(Conclusion)
“Any way you look at it, we just shouldn’t be here.
“We should be a little cloud of smoke somewhere between Thunder Bay and Winnipeg...”
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(Part 2)
The Sun thought it was “The dumbest, silliest and most wasteful commemorative stunt in the whole hundred years of B.C. history within Confederation that it commemorates.”
The Vancouver daily was referring to the “nutty idea” of a proposed London-to-Victoria air race to be held in July 1971 to celebrate the centenary of BC’s joining Confederation.
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I bet few Chronicles readers, even those who were around at the time, remember this Centennial event of 55 years ago.
I also bet some Chronicles readers are scratching their heads—we had a centennial in 1971? Wasn’t it in 1958?
Of course, we had a centennial celebration in 1958; that’s when British Columbia celebrated its 100th year as a province. In 1971, we marked our joining Canadian Confederation.
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(Conclusion)
Last week, I introduced you to the George Medal, one step short of the George Cross which is the non-combat equivalent of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the British Commonwealth.
To date, 77 Canadians, military and civilian, have earned this distinguished recognition of valour. I’ve been trying to nail down one in particular that was awarded for heroism in the deadly crash of an RCAF bomber at Comox airbase in the early 1950s.
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"The KING has been graciously pleased to approve the award of the George Medal in recognition of conspicuous gallantry in carrying out hazardous work in a very brave manner."
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(Conclusion)
Last week, we ended the first instalment with the investigation into what was suspected to have been a bomb aboard CP Air 21 underway...
By this time the on-site examination of the wreckage was declared to be completed upon removal of items of interest for laboratory examination. These included as many pieces of the tail section as could be found having been transported for re-assembly to a vacant hangar at the Vancouver airport.
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A month short of 20 years before Air India Flight 182 was blown out of the sky by British Columbia-based terrorists, B.C had its own aerial mass murder.
Late in the afternoon of July 8, 1965, CPA Flight 21, bound for Whitehorse, Y.T. via Prince George, Fort St. John, Fort Nelson and Watson Lake from Vancouver, exploded in the sky near 100 Mile House, 170 miles northeast of Vancouver, crashing and killing all 52 persons aboard.
It’s B.C.’s worst mass murder and—unlike Air India—has been all but forgotten.
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Victoria entered the air age with a crash, 111 years ago.
During Carnival Week, August 1913, performing American aviator Johnny Milton Bryant plummeted to his death in downtown Victoria.
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As did Alcatraz so too did Victoria have its “birdman.” Whereas Robert Stroud, a twice convicted murderer, made himself famous through his studies of birds, William W. Gibson achieved immortality by being Victoria’s—Canada’s—Wright Brothers in one.
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At the time—Oct. 1, 1951—the crash of a Queen Charlotte Airlines Canso on Nanaimo’s Mount Benson was the worst aviation accident in British Columbia history. It’s now the 18th which shows you how far we’ve come in 70 years.
Although I’ve always been fascinated by old aircraft and plane wrecks are a natural extension of that interest, I’ve only managed to get to a few over the years. The one on Mount Benson, six miles west of Nanaimo, is the one that has intrigued me most of all. I first heard of it as a kid and was reminded of it in the mid-1970s as I came out of a north Nanaimo department store and saw the sun glinting on something on the southeast face of Mount Benson.