415 (Prince Edward County) Wing Royal Canadian Air Force Association P.O. Box 6231 Picton, ON K0K 2T0 address:

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1 415 (Prince Edward County) Wing Royal Canadian Air Force Association P.O. Box 6231 Picton, ON K0K 2T0 address: CHOCKS AWAY February 2013 May 2013 President s Message Well spring is here, and it is getting warmer, finally. Lois and I just returned from Florida after two months which we found to be very enjoyable. In fact so much so, that we are going back again next year. During the long winter other 415 Wing Executive members stood in for me and of course did an excellent job. While in Florida I visited two US Air Force bases, Tyndall and Eglin. Tyndall pilots are being trained on the F22 Raptor which is America s latest operational stealth fighter. Of particular interest is the live air firing training which is done over the Gulf Of Mexico using remotely controlled aircraft as F22 targets..these bright red tailed target aircraft (drones) are F16s and F4 Phantoms. Once in a while one gets shot down. At Eglin AFB the testing of the F35 is in progress and I was hoping to see this infamous aircraft in flight. Unfortunately the day I was there the F35s were grounded for engine problems. A visit to the Battleship Alabama and the submarine USS Drum located in Mobile Alabama completed my military tours. Your Wing continues to do well with a membership of 83 and we have sufficient funds to meet our obligations. During the AGM held last year in Hamilton, the name of our organization was officially changed from the Air Force Association of Canada, to the Royal Canadian Air Force Association. The RCAF is back. Included in this issue of Chocks, we have the impressive story of a female ferry pilot who flew 38 types of aircraft during the war. I know you will enjoy it.please continue to bring these interesting stories of our proud history forward so they can be shared by all of us. I will continue to forward all the news I receive regarding Canada s Air Force to you in a timely manner with Ted Cullin s help. To keep our wing aware of the latest events, our new 415 Wing VP Alex Chambers and I will be attending the upcoming Regional and Ontario Group meetings being held in Peterborough. In summary, 415 Wing is doing just fine and are already looking forward to our picnic in June. Per Ardua Ad Astra Your 415 Wing President Bob

2 WING NEWS The January and February Luncheon meetings proved to be enjoyable events with plenty of good food. The homemade soups were absolutely delicious. Unfortunately, it was decided to cancel the March luncheon because of uncertain weather conditions. 415 Wing had a respectable showing at the Quinte Regional Conference held at 420 Wing in Oshawa on 2 March. Our sports team took first place and if we can repeat this in Peterborough on 5 October 2013 we will win the Temple Trophy. Jo-Anne Peckham from 413 Wing was elected to the position of Regional Vice-President. Our Wing Treasurer, Don Janes wishes to remind you that membership fees for are now due. You can make a cheque for $60.00 payable to 415 Wing AFAC and mail it to D. Janes, 1395 County Road #3 RR#1, Carrying Place, ON K0K 1L0. Please note that 415 Wing has held the line on dues despite national raising their share by $5.00 MEMBERSHIP 415 Wing extends a warm welcome to new member Dennis Margeuratt. PROGRAMS & SOCIAL The Ontario Group Annual Meeting will take place in Peterborough from May The annual memorial service honoring the 6 members of the Royal Flying Corps who died while training at Deseronto during World War I will take place on 15 June 2013 followed by a reception at the Legion. The 3 rd Annual Glenwood Cemetery Veterans Day will be held on 21 September This service honours the 6 RAF members who died while participating in the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan in Picton, and all veterans who are interred in Glenwood. PADRE S CORNER WHY EASTER So what s in a name? That man of Shakespearian fame has suggested not much really. After all, That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. True. But we do well to bear in mind that a name may be and often is of great significance. Take for example the Festival of Easter. It gained its name primarily because of Oestre, the Goddess of Spring s the Anglo Saxon primitives perceived things. Bearing this in mind, it seems appropriate that Easter the more anglicised form of the name of this good goddess of life s renewal, should be adopted by the Church become common parlance; that the name Easter is used in reference to the annual festival following the Spring Equinox each year, celebrating the resurrection and return to life again of Jesus. The name Easter is of significance for another reason as well. It is in the East that the sun rises each day, eliminating the sombre darkness of night and bringing with it a renewal of life and light. So it is that Christians as an Easter People, traditionally build their churches with the altar at the east end, so that worshippers may face the east. If isn t so positioned liturgically, and for purposes of worship, its interior is oriented ecclesiastically. This done so as you enter its doors, the altar is considered to be located at the east end. Why is this?

