“Fly-in” at Warplane Museum

It’s been 75 years since Canadians first heard their names and most of them have been long forgotten, even though they played a vital role in World War II.

Canada’s famous “dam busters” came from their stock and the epic “battle of Britain” might have been lost without them.  On Saturday, a hand-full of them gathered in Hamilton to remember past.

There was a “fly-in” at the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum, for ageing veterans whose numbers continue to dwindle.

They call them “Yellow Birds.”

They carry names you might not recognize; like Finch — and Crane — and Harvard.

Between 1939 and 1945 The British Commonwealth Air Training Plan prepared more than 131,000 men on Canadian soil for war in the air.  The program also encompassed thousands of women who kept track of everything from flight time to the mechanical health of every aircraft.

“They could smash them down pretty well themselves,” Irene Sobering who maintained aircrafts in World War II said “they were just learning to fly and a lot of the lads hadn’t even seen an air plane, and they were learning to fly them -that’s how it was in the Second World War.”

Saturday’s get-together comes less than 24-hours after an eerie coincidence. On May 30^th, forensic experts in British Columbia positively identified the remains of four crew members, who took off in a two-engine Anson from a BC training base in October 1942 and were never seen again. They crashed in a remote section of forest on Vancouver Island — part of the 856 who died in training — and who were remembered on Saturday morning, more than seven decades later.