✈Bombers & Mosquitos ✈

Photo credit: Richard de Boer
The Lancaster engine run at night without the glare of the emergency services lights!

In 1999 Mom, Dad, and I hiked the Chilkoot Trail: my first summit, their second, and a shared journey of solidarity after our unfathomable start to 1999. While there are endless trail stories to tell about joining them on hikes through the years, I distinctly remember the "stuff" on this trail. The literal stuff: the decaying remains of boats, rusted out boilers, and rotting shoe soles littered the trailsides. The Canadian Park Rangers call this a linear living museum. My mom called it "junk" and literal litter. Dad and I made up stories about the people who once carried these things as their most prized possessions on their journey for gold. Either way, someday there won't be much physical evidence left along the trail. Nature has a way of reclaiming the land.

I think you have to see "stuff" in that state to really appreciate the process it goes through to go from old junk to museum artifact. Restored, repaired, refurbished, reconstructed. The same remnants you find along the trail can also be found in rehabilitated - at least maintained - shape in museums in Alaska and Canada. The same goes for historical artifacts everywhere. The pieces that tell the stories of the past were once junk until someone put time, effort, money, and a lot of passion into making them museum quality artifacts.

Dad working with other Mosquito Society members to tackle a task. The Lancaster went through this same painstakingly slow and detailed restoration process. As has most Second World War aircrafts, tanks, and other other artifacts we see in museums.

As a historian, and history educator, this is something that has always been evident to me. I've been going to museums for a long time 🤣 But real understanding of this transition came over me recently during my trip to Calgary.

By happen stance, the museum that my dad has volunteered with for more than 10 years was hosting a renowned Second World War author on my last night in Calgary. In tandem with the author's book launch, the Bomber Command Museum of Canada was also running the engines of their Lancaster bomber aircraft. One of those pieces that received time, money, love, and passion to transition from historical "junk" to educational artifact. Serendipitously I was going to be in the same place as the author and the airplane demo. The odds were in my favour.

My first trip to Bomber Command and the Mosquito Society in 2014

I've seen the Lancaster at Bomber Command several times. Standing under her wings has always been an overwhelming experience. This aircraft is SO massive. Like in an incomprehensible way. I'm a social historian. I'm usually more interested in the human stories of history than battle tactics and the mechanics of war technology. I love the individual stories of the young men who jumped into this colossal bird and flew into the extremes with full knowledge of the 40+% death rate for crew. It was combat, in the air, after all.

In typical dad pride surprise, he had been working behind the scenes to try and score me an up close and personal view of the Lancaster "run" and a different perspective on what those young airmen would have been feeling. In Museum terms, an "engine run" is when a restored aircraft runs its engines as if it were going to take flight but doesn't actually move or go airborne. (in layman terms, my apologies to my dad and all the volunteers at Bomber Command and the Mosquito Society!) Obviously, or not, this means the aircraft has to be manned! The Museum has a select few experts who know all the toggles, switches, valves, gages, and readings in the Lancaster to run her glorious engines without something going catastrophically wrong. Unbeknownst to me, there is slightly more room up there after these experts!

Finding her new home in Nanton Alberta at Bomber Command

Short YouTube video on the Lancaster

45 min. Episode on the Lancaster

The evening had been a mix of small talk and shoptalk as dad and his friends problem solved the next steps in their own restoration work. I'm listening and learning when one of his colleagues turns to me and says, "What would you say to being in the Lancaster when it runs?"

😳

I believe my actual words were "I might pee myself." I've never been accused of having good social skills! I did nod enthusiastically while I processed what he meant! I would get to be IN the cockpit of one of the biggest workhorses in the air of the Second World War while her engines spat sparks and roared into the night.

There really is no effective way to express how astonishing this experience was. The "run" wasn't flawless. Which is to be expected in an aircraft that was cranked out quickly in war time and designed to function for only about 40 flying hours. Plus the fact that it is over 80 years old! I don't pretend to know what the issues were but there were clear challenges getting one of the four engines started and then once she fired up there were calls on the radio of a liquid leak in the stubborn engine. What I am most in awe with is the calm and calculating efforts of the two experts on board who problem solved these issues with hundreds of people looking on. My heartbeat was certainly going faster than Brian and Ian's as they identified and mitigated problems over the roar of the engines. As a non aircraft educated civilian, I jumped at the words "we've sprang a leak" but their composed response was, "Oh, we needed something to fix anyway."

World War II photo but in 2024 I got to sit in that same seat! Swoon!

Photo Credit: Richard de Boer
I'd like to say I'm waving from up there. I am not. I'm lost in awe and thought.

My historian mind wandered off to 80 years ago. The crews in any WWII aircraft were tackling issues on every mission. They too would have had to stay calm, calculating, and composed...WHILE BEING SHOT AT. A wholly immersive experience for me while lost in thought, looking out the cockpit windows at blue sparks flying and a deafening thunder from the engines while also being thankful that no one was shooting at us tonight.

Video of the props going. It was so loud and only a fraction of what it would have been at full power in the 1940s.

There are only 17 surviving Lancasters of the over 7,000 that were built. Two are in flying condition and two more have functioning engines. Of those two is this beautiful "Bazalgette" Lancaster.

