Station Trenton. 1939. (John Phillips / LIFE magazine)

Instructor teaching a bombing course at RCAF Station Trenton. 1939. (John Phillips / LIFE magazine)

Cadet screwing the fuse into a bomb, RCAF Station Trenton. 1939. (John Phillips / LIFE magazine)

Squadron Leader W. I. Riddell, walking and chatting with four flight instructors. RCAF Station Trenton, 1939. (John Phillips / LIFE magazine)

Mechanics checking a Fairy Battle Bomber outside of its hangar at RCAF Station Trenton. 1939. (John Phillips / LIFE magazine)

A landed Harvard trainer aircraft after night flying training. RCAF Station Trenton, 1939. (John Phillips / LIFE magazine)

Destroying the past

Chris Taylor — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 14:09:26 +0000

Your correspondent would not characterise himself as a fan of the Prophet Mohammed; let us say merely that the man’s understanding of the Divine is at odds with our own experience.

That said, defacing a 900-year-old mosque isn’t just insulting to Muslims, it’s an assault upon humanity’s shared heritage. Harming the centuries-old relics of a religion at odds with one’s own can hardly erase past history, and the effort says less about the evils of the target than it does about the mind of the perpetrator. The world didn’t enjoy this sort of thing when the Taliban destroyed the Bamiyan Buddhas back in 2001; it’s not any more entertaining or worthy when others try their hand at it.

The Screen Traveller: Hong Kong, Gateway to China (1938)

Chris Taylor — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 11:18:02 +0000

Here is an 11-minute travelogue showing the colony in happy times, 3 years prior to hostilities in the Second World War.

On November 16th, 1941, Canadian reinforcements from the Winnipeg Grenadiers and the Royal Rifles of Canada arrived in Hong Kong to bolster the colony’s garrison. The Japanese launched their invasion on December 8th, and three days later, D Company of the Winnipeg Grenadiers became the first Canadian Army unit to see ground combat in the Second World War.

CBC has an interesting audio account from survivors of the battle, along with some interesting nuggets of information. Perhaps most illuminating is the fact that more Canadians sent to Hong Kong died as prisoners of war (550+) than in the fighting (290).

The English Fleet at Cherbourg

Chris Taylor — Thu, 05 May 2011 22:24:37 +0000

UPON CLOSER EXAMINATION: Despite the title given in HM Flickr photostream, a more appropriate title may be “The British and French fleets at Cherbourg”. Since the leftmost ship-of-the-line is quite clearly flying the French tricolour from her main topgallant mast.

Ploegsteert Memorial to the Missing

Chris Taylor — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 11:58:30 +0000

To the glory of God and to the memory of 11447 officers and men of the forces of the British Empire, who fell fighting in the years 1914-1918 between the River Douve and the towns of Estaires and Furnes, whose names are here recorded but to whom the fortune of war denied the known and honoured burial given to their comrades in death.

Belgium, originally uploaded by traceyjohns.

Ploegsteert Memorial to the Missing, originally uploaded by Gray Moon Gallery.

Lion, Ploegsteert Memorial, originally uploaded by Redvers.

Amongst the more than 11,000 persons listed on the memorial who have no known grave are three Victoria Cross winners; one from each component nation (England, Scotland and Wales) on the island of Great Britain.

Sapper William Hackett, VC
254th Tunnelling Company, Corps of Royal Engineers
b. 11 June 1873, Nottingham, England.
d. 27 June 1916, Givenchy-lès-la-Bassée, France.

Private James MacKenzie, VC
2nd Battalion, Scots Guards
b. 2 April 1889, Dumfries, Scotland.
d. 19 December 1914, Rouges Blanc, France.

Captain Thomas Tannatt Pryce, VC
4th Battalion, Grenadier Guards
b. 17 January 1886, The Hague, Netherlands (Welsh by ancestry).
d. 13 April 1918, Vieux-Berquin, France.

Flying over the Mont Blanc massif c. 1920s

Chris Taylor — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 11:57:04 +0000

The aircraft depicted in this German film are French-built Farman F.60 Goliaths. Originally designed as a twin-engined heavy bomber near the end of the Great War, the design was later converted into a civil airliner with a capacity of 12-14 passengers.