3 This is to acknowledge that just as a new day dawns with the rising of the sun, so a new day dawned for humanity, when the Son of God rose from the dead. By doing so, the uncertainty regarding the darkness of death and whatever terror it might hold for people, having been stripped away and our thoughts of death transformed. We may resent its inevitability. But now we see it as a part of life not its end! In figurative speech because of Easter, we view the tomb as the womb, and dying as a process which makes our renewal not just a possibility but a certainty! A means of rebirth, and so we say: THE LORD IS RISEN! THE LORD IS RISEN INDEED! THANKS BE TO GOD! God bless! Padre Stan PICKED UP IN PASSING Maureen Dunlop de Popp Maureen Dunlop de Popp, who has died aged 91, was one of a pioneering group of women pilots who flew the latest fighter and bomber aircraft with the wartime Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA). She achieved national fame as a cover girl when a Picture Post photographer captured her alighting from a Barracuda aircraft. 15 June 2012 London Telegraph Maureen Dunlop s arrival in England from her home in Argentina coincided with a huge increase in aircraft production which led to an urgent need to expand the almost exclusively male ATA irreverently dubbed Ancient and Tired Airmen. Already a qualified pilot, she joined in April 1942, one of a small pool of women ATA pilots, and rose to be a first officer. It was the task of the ATA pilots to deliver aircraft from factories and maintenance units to front line squadrons. Only during early-morning briefing did pilots discover what type of aircraft they would be flying and to which airfield they would go. The organisation had its own airborne taxi service, piloted by fellow ATA pilots, to deliver or collect those detailed to ferry an aircraft. Initially Maureen Dunlop flew with No 6 Ferry Pool at Ratcliffe near Leicester, but later moved to Hamble near Southampton, which was an all-female pool. It was there that she delivered many Spitfires to squadrons. On one occasion, just after she had taken off, the cockpit canopy blew off she made a successful landing. On another, the engine of her Argus aircraft failed and she was forced to land in a field where she discovered that a piston had shattered. With all ATA pilots flying the same aircraft and facing the same risks, Sir Stafford Cripps arranged that the female pilots should receive equal pay with their male colleagues and this small group of women rightly considered themselves as pioneers of sex equality. Many, including Maureen Dunlop, wished that they could have flown in combat, but this was considered a step too far and was forbidden. I thought it was the only fair thing, she remarked. Why should only men be killed?

4 She was one of 164 female pilots and, during her three years with the ATA, she flew 38 different types of aircraft, among them the Spitfire, Mustang, Typhoon and the Wellington bomber. However, when asked which her favourite was, she immediately responded: The Mosquito. The ATA had been founded in September 1939 by Gerard d Erlanger, an air-minded merchant banker and director of British Airways. But, with the end of the war, it was disbanded overnight. Its 600 pilots had delivered 308,567 aircraft and many felt that they were The Forgotten Pilots. Maureen Dunlop was one of the few female pilots to secure a flying job when she left the ATA. The second daughter of an Australian who managed 250,000 hectares of sheep farms in Patagonia, Argentina, Maureen Adel Chase Dunlop was born on October in Quilmes, near Buenos Aires. She held dual British and Argentine nationalities and, though she was educated at an English school in Buenos Aires for a short time, she received most of her education from a governess. Growing up surrounded by animals, she became an expert horsewoman and would often gallop alongside trains and wave to their drivers as they crossed the vast spaces of Patagonia. During a holiday in England in 1936 she took flying lessons and then, when she returned to Argentina, backdated her year of birth in order that she could legally continue her flight training. During the First World War, her father had travelled to England to join the Army, and with the outbreak of the Second, Maureen saw no reason why she should not follow his example. She travelled to England with her sister, who would work for the BBC. After the war, Maureen Dunlop qualified as a flying instructor at RAF Luton before returning to Argentina, where she worked as a commercial pilot. She instructed and flew for the Argentine Air Force, as well as having a partnership in an air taxi company, continuing to fly actively until Her other great love was horses and she was fascinated by Arab ponies. After the war, she bought her first Arab and later built up a large breeding operation known as Milla Lauquen Stud. In 1955 Maureen met and married Serban Popp, a retired Romanian diplomat, and in 1973 they travelled to England where they bought a farm near Norwich. She soon discovered that her Second World War driving licence had expired. Although her commercial pilot s licence was still valid, she needed to resit her British driving test. She surprised her children by taking five attempts to persuade the Norwich examiner that she was fit and able to drive on British roads. They were surprised she passed so soon. In England the stud grew to more than 50 horses. She worked tirelessly with her animals, carrying out physical work that men much younger than her found exhausting. She built up an outstanding knowledge of Arabian bloodlines. In 2003 Maureen Dunlop de Popp was one of three female ATA pilots to receive the Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigator s Master Air Pilot Award. Her husband died in 2000 and she is survived by their son and daughter, a second daughter having predeceased her. Maureen Dunlop de Popp, born October , died May

