March, 2022

Of all the veterans of the Second World War who I have met and written about over the years, the one I knew the best, loved the most and miss the deepest was a Scotsman named Warrant Officer Harry Hannah, a Spitfire pilot with the legendary 602 City of Glasgow Squadron and a prisoner of war for two years. This story is not about Harry, but he is where I need to start.

Harry died three years ago at the age of 98, elegant, diminutive and dignified until the end. Over the years of our friendship we shared a unique and trustful bond that allowed me to tease out the story of his life and his extraordinary experiences, both uplifting and privative. Harry was a very reserved man — humble, quiet-spoken and not given to putting himself at the centre of a war story. Like many who saw what he saw during the war, Harry was a pacifist. His story was unique in many ways for a Scottish pilot in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve during the Second World War — the way his war started (as an aircraft mechanic). where he learned to fly (Arizona), what happened to him (shot down in his Spitfire) and how he survived (a PoW for two years including a year in solitary confinement).

To remind me now of Harry’s life and our friendship I have a few of his favourite treasures from his war years—his embroidered 612 Squadron crest and necktie, a hand-written memoir that I had coaxed him to write down in the last years of his life and best of all, his bejewelled Caterpillar Club pin and Certificate of Membership signed by Leslie Leroy Irvin himself (founder of the Irvin Airchute Company, the world's first parachute designer and manufacturer).

These cherished mnemonic objects rest in places of honour in my office and library where, as I write this story, I can see them and bring Harry to life again. But for all the clear-as-day echoes of my friend Harry, I have but a single photo of him from the most extraordinary and important five years of his life. And it’s a poor one at that—a low resolution squadron group photo with disruptive labelling ruining what little evocative soul it might have had. I found it on the internet and Harry is in it, but from this image I can tell very little about him—who he was, what he did, or how he lived. I would have loved that insight.

When Harry was shot down in 1943, he lost all of his personal records, log book, and many photographs — packed up I supposed and lost to the bureaucracy of the RAF. After two years in prison, those important documents of his RAF service would never be found. The few images that he did have that survived the war were loaned to a squadron mate to be copied. That was the last he saw of the remaining photos. It was never clear to me whether Harry had taken many photos or saved images of himself and his friends from that period. He simply made it clear that whatever he once had in the way of images was long gone. And that was that. At that time, Harry still had the memories.

It didn’t take Jeff and I more than a few minutes chatting online to realize that the contents of and the story behind Don Lambie’s album would make an extraordinary tale here on the Vintage Wings news service. With over 12,000 followers, the unique story of Lambie’s Second World War experience would fan out across the globe from Peru to Paris, from Alaska to Australia. It would be an informative and exciting project to work on.

But should we?

Don Lambie died before he even knew that his album was found. What right did we have to even have it in our possession, let alone pore over it with the intent of publishing it. It was, after all, his personal story not ours. What could compel us to tell his story, the story of a man we never met?

Truthfully, it was Jeff and Tim’s original intent to track down the owner of the album and, if he was alive, return it to him. Most antique hunters would break apart the collection and sell individual photographs to Second World War photo collectors. That is where the money is. Keeping it together was never in question for Tim and Jeff. Finding the handsome young pilot in the photos if he was still alive and returning the album to him or his family was the mission.

With the aid of the internet, Jeff managed to track down Lambie who at 99 was residing in an assisted living residence for veterans in Toronto. Unfortunately, COVID-19 protocols meant Jeff could not meet with Lambie in person. Inevitably, after a long and successful life, Don Lambie passed away on November 1st, 2020, a few days after his 99th birthday.

So now what?

If you were looking to find any record on line of Lambie’s wartime or postwar life, you would be hard pressed. Despite coming at him from many directions, all we could find was a short non-emotional obituary which came with a single photo from his 60s. There was also a YouTube link to lovely eulogy at his live-streamed funeral (due to COVID restrictions) given by his friend Bill Webster. Webster begins by describing Donald Walter Lambie as “unforgettable”. It was that word and the lack of other material about this man that convinced us to make sure he indeed was not forgotten.

Men like lambie spent a lifetime keeping their wartime memories hidden in albums or shared over beers in the Legion. Not because they had horrible memories but because only those who were there understood or were worthy of shared tales and laughter. A man like Lambie would never line-shoot or put himself at the centre of a war story. He kept his memories to himself and a few loved ones not because he was broken by them or terrorized by them, but because of honour and the mid-century social norm of modesty. He preferred to let his present day actions speak for him, not ones from half a century past.