She wasn't always a displayable artifact to be proud of. In 1960 she was bound for the scrapyard but was saved and brought to Nanton Alberta as a tourist attraction. A real effort to restore her began in the 80s. There is video footage of a young Dick Snider free roaming on this very Lancaster while it sat in a dilapidated state on the side of the highway!

Dad crawling around on the same Lancaster when it was just a roadside attraction and hadn't yet had the time, effort, money, and passion to restore her. We were able to have old VHS tapes converted to CDs and thumb drives a few years ago.

Lancaster FM159 was rededicated to Ian Bazalgette, a Calgarian recognized by the Commonwealth for his valor in combat. In 1944 the Lancaster was hit with flak and two of four engines were out. He managed to complete their "marking" mission and then ordered the crew to bail. Some crew were so badly injured that they couldn't bail out, so Bazalgette attempted to land the plane - now with only 1 working engine and flames beginning to engulf the aircraft - in an attempt to save them. Incredibly, he landed successfully however the Lancaster burst into an all encompassing fire after landing, killing everyone left onboard. After the time, money, love, and passion of many people, the Bazalgette Lancaster is the only one in the world that operates supervised tours of this piece of World War II history.

Ironic that dad would move just down the road from Ian Bazalgette School in Calgary. The Lancaster in Nanton was dedicated in his honour. The school is a four minute walk from Dad and Lanie's place.

Rendition of Ian Bazalgette trying to both complete the mission and land the aircraft after having most of the crew bail to save themselves. While he managed to somehow land it successfully the plane was engulfed in flames killing him and the wounded onboard.

The restoration of the Bazalgette Lancaster is a legacy project of countless people. In the same giant hangar, resides the Calgary Mosquito Society and they are in the midst of their own legacy project: restoring the de Havilland DH98 RS700, a woodframed aircraft that was the fastest in the sky and had Nazi Hermann Göring stating, "it makes me furious when I see the Mosquito. I turn green and yellow with envy."

The Mosquito is dad's legacy project and it hit me today what that actually means. Their Mosquito is going to run just like the Lancaster when they're done. Her engines will roar (although much quieter as she was built for speed not force) and the story of how the Mosquito helped defeat fascism can continue to be told for generations. When they started this project they had what I would describe as a pile of "junk" (sorry guys!) and every time I see their progress she looks more and more like a museum artifact.

My first look at the work they were doing on a trip 10 years ago in 2014. When you only see it every few years I could really see the progress that they've made! It's staggering!

A few years later!

I don't have the technical know-how to explain what these corps of volunteers have done in the last 12 years. I've heard some of the stories. I've listened intently as they show me a technique. I follow the regular updates from their facebook page. I don't understand any of it. Not my realm of expertise. But I do understand their passion: for airplanes and for history and their love hate relationship with attention to detail. We are talking months on a few square inches of plywood kind of detail. I love a quote from Society president Richard deBoer stating, "there was nothing in the repair manuals for the Mosquito that told us how to go about doing this [addressing wood dry rot] as during the war, airplanes with this kind of issue would have been thrown on the fire dump and replaced." The authenticity of this airplane is going to be stellar! They even found part of the original door hatch in a random craft store. These guys seem to dwell in the minutia and love it and the final product will show this precision. I've always known my dad to be a 100% kind of guy. Nothing is half assed if Dick Snider is involved. This project is no different but he also gets to work with a group that has that same work ethic and passion.

The explanations about repairing so many sheets of plywood is mind boggling. Like I can not describe the minutia that these two guys have discussed and tackled in the last decade!

Photo Credit: Richard de Boer and the Mosquito Society

Shorter clip on the Mosquito

45 min. Episode on the Mosquito

Now I find myself at a loss for words. I am so proud of the work that dad does with the Mosquito Society that it is hard to articulate. I've been to the hangar several times over the years. Every time - as dad problems solves yet another complex issue - I try to small talk with the other members. They always have such high praise for dad's attention to detail, his ability to find solutions to new issues, and how easy he is to get along with. I could listen to their stories all day although the mechanical and technical jargon is way above my knowledge base you don't have to be an airplane pro to know he's integral to their progress. He's found his people.

While dad offers a lot of patience and technical knowledge he also brings his sense of humour to the hangar! Those eyeballs on the Mosquito are his doing!

One volunteer is the electric expert. This is his diagram of where all the cords and plugs will go and what they manage. They're slowly restoring each of those wires and cords!

I'm really grateful that I had the experience in the Lancaster. It was an indescribable thrill and honour. Even more significant than the experience itself was the dots it connected in my head about the work that dad does in Nanton Alberta with the Mosquito Society. Someday, someone will stand in awe as they watch the engines of this Mosquito fire up and with it a curiosity about the Second World War will ignite for them. I can't think of a better way for dad to honour the memory of his grandfather, dad, and uncle than to help a new generation understand another piece in the puzzle that was needed to defeat fascism. They probably won't understand all the time, effort, money, and passion that went into taking her from "junk" to regular engine runs and I guess that's ok. They don't volunteer for the glory but for their own passion and appetite for history and for a challenge. The Lancaster and the Mosquito are legends and dad's involvement with them will be a legacy.

Calgary Mosquito Society (home of the Mosquito RS700)

Bomber Command Museum of Canada (home of the Bazalgette Lancaster)

Author Ted Barris's website