5 From the Mail Online 28 November 2012 Revealed: Daring RAF pilot who risked his life to fly down Champs-Elysees at tree-top height to drape the Arc de Triomphe with a giant tricolour at the height of Nazi occupation to keep French hope alive Wing Commander Ken Gatward flew down the Champs-Elysees at 30ft toleave the French Tricolour over the Arc de Triomphe Pilot then attacked the Gestapo headquarters with 20mm shells Wg Cdr Gatward awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and hailed a hero by the French government after the war The incredible story of how a RAF pilot flew down the Champs-Elysees to drop a French flag over Nazi-occupied Paris has emerged after his medals were put up for sale. Wing Commander Ken Gatward managed the 'impossible feat' of flying his Bristol Beaufighter down the Champs-Elysees at 30ft before dropping the French Tricolour over the Arc de Triomphe. The daring act was a symbol of hope to the occupied French as the Arc honours those who fought and died for France in the French Revolutionary and the Napoleonic Wars.

6 The British pilot then headed towards the Gestapo headquarters which he littered with 20mm shells - helping to boost morale in Paris when it was most needed. The attack sent the German SS troops running for their lives, to the delight of the Parisians who had seen them as an invincible enemy up until that point. The brave pilot volunteered for the dare-devil mission to boost the morale of the French and put the wind up the Germans. Wg Cdr Gatward s inspirational antics were celebrated in British newspaper cartoons and raised the hope and morale among the British and French. One of the cartoons depicted his aircraft doing a loop around the Eiffel Tower, with the word Hope written in the sky using his trail smoke. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and after the war he was hailed a hero by the French government who presented him with a huge bottle of Champagne and a Tricolour in Paris. Wg Cdr Gatward s medal set, that includes his DFC with bar and a Distinguished Service Order, have now been put up for auction after the recent death of his widow. A souvenir booklet featuring a sketch of the moment Wg Cdr Gatward and his observer dropped the Tricolour over the Arc de Triomphe with German army trucks on the ground is also being sold. James Grinter, of auctioneers Reeman Dansie of Colchester, Essex, said: 'Ken Gatward s act of bravery is a real Boy s Own story. 'He was asked to volunteer for the unsafe mission which was aimed as boosting the morale of the French and British people as well as undermine the Germans. 'This is June 1942 and the real dark days of war for the French and this was to demonstrate that the Germans weren t invincible.' Wg Cdr Gatward was chosen for the sortie as he had demonstrated a skill for accurate flying during low-level attacks on enemy positions after Dunkirk. The British had been informed the Germans held daily parades down the Champs-Elysees and he was asked to strafe the parade. He and his navigator, Flight Sergeant George Fern, took off from Thorny Island, near Portsmouth, on June 12. After reaching Paris, he flew at just 30ft before Ft Sgt released the flag down the flare shute and over the Arc de Triomphe. Mr Grinter said: 'It is an amazing story - one of those that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. 'He flew down the Champs-Elysees at second floor window height. It was an incredible act of bravery and a real audacious attack.

7 'He attacked the Gestapo HQ and SS troops were seen to run for their lives. As he turned for home the Germans came out and shook their fists at him. 'The attack gave Parisians one of the greatest thrills of the war and had a huge effect on the morale of the French and at home.' When Wg Cdr Gatward returned he entered a very bland entry into his log book to record the daring raid. Wg Cdr Gatward was awarded a second DFC in September 1944 for taking part in an aeriel attack on a German convoy in Norwegian waters. He spent 30 years in the RAF before retiring. He lived in Frinton-on-Sea, Essex, with wife Pamela and died in 1998 aged 84. His medals and other items are expected to sell for 8,000 pounds at the auction on Friday. My Trip to the Canadian Tire Store There was a bit of confusion at Canadian Tire this morning. When I was ready to pay for my purchases of gun powder and bullets the cashier said, "Strip down, facing me." Making a mental note to complain to P.M. Harper about the gun registry people running amok, I did just as she had instructed. When the hysterical shrieking and alarms finally subsided, I found out that she was referring to my credit card. I have been asked to shop elsewhere in the future. They need to make their instructions to us a little clearer! 415 Wing Executive 2012/13 Position Incumbent Telephone President Bob Bird Immediate Past President GeorgeCourt st Vice President Alex Chambers nd Vice President Clay Smith Secretary John Jensen Treasurer Don Janes Membership / Regalia Malcolm Campbell Housing Officer Don Bengert Public Relations David Edward Wing Padre Rev Stan Whitehouse Bulletin Editor / Wing Historian Ted Cullin Sergeant at Arms Ben Tinsley Sports Officer Spike Gammon Telephone Committee Lise Rolsky Telephone Committee Dorothy Heisler

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