Shaggy dog story

Chris Taylor — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 05:44:06 +0000

Doing some research into medieval scandals and papal annulments, I chanced across historical fiction author Susan Higginbotham’s hilarious description of an annulment granted to the real-life Richard FitzAlan, 10th Earl of Arundel. This beats the hell out of Henry VIII’s consanguinity argument.

In December 1344, Richard Fitzalan succeeded in having his marriage to Isabella annulled on the ground that the couple had expressly renounced their vows at puberty but had been “forced by blows to cohabit, so that a son was born.” If the Pope or his deputy had any doubts as to why Richard had waited seventeen years after the birth of that son before attempting to secure an annulment (“Well, I was going to get around to it, but . . .”), he kept them to himself.

– Higginbotham, Susan. “Divorce, Medieval Style.” SusanHigginbotham.com, c. 2006.

i.e. I didn’t want to, but my relatives beat me up until I had sex with my wife…

That’s the best you can come up with? For the Pope. Really?

If I had been the Pontiff of the day, that letter would have been framed on a wall somewhere. Cardinals would still be laughing about it today.

Avoiding history

Chris Taylor — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 13:30:26 +0000

One of the reasons I enjoy learning about human history is that the past often presents analogues to current-day situations, and someone who knows history will know what choices and alternatives have been explored already—to positive or negative effect. Those who operate without that benefit would be at risk of repeating history’s lessons. There is a certain strain of thought in the Canadian body politic that likes to imagine the past not as it actually was, but as one might have wished it to be through the lens of current opinion.

In giving way to such tendencies we partake in what Jean-François Lyotard called “memorial-forgetful history”; this is the construction of a historical narrative which distorts the story of the past into its own present image, conveniently forgetting all that might be contradictory. I’m a little disappointed that Craig and Mark Kielburger—men who have earned one of the country’s highest honours for merit, the Order of Canada—seem to engage in this practice. Writing in the National Post‘s Full Comment blog, Mr. Matt Gurney takes the Toronto Star‘s Kielberger brothers to task for having a particularly narrow view of Canadian history.

There’s a lot to pick apart in their column, but let’s start where they did. Here’s their intro:

Last month, archaeologists unearthed a street lined with sphinxes in the Egyptian city of Luxor. We have to wonder if they found any remnants of Canada’s once-strong record on foreign policy down there.

Maybe that’s a little harsh. Nonetheless, Canada’s prominence on the international stage started back in 1956 when Lester B. Pearson launched the world’s first peacekeeping mission during the Suez Crisis.

… the contention that Canada sprang into being the moment Mr. Pearson accepted his Peace Prize, while much beloved of starry eyed progressives, kind of skips over a few chapters of Canadian history. History isn’t for everyone, of course, so while I might not expect them to know much about the Reciprocity Treaty, it’s not unfair to expect to them to know that there were two really big wars — world wars, very much on the “international stage” — that Canada played a major, disproportionately large role in. Right?

– Gurney, Matt. “Would it be wrong for the Kielburgers to learn some history?” National Post, 15 December 2010.

Mr. Gurney’s snark-meter is turned up a little, but it is worth reading for the impressive list of achievements in Canadian arms and influence. There’s a lot of history that is poorly taught, dimly understood, or willfully ignored because it is contradictory to the prevailing political or popular winds. In Canada it is generally our martial history which tends to get papered-over, in our vain rush to convince the world (and ourselves) that we were born a post-modern nation, free of the bloodshed, strife and sins of the Old World. The danger in intentionally forgetting our past—even the unpleasant bits—is that at some point, a future generation will be forced to relive it—but without any benefit of hindsight, since we will have struck any potential lessons from their collective memory.

RELATED: Another little-known episode in our military history, Canada’s occupation of Iceland.

Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa Z-Force occupation patch, from the collection of Hinrik Steinsson.

Genesis 12:17, 1035

Chris Taylor — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 15:35:09 +0000

One hundred and seven years ago today, at 10:35am Eastern Time.

First flight, 120 feet in 12 seconds, 10:35 a.m.; Kitty Hawk, North Carolina] (LOC), originally uploaded by The Library of Congress.

Wright Brothers Memorial, originally uploaded by Wisconsin Historical Images.

The Wright Brothers Memorial in Kill Devil Hills, NC, originally uploaded by mikelynaugh.

Wright Brothers Memorial, originally uploaded by snapdragginphoto.