Royal Canadian Again

After 43 years, the Air Command and Maritime Command of the Canadian Armed Forces, will once again be the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Royal Canadian Navy. The Royal designation was dropped in 1968 when the military was structured into a unified service. Coverage is here and here.

The part of me that respects the heritage, applauds having the Royal names restored. I will have a family member in the Royal Canadian Air Force. How cool is that?

The cynic in me thinks this is a Harper ploy to get votes from veterans who have petitioned for the old names to be restored for many years. The fact that I think a politician might be so calculating, makes me kind of sad.

Merlin Engine

A few days ago, I mentioned Bud Wolfe, the U.S. pilot who crashed in Southern Ireland while flying for the RAF. Several pieces of Wolfe's Spitfire have been excavated from the peat bog in which has rested since 1941. The most impressive find so far has been the Merlin engine, which is damaged but largely intact. And no, it is too badly damaged to ever run again.

Unusual War Story

War stories can be strange. This one is about a World War II American POW named Bud Wolfe who was held in... Southern Ireland! At the time Southern Ireland (now the Republic of Ireland) was neutral and interned any German or Allied servicemen who accidentally landed within their borders. Read about Wolfe here. It is quite an unusual war story. The best part is that he escaped but his superiors sent him back!

IBM

IBM is 100 years old if you include the time when it was called the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company. The named changed to IBM in 1924. Here is an interesting video that IBM made to celebrate the centennial. It is a little sad though because the company clearly isn't run with the same entrepreneurial spirit of its early years. These days share price matters more than being an innovator.

Lost Train Stations

This BlogTO post reminds us that there was a time when train travel was the norm in Toronto. But, as the photo of Moore Park Station shows, even in 1909 some of the rail lines had already falled into disuse. What's with the turrets? Don Station has one too; maybe it was the same architect.

Of the stations from the early 1900s, Don Station is one of only two that were saved. It has been restored at the Toronto Railway Heritage Centre (the web site could use an update). The other station is the North Toronto CPR Station which is now an LCBO outlet and is the largest liquor store in Canada.

Toronto's Past

If you are intested in Toronto's past, this is interesting to play with on a rainy day. If the weather is nice, this iPhone app might be more useful for people on the go.

DC-3

The DC-3 turned 75 this week. It's hard to believe that there are still many (an estimated 400) of the venerable old birds still flying worldwide, such as with Buffalo Airways in the North West Territories. Every single one of those aircraft were build during an eleven year production run between 1935 and 1946. That means the youngest of the operational airframes is already 64 years old. Incredible! They just don't make them like that any more.

Little Wars

In the category of you-learn-something-new-every-day, I discovered that H.G. Wells is considered to be the father of table top war gaming. His book Little Wars, published in 1913, contains the basic rules for a game with toy soldiers. The book is available on Project Gutenberg. The full title is just great! It's so nineteenth century and oh so politically incorrect. ^_^

World Wide Web

The World Wide Web was first formally proposed twenty years ago yesterday. While there's no doubt that much has been accomplished since that time, nagging problems remain. The Web was never designed to be a multimedia content delivery system. Sound and video were simply links to files which the browser handed to external applications. Most of the Web today has to be processed by a programming language before it can be viewed. In some ways the present World Wide Web has become the problem that it was originally intended to solve, namely that information should be easily accessible with a simple interface.

Daguerreotype

I learnt a new word today. ^_^

Daguerreotype was the first successful (according to Wikipedia, anyway) photographic process. The detailed captured is just incredible as can be seen in these digital restorations of plates taken around the Cinninnati area in the mid 1800s.

The development process was nasty, though. You passed the exposed plates over heated mercury! What risks won't people take to get the perfect shot...

Colourful Log Entries

With No. 19 Squadron routinely engaging German aircraft, I was surprised by how much detail was in the log entries. Here are two examples. I did not expect such colourful descriptions of the combat manoeuvres. This only makes sense if the reports are straight summaries of the debriefing sessions where the pilots might have recounted how they attacked the enemy an aircraft. I wonder if it was common practice to those details into the squadron logs. It certainly makes for much more dramatic reading.

Long Memories

Since 1985 the Dutch have held a parade for the Canadian veterans who helped liberate the Netherlands 65 years ago. Unfortunately, this year's parade will be the last, as many of the veterans are no longer able to make the trip. But it does seems that the Dutch have long memories. More importantly, they are making sure the next generation understands what happened so long ago. I wonder why there are not similar efforts here in Canada?

VE-Day

May 8 is VE-Day and marks the end of the Second World War in Europe. The CBC reported on the remembrance ceremonies in Ottawa. The BBC also had good coverage of ceremonies in the UK, and reported that UK and other Western European soldiers, were joining the march in Red Square for the first time. The timed they are a-changing indeed! I'm glad to see this coverage, but of all the mainstream media that I follow, the CBC and BBC were the only ones to even mention VE-Day at all. How quickly we forget.

Douglas Bader

It seems I needed a refresher on Douglas Bader. He was in three different squadrons at Duxford. According to his Wikipedia page, No. 19 Squadron was his first posting after re-enlisting but two months later he was transfered to No. 222 Squadron, which later moved from Duxford to RAF Kirton. When Bader was promoted to Squadron Leader, he was given No. 242 Squadron, which was initially based at Coltishall but was moved to Duxford as part of 12 Group. All of this occurred in space of a few months from February to June 1940, an indication of how quickly things change in war.

I became curious after a tweet that Bader had been posted to No. 222. ^_^

Battle Of Britain On Twitter

The Imperial War Museum has started an interesting project in which they will post the 1940 Operation Record Books of RAF Duxford and No. 19 Squadron to Twitter. Yes, Twitter! The posts will be in real time (plus 70 years of course!) throughout the Battle of Britain period. I expect most of the posts will be quite dry (war being nine tenths boredom and one tenth terror) but I'm quite excited to have stumbled onto the project.

The Operation Record Books are not accessible to the general public so this is only way most of us are ever going to see their contents. One of No. 19 Squadron's pilots was the famous Douglas Bader and I'm curious about how often he is mentioned and the contexts, given his, er, colourful personality. No. 19 was definitely at the sharp end of the Battle of Britain so the project offers a unique insight into the period.

Wuppertal Monorail

The Wuppertal monorail system is almost 110 years old and still operational. I'll admit I was quite surprised when I read the article but it is a reminder that there are very few original ideas around. The monorail survived World War II and has an impressive safety record with only incident in 1999 resulting in fatalities. There was another, much less tragic, incident in 1950 involving a pachyderm.

Spy Traing Camp

Until I saw this Toronto Star article recently, I was not aware that there was a World War II spy training camp in the area. It was called Camp X appropriately enough. Ian Fleming is supposed to have trained at Camp X but the Wikipedia article debunks the story. Apparently the camp was considered the best of its kind. Nothing remains of the original camp except a monument.

Jumping Off The CN Tower

Here's a little bit of Toronto history from the torontoist blog about stuntman Dar Robinson's jump off the CN tower in 1980. Actually, he had already performed the stunt once before for a movie, but he used a parachute that time.

The second time was far more dangerous with only a single wire attached to an experimental braking system to break his fall. Bad weather and the wind vortexes around the Tower were other factors that he had to contend with. Both these risks are graphically demonstrated in the video using a test dummy. Dar had good reason to be nervous when he finally took the plunge on August 12, 1980.

New Wave In Toronto

It's a little known fact that Toronto was one of the few places in North America where punk and new wave music took root in the late 1970s. Most of the British new wave bands considered it worthwhile to play gigs here, which was significant because usually the only other place they played was New York City. Here are a few photographs, part of larger exhibit opening in March, that were taken by a couple of talented amateurs between 1979 and 1981. Strangely enough, I've heard the music of every band shown in the pictures.

Last Veteran

Canada's last veteran of World War I has died. He was 109. RIP.