Lambie took these photos with a small Kodak Retina or Argus camera which he clearly carried everywhere with him — winter and summer, on leave, on the flight line, on dates, aboard ship and even in the cockpit. It was clearly a passion of his. He did it to have a record of his experiences, to look back upon when it was all over, to share with his family. It’s possible he knew then, but most certainly in his middle age and older, that these three years were the most powerful and formative of his life. He photographed diligently things of interest to him, people important to him and events that changed him. It was an outstanding record, the likes of which we rarely find these days. More than 400 photographs documenting one man’s war service from enlistment to demobilization, carefully curated and lovingly kept… yet somehow lost.

If we had asked Don Lambie while he was alive if we could do a lengthy two-part photo series on his personal war experiences, he might have declined out of modesty and a degree of self-effacement. Men like Lambie, who finally managed to get into the fight in the closing months of the war, thought of themselves as Johnny-come-latelys, having missed the Big Shows like the Battle of Britain, Malta and D-Day. There was a tendency by these heroes to downplay the importance of their role in the war. But now, having saved these photos from the landfill or obscurity in a collectors’ secret stash, I know he would be very and secretly proud of what we have done, though perhaps he might have a long errata for us to deal with. Because of the inevitability of time, Lambie cannot help us tell his story perfectly. There are no living corroborators, but with a decent knowledge of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan and the wartime Royal Canadian Air Force, and with a hard won knowledge of where to look for answers, we can do real justice to Lambie’s story.

The following story and the soon-to-be-released Episode Two are tributes to a man Jeff or I have never met, but who somehow has become a friend. His is not the story of some great ace like Willie McKnight or George Beurling. It’s not the stuff of film and books, like The Great Escape or The Dam Busters , but it is unique and worth the telling. He risked his life through more than years of training, then spent just two months at war’s end in actual combat operations to clear the German Army out of Italy. Following VE-Day, he was rewarded with a period of decompression as he and his squadron mates commandeered a staff car and toured the visual wonders of the Italian Dolomites and Austrian Tyrol.

The album that once belonged to Donald Walter Lambie contained only photos of his three years in the Royal Canadian Air Force — from enlistment to demobilization. Luckily, Jeff Krete was able to make contact with Lambie’s widow Karen and after several telephone conversations, during which he explained what he had found and what he hoped to do with it, she agreed that they could meet in person. Karen, was able to fill in some gaps in Donald’s story as she remembered it.

It was the second marriage for both Donald and Karen (in 2004), they having met in a grief support group following the deaths of their first spouses. Donald Lambie was grieving for the loss of his first wife Elizabeth (Hurst) who he married late in life in the 70s. Elizabeth was the widow of Sergeant Joseph William Lapp, who was killed in action in the Italian campaign while serving with the 48th Highlanders of Canada on October 3rd, 1943. The Italian campaign would continue for more than a year after Lapp’s death and include a Spitfire pilot by the name of Pilot Officer Donald Lambie.

Karen had never heard of her husband’s lost album but expressed gratitude that Jeff and Tim had made an effort to return it to its rightful owner. She also worried that all of his military memorabilia would be lost after her own passing. They had no shared children who might consider becoming stewards for his photos, decorations and service records. She expressed her relief at finding a group of concerned and interested custodians and gifted the entire collection to the affable and sensitive Krete.

At the end of his first meeting with Karen, Jeff carried with him all of Lambie’s childhood photos, log book, pay book, service documents and decorations. For some unscrupulous memorabilia hunter this would be a motherlode to be broken up and sold off to collectors of such things. It would not fetch crazy money, but enough to make it monetarily worthwhile. For instance, a full set of Second World War campaign decorations like Don’s that can be tied to an officer in the RCAF who was a Spitfire pilot could fetch hundreds if not thousands of dollars. Instead, Karen found in Jeff and Tim two men whose solemn vow was to keep the collection together and to find a museum that would welcome a complete collection that told part of the story of the late war RCAF.

Aviation museums across Canada are well-endowed with materials that tell the story of such legendary events as the Battles of Britain and Atlantic, the Bomber Command campaigns over Germany, D-Day and the British Commonwealth Air Training Program, but little is remembered in the public realm about Advanced Tactical Training for fighter pilots at Camp Borden, Spitfire training in Egypt and flushing the last Nazis out of Italy. With this album, new windows will open on that period of the Canadian Second World War experience.

Karen Lambie also released ALL of Lambie’s childhood and family photos to us, a selection of which follows. These photos help us see his upbringing and the sorts of things that made him tick — family, church, music, scouting, sport and comradeship. It is imperative we know a little about the man before we journey with him from enlistment to victory.

Lambie’s Early Life

Donald Walter Lambie was the son of David Lambie, a ship chandler from Grangemouth, Scotland (near the western end of the Firth of Forth) and Edith Annie Bayes, of Bedfordshire, England. Lambie Sr. arrived in Canada in April of 1921, leaving behind a pregnant Edith who would follow in June after David got settled. He took a job in the shoe department at Eaton’s department store in downtown Montreal. Donald, who was to be their only child, was born that October.

One thing evident in all the photos of David Lambie, Donald’s father, is that he was a well-dressed man — turned out in waistcoats, straw boaters, Panamas, fedoras, silk ties and polished shoes. His sartorial obsession clearly rubbed off on his son as you will see later in this story — both in civilian clothes and in uniform. Even as a toddler and a boy, Donald’s clothes were stylish and clearly curated for him by his parents. Young Donald, being an only child, grew up without hand-me-downs and with his father’s Eaton’s discount was always the epitome of a middle-class boy from the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighbourhood (referred to as NDG by residents) of Montreal’s west end.

Donald had an education typical of mid-century English-speaking boys in downtown Montreal, with one exception. In 1928, his mother Edith took him back to England to visit her family. She and Donald would stay with her sister Amy L. (Bayes) Harper, the headmistress at Bolnhurst School near Bedford in some of England’s finest horse country. They remained there for two years, with young Lambie attending his “Auntie’s” school. Upon his return to Montreal with his mother in 1930, Donald transferred to the elementary school rooms of The High School of Montreal, the massive English-speaking institution on University Street near the campus of McGill University. He would later move to Iona Public School and then back to The High School of Montreal for his junior matriculation. The High School of Montreal has produced some pretty accomplished graduates over the years, including jazz pianist Oscar Peterson, jeweller Henry Birks, and actor Christopher Plummer. Following high school, Lambie enrolled in the Insurance Institute of Montreal and took a job as an office clerk with the Continental Insurance Company. He was beginning what he hoped would be a life-long career. When it came time to enlist, Lambie was granted a leave of absence from Continental. He returned to the company after his wartime adventures and spent his entire working life in the insurance industry, 16 of those years with Continental.

All the photos of Lambie’s early life are not from the album. They were provided to us by Karen Lambie. What follows however, are largely all from the lost photo album save for a number we have added to flesh out detail and colour to the narrative. It is clear that Lambie had spent many hours assembling the album covering the three and a half years of his war experience and nothing else. It was clearly important to him.

We will never know the story behind the loss of Lambie’s album. It must have been a cherished if only occasionally viewed artifact. Albums often get lost when families change. I won’t get into speculation about the album’s travels since the last time Donald Lambie laid eyes on it. One thing I am sure of however is that he was not the one who let it go to an antique store. It meant too much to him.

As mentioned before, there are several hundred photos in the album and we cannot publish them all. We have selected images from across his experiences, kept them in approximate chronological order and then researched anything we could find about the people, places and periods captured by him and anyone he may have handed his camera to. There exists so much material that we are making this a two-part series. This “episode” deals with his life from enlistment to shipping overseas and involves every part of the BCATP experience — War Emergency Training Plan, Manning Depot, Guard duty, Elementary Flying Training, Service Flying Training, Operational Flying Training, Advanced Tactical Training and Embarkation. It’s rare to come across something so complete.

The second “episode” will deal with his arrival in England, Spitfire Operational Flying Training in Egypt, various leaves, Refresher Flying in Italy, combat flying and squadron life with 417 Squadron, post VE-Day sightseeing and the journey home.

Jeff and I have spent hundreds of hours on this project — scanning and repairing photos, rabbit hole diving, sharing insights, bouncing ideas off each other and working to tell Lambie’s story to the best of our abilities. It has been a great joy and a meaningful endeavour for the both of us.

Don… we never met, but you are like a friend to us. Long may you remain “unforgettable”.

Photos from the Album

Enlistment, August 22nd, 1942

In late August of 1942, 21-year old Donald Walter Lambie, office clerk in the Montreal-based Continental Insurance Company and senior scouting master, went downtown to No. 13 Recruitment Centre in Montreal and signed on the dotted line. Being the only son of English and Scottish parents, he likely was inspired to enlist by stories of the pilots of the Battles of Britain and Malta and other legendary aerial campaigns to save the old country.

His attestation papers would indicate he had attended school on England, Iona Public School, the High School of Montreal and later the Insurance Institute of Montreal. It stated that he was given a leave of absence from the company to enlist and while he was awaiting acceptance, he was taking a troop of Boy Scouts to camp for the summer months. Clearly, Scouting was an important facet of his life. Under Item No. 28 on the form: Other information that many have bearing on this application , the recruiting officer wrote “10 years in the Boy Scouts, last 3 as Scout Leader; Plenty of company experience.” He was in good health save for a bout of pneumonia in 1939 and bronchitis in 1941. He was 5 feet 10 inches tall, but weighed a mere 154 lbs and had a chest of just 33.5 inches. Perhaps a sign of the times, the RCAF wanted to know the colour of his complexion, which was “Dark”. He had hazel eyes (oddly poetic for the military).

In summation, the medical officer who conducted his exam wrote “Good physical condition. Mentally very keen, alert and cooperative.” He was listed as A-1-B (Fit for full flying duties) and A-3-B (Fit for combatant flying duties).

War Emergency Training Plan (WETP)
University of Montreal, October 8 - December 8, 1942

Some recruits who had plenty of promise upon enlistment may have been long out of high school or college and rusty in some basic mathematical or scientific skills. Others, like French-speaking Canadians or foreign recruits, might need to brush-up on their English in order to navigate the largely English British Commonwealth Air Training Program. Before Lambie could join the proper air force and put on the uniform, he would have to take two months of refresher courses at University of Montreal.

According to Anne Millar, a PhD candidate at the University of Ottawa’s Department of History in her thesis entitled Wartime Training at Canadian Universities during the Second World War ,

…from 1941 to 1945, pre-aircrew training was part of the RCAF’s recruiting strategy. As early as 1941, RCAF officials were reporting they would not only need to “undertake the complete training” of all air force trades personnel but would also have to provide academic training to increase the educational standards of a “large part of our aircrew.” Officials recognized the high educational standard required for aircrew training—junior matriculation standing—was eliminating potential recruits who might otherwise make strong candidates. Thus, in November 1941, the first comprehensive pre-aircrew training program was inaugurated under the War Emergency Training Programme (WETP). The Department of Labour, in collaboration with various provincial governments, made special arrangements to provide a pre-enlistment “educational refresher” course in mathematics, physics, English, and other subjects requested by the RCAF for potential aircrew recruits lacking the necessary education. Under the scheme, suitable candidates selected by RCAF recruiting centres signed an agreement to enlist in the RCAF as aircrew on completion of the course and in turn, the RCAF agreed to accept as aircrew those who successfully completed their educational training. The Department of Labour provided all books, classroom equipment, and instructional staff and paid trainees a subsistence allowance of $10 per week while they were in attendance. The RCAF compiled the syllabus, set the final examinations, and used inspecting officers to supervise training. Pre-aircrew training greatly reduced the percentage of failures at Initial Training Schools (ITS) where aircrew recruits took a variety of lectures on theory and navigation in preparation for flight instruction. This success prompted the RCAF to extend academic training to all types of potential aircrew recruits. The RCAF developed a new syllabus comprised of preparatory courses in mathematics, science, and English for pilots, observers, wireless air gunners, and air gunners prior to their entering aircrew training service schools. To accommodate the expansion of the program, the RCAF collaborated with university authorities to substitute radio training with pre-aircrew training and established University Pre-Aircrew Detachments, later known as the Pre-Aircrew Education Detachments (PAED), on university campuses across the country.

No. 5 Manning Depot, Lachine Quebec
December, 12, 1942 to January 21, 1943

The first rung of the ladder to becoming a fighter pilot was Manning Depot, where raw recruits, fresh from college, high school, or the factory floor came to learn how to leave their civilian lives behind. Here they got their haircuts, their issue uniforms and learned to live without privacy, home-cooked meals or peace and quiet. Lambie, being from Montreal, was posted to No. 5 Manning Depot adjacent to RCAF Station Lachine near the shores of the St. Lawrence just a few miles to the east of his home in an area called Dorval.

According to historian Bruce Forsyth, No. 5 Manning Depot:

Opened on 1 December 1941 as No. 5 “M” Depot. The purpose of the manning depot was to introduce recruits into life in the RCAF, with lessons of drill, care of uniform, small arms training and physical training. The Depot was a large RCAF establishment, with around 40 buildings, including administration, messes, quarters, recreation, medical, lecture huts, a central heating plant, and two drill halls. As manning needs declined in 1943, the Depot transitioned into No 1 Embarkation Depot, or “Y”  Depot, previously located at RCAF Station Debert. This was a temporary stop-over station for personnel rotating overseas.

Today, the site is home to Montréal–Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport.

Guard Duty at No. 1 SFTS Camp Borden
January 22 to April 3, 1943

When Lambie first considered enlisting, it was not with the RCAF, but rather Montreal’s storied Royal Highland Regiment (the Black Watch) along with his best friend Teddy. He changed his mind and enlisted in the RCAF instead. His friend Teddy did not survive the war.

As was quite typical of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan during wartime, that newly recruited young airmen, having been processed through Manning Depot, were sent to do monotonous and simple tasks to keep them busy until a spot opened up on an Initial Training Course (ITC) or just to get them used to being an airman. By this stage in their training, recruits could march, salute, recognize ranks, polish brass and leather and keep their uniforms in top shape. They had been taught the fundamental rules that governed their time in the RCAF. One of the most common of these otiose tasks was “Guard” or “Tarmac” Duty — guarding the gates to RCAF stations and other RCAF property such as downed aircraft and broken down equipment. Judging by a number of photographs in Lambie’s album, he was sent from Manning Depot to RCAF Station Camp Borden, one of the oldest stations in the RCAF archipelago, in January of 1943 for two and half months of guard duty and whatever tedious tasks needed doing. He was lucky—some airmen were sent to factories to count nuts and bolts.

What’s special bout the photos from this period is their rarity. We hardly ever see photos from this period in a recruit’s life as they were still dazed and confused by by the shock military life and lacking in the confidence to stop and take it all in. Lambie appears not to have been any of these things. In fact, the photos reveal a man having the time of his life.

During the Second World War, the army facility at Camp Borden and RCAF Station Borden, the historic birthplace of the RCAF, became the most important training facility in Canada, housing both army training and flight training, the latter under the BCATP's No. 1 Service Flying Training School. Lambie would return to Camp Borden a year later as a Hawker Hurricane fighter pilot, there to learn how to work with the army to provide tactical air support for armoured units in a theatre of war.

Initial Training School at No. 6 ITS, Toronto, Ontario
April 4 to June 12, 1943

Following Manning Depot, prospective aircrew like Lambie who had potential for pilot or navigator training were posted to an Initial Training School (ITS). It was here that they learned the basics of airmanship, aerodynamics, meteorology, mathematics and even some simple flight control and navigation in diminutive Link trainer simulators. The results of their tests at ITS determined their next posting. Everyone wanted to become a pilot, but many would not. Truthfully, if the RCAF was short on navigators or bomb-aimers, perfectly suitable pilot candidates could be sent to navigation or bombing and gunnery schools to fill the voids. The ITS courses demanded diligence and lots of study and often required an academic background beyond the limits of high school graduates. Lambie’s mathematics refresher courses at the University of Montreal in late 1942, it would have paid off here.

Tests also included an interview with a psychiatrist, the four-hour long M2 physical examination and a session in a decompression chamber. At the end of the course, the flight or navigation postings were announced. Occasionally candidates were re-routed to the Wireless Air Gunner stream at the end of ITS. Some students, deemed unsuitable for the complexities or pressures of aircrew work might be sent to train for ground support positions. There were seven Initial Training Schools in the BCATP with Lambie sent to No. 6 ITS in Toronto, a short train ride from Camp Borden. Since all ITS training was on the ground, the schools were housed in former educational facilities and seminaries. In the case of No. 6 ITS, courses were delivered at the Toronto Board of Education building

Elementary Flying Training at No. 11 EFTS Cap-de-la-Madeleine, Quebec
Course No. 63, June, 13 to August 7, 1943

Almost all of Lambie’s pilot training took place close to his home in Montreal’s Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighbourhood—a luxury in the BCATP. Some students came from as far away as New Zealand to train in Canada, while others trained just far enough from home to make weekend visits there difficult. By early June, Lambie had just returned from a successful time at Initial Training School at No. 6 ITS in Toronto. From then on, his next three training postings remained in Quebec. The previous photo indicates that he had some sort of short leave in Montreal before heading off to his next assignment — approximately 8 weeks and 50 hours of basic flying training at an Elementary Flying Training School. In addition to basic manoeuvring — taking off, horizontal flight, approach and landing with engine on or off, etc. — Lambie was also taught some simple aerobatics such as rolls and loops. An EFTS student pilot was expected to go solo around the eight-to-ten-hour mark of dual instruction flight. Some did it sooner, and some were given a degree of leeway if they were struggling with a certain stage of flight (usually landings) but otherwise promising, but if the student was not cleared for solo flight by 12-14 hours, he could be washed out.

Again, Lambie lucked out when he was ordered to No. 11 EFTS near the North Shore city of Trois Rivières (in those days, English-speaking Montrealers would have simply called it Three Rivers). From here it was just a two-hour train ride back to Montreal. This meant that Lambie could visit his family if a 48-hour leave was granted. While at Cap-de-la-Madeleine, Lambie was involved in a minor ground collision with another Fleet Finch. Another student, LAC Barrett in Finch 4547 collided with Lambie’s aircraft (4774) causing minor damage to the inter-plane struts. No one was injured.

While he was training at Cap-de-la-Madeleine, one of his instructors, Bruce MacDonald of Nanaimo, British Columbia impressed upon him the importance of committing to memory certain procedures that might one day save his life. In writing to MacDonald’s daughter following her father’s death in 2005, he stated:

One day when I was posted to Cap de la Madeleine in Quebec, the weather was terrible. So, the recruits thought they would get the day off from flying [although some of us were sorry we could not be flying]. Out of the blue came this very quiet spoken flying instructor [who happened to be my specific instructor] saying that we were to appear in the hangar for ground instruction! In the course of that instruction, came the procedure that in 1945 helped me to save my life north of Venice after my Spitfire was damaged by groundfire. Naturally I have great affection for your father and will always hold him in fond memories.

A study of Lambie’s log book reveals the incident he refers to in the letter to MacDonald’s daughter. On April 7, 1945 Lambie was flying a Spitfire Mk VIII (AN-X, RAF Serial No. JG337) on a 6-plane attack against seven barges in the industrial harbours of Marghera to the northwest of Venice. He dropped a 500 lb. bomb and made one strafing run during which his engine cut out after being damaged by groundfire. His logbook notes do not say what happened after that, but both he and JG337 survived.

Lambie would have 26 dual instruction flights with Warrant Officer MacDonald. The young instructor would release him for his first solo on June 25, 1943 after 10 hours dual instruction. Lambie makes no indication in his logbook of this momentous occasion, just the word “Self” written in the column under Pilot. In his first solo flight, he practised only two items from the EFTS syllabus: No. 7: Take-off into wind and No. 8: Powered approach and Landing. In other words: One complete circuit.

Service Flying Training at No. 13 SFTS, St. Hubert, Quebec
Course No. 87 — August 8 to November 26, 1943

There was a series of potential disappointments/setbacks a recruit might have to face as he went through aircrew training. Following graduation from Elementary Flying Training, most pilot trainees still held on to the dream of flying single-engine fighter aircraft in the RCAF. If, at this point, he was selected to train at a multi-engine Service Flying Training School, it was likely (but not always the case) that he would eventually be assigned to a Bomber Command squadron, where life expectancy was grim, to a Coastal Command squadron where patrols were monotonous or to a transport squadron where glory did not necessarily reside. Sometimes a graduate might go on to flying intruder aircraft like the Mosquito or Beaufighter, but single-engine fighters were now pretty well off the table.

Don Lambie’s luck continued when he was posted to a single-engine advanced flying training course at No. 13 Service Flying Training School at RCAF Station St. Hubert due east of his home on Montreal Island, across “Le Fleuve”. St. Hubert, unlike most airfields of the BCATP, predated the Second World War, having been established in the 1920s as a civilian aerodrome for the growing civilian airline trade. He was now closer to home than ever, with only a half-hour drive across the massive Jacques Cartier Bridge to Longueuil and on to St. Hubert. He was close enough to date girls in Montreal while learning to fly across the river. And I’m sure he did.

His training here lasted another 19 weeks. In the first phase at an SFTS, the trainee was part of an intermediate training squadron; for the following phase, an advanced training squadron and for the final phase training was often conducted at a nearby Bombing & Gunnery School. In the end, when Lambie had his wings pinned on him on November 26th, 1943, he was fourth in the class of 68 students of Course No. 87, of which only 54 graduated, four having Ceased Training, while ten were delayed to the next course.

St. Hubert continued after the war as an important fighter base in the jet-powered Cold War and became the headquarters of Air Defence Command. Today, it is now part of la Ville de Longueuil, which in turn has become one of the most important aerospace centres in Canada, home to Pratt and Whitney Canada, makers of the ubiquitous PT-6 series turbo prop engines, Heroux-Devtek (landing gear) and the Canadian Space Agency. In 2017, Pratt and Whitney Canada completed its 100,000th engine — Aircraft flying with these engines had by then logged 730 million flight hours with 60,000 still-in-service engines operated by 12,300 customers in more than 200 countries.

Operational Flying Training on Hurricanes at No. 1 OTU, Bagotville, Quebec
Course #22 December 11, 1943 to March 25, 1944

The next stage in Donald Lambie’s quest to become a fighter pilot was conducted at an Operational Training Unit where he would learn to fly a frontline fighter and then learn how to use it as a weapon. There were two paths this could take for a would-be RCAF fighter pilot. He could ship out immediately for Great Britain where he would attend a Hurricane or Spitfire OTU, or he could be posted to Bagotville, Quebec which was the only fighter OTU in Canada. Bagotville was equipped with Harvards for refresher flying and skills assessment and the Hawker Hurricane Mk XII, a 12-gun Canadian-built variant of the British icon of the Battle of Britain. They would have to master this complex machine under tough flying conditions in a rugged and unforgiving environment. Graduates of the Bagotville OTU would then be channeled in one of two ways. Many would be posted to the numerous Hurricane-equipped RCAF fighter squadrons of the Home War Establishment and tasked with patrolling and defending the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of Canada. Other graduates, like Lambie, would be sent directly overseas to Great Britain where they would wait at the RCAF Personnel Reception Centre at Bournemouth for a posting to a Spitfire OTU in England or possibly in the Middle East, thereafter to replace pilots lost through attrition or timed-out in both RCAF and RAF squadrons.

Of the 50 pilots who started Lambie’s Hurricane OTU Course No. 22 at Bagotville on December 13, 1943 only 23 would complete the syllabus. Of the 23, five were considered above average while 18 were considered average. Eleven of the graduates, including Lambie, were later posted to Camp Borden for further training as Course No. 22B. The remaining 27 pilots who started the course were listed in a category called “Wastage” and posted out to various OTUs and staff jobs. The average for each student was 26 hours of “synthetic flying” (which I believe would be in the Link Trainer) per pupil, 64 hours of Hurricane flying (night and day), 3,000 rounds of machine gun ammo expended in air-to-air shooting and 1,800 rounds in air-to-ground.

Army Cooperation at Canadian Armoured Corps Training Establishment
Camp Borden and Meaford Armoured Fighting Vehicle Range
April 8 to 22, 1944

Trying to piece together Lambie’s path through training has been an extraordinary exercise in patience and rabbit hole diving. Without the benefit of the Internet, none of this would have come to light. But by patiently examining photographs for clues—weather, aircraft serial numbers, handwritten captions (few of these) and airfield structures, as well as poring over records such as Operations Record Books for Cap-de-la-Madeleine, St. Hubert, Bagotville and Borden and Lambie’s own logbook, we have been able reconstruct a timeline. At the same time we learned a lot of new things about the way pilots were trained in the latter part of the war. In particular his training immediately after Bagotville, was a revelation. His next phase of training was still under the command of No. 1 OTU, but at a starkly different place and course.

Lambie was one of only 23 out of 50 Hurricane OTU students to complete the course, doing so on the 24th of March, 1944. That is an incredible attrition rate—less than 50% succeeding. The 27 men who did not successfully complete the course were referred to as “wastage” in the Operations Record Books for No. 1 OTU, and their names were listed with some reasons given or places sent. Those who did graduate, like Lambie, went unnamed. It seems a bit like a shaming for those 27 to call it “wastage”.

Of these 23 graduates, 12 were posted to RCAF Station Greenwood, Nova scotia for “advanced training” (now called Course No. 22A) while Lambie and the other ten (now called Course No. 22B) were sent to Camp Borden for “advanced training” as well. According to one video I watched on Greenwood’s history, No. 1 OTU at Bagotville began sending a detachment of Hurricanes to Greenwood in early 1944 to continue their training alongside the Royal Air Force which operated No. 36 OTU (de Havilland Mosquito and Lockheed Hudson training) there since early on in the war. Lambie’s Course 22 was the third course to be divided in this way and deployed to both Borden and Greenwood for two different kinds of training. Two weeks later, the two halves of Course No. 22 would swap locations and courses.

Before he left for Borden, Lambie was granted two weeks leave, likely going to Montreal to visit family and sweethearts. Along with his cadre of Hurricane-trained pilots he arrived at Camp Borden in Southern Ontario on April 7 and on the 10th began a two-week, non-flying course on army tactics and familiarization as part of the Advanced Tactical Training Detachment, a far-flung detachment of No. 1 OTU, Bagotville. At Borden they were to train wth the Canadian Armoured Corps Training Establishment.

From day one, they sat through lectures on such esoteric subjects as the origin and characteristics of Armoured Fighting Vehicles, the Grizzly tank (a Canadian-built M4A1 Sherman), tank armament, tank gunnery, the history of the Canadian Armoured Corps, operation of the No. 19 Wireless Set (Standard in the Canadian Army), camouflage, armoured fighting vehicle recognition, and the make-up and origin of field units of the Canadian Armoured Corps. Other lectures were given on the fundamentals of the RAF’s Tactical Air Force and German Armoured Divisions, air-to-ground signals, anti-aircraft defence and some time spent in the RYPA simulator which according the Detachment ORB written by an airman was similar in concept to the Link trainer used by flight students. They would also learn the use of military maps and the grid system to help them identify targets and friendlies.

Following a 36-hour pass, the pilots returned to attend demonstrations and ride-alongs at the track training area of Borden and at the Meaford Armoured Fighting Vehicle Range (a 17,500-acre tank range 80 kilometres north of Borden on the shores of Georgian Bay). On their field trip to Meaford, they got to fire the six-pounder gun on a RAM tank, machine guns from the bow of a Grizzly, light anti-aircraft guns, and a Grizzly’s 75 mm gun. All of this shooting was at stationary and moving targets. I bet they had a ball that day!

There were more lectures and then on the 20th and 21st of April, they got back in the air again — this time as passengers in an Avro Anson from No. 1 SFTS for a flight over Borden and Meaford to acquaint the pilots with how camouflaged military assets looked like from the air. Their last morning (April 23) was spent in an open, general discussion about what they had just learned. Then they grabbed their kitbags and boarded a Moncton-based Dakota for Greenwood for some more Hurricane flying at No. 36 OTU.

Interestingly, those 12 pilots of Course 22A who had been sent to Greenwood when Lambie left for Borden arrived by the same Moncton-based Dakota at Borden the previous day to begin their identical armour course with the Canadian Armoured Corps Training Establishment.

The students of Lambie’s Course 22B were cited in the Detachment’s ORB as showing “great enthusiasm throughout the course and highly praised the course and the instructors.” The is no doubt that what they learned at Borden helped Lambie when he was eventually posted to 417 Squadron in Italy where they worked hand in glove with Canadian and Allied ground units to destroy German convoys as they fled to Austria at war’s end.

No. 36 Operational Training Unit, Greenwood Nova Scotia
No. 1 Advanced Tactical Training Detachment, April 23 to May 6, 1944

After two weeks, Lambie’s Course No. 22B switched places with the other half of the Bagotville graduates in Course No. 22A. His group flew to Greenwood, Nova Scotia, while the other flew to Borden. By the time Lambie got to Greenwood on April, 22, the weather was changing, snow was gone and winter gear was no longer needed. At Greenwood, his group would learn the fundamentals of deflection shooting, low level navigation, escape and security, and operational dispersal of aircraft. They practiced bailing-out procedures, dinghy drills and compass swinging as well as how to manage the serviceability of their own aircraft. There was some additional flying training including such things as climbing to height, squadron formations, cine gun attacks and rhubarbs (sections of aircraft flying at low level and seeking targets of opportunity).

While Lambie was there, an air-to-air collision accident happened on April 27 which killed course instructor Flying Officer Reg Brooks of Moncton and 19-year old Flight Sergeant Kenneth George Fuge Harvey of the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve. Brooks and Harvey were part of a 12-Hurricane formation practicing a climb-to-altitude (20,000 ft) at squadron strength. A farmer from the Kentville area by the name of Harry Corcoran was witness to the aftermath of the incident, stating:

“… my attention was attracted to a formation of single-motored airplanes, by an explosion when two aircraft collided in the air. They were very high when I first saw them fluttering down in pieces…”

The inquiry held afterwards noted that the collision occurred in cloud. Harvey had overshot the lead aircraft of his section because icing on his windshield had possibly obscured vision (other pilots had reported this). Harvey had turned nearly 180 degrees before impacting Brooks’ Hurricane. Lambie was flying Hurricane No. 74 in that same 12-plane formation, though it is not known of he witnessed the accident. The formation leader Flight Lieutenant Robertson was later court marshalled. Lambie was back flying the very next day as part of a six-aircraft rhubarb.

On May 5th Course No. 22B had completed the syllabus and was given two weeks embarkation leave before shipping overseas. They were instructed to report to “Y” depot in Lachine, Quebec, to be held for transport to Great Britain and No. 3 Personnel Reception Centre at Bournemouth,

No. 1 Embarkation Depot (Y-Depot), Lachine, Quebec
Embarkation leave and off to Great Britain by ship

Having completed his Advanced Tactical Training, there was little in Canada for Lambie and his cadre of fresh fighter pilots. It was time to ship him overseas to No. 3 Personnel Reception Centre, the collection site where RCAF airmen reported for duty after landing in Great Britain. Here they would await their next posting.

Following his time with No. 1 OTU, Lambie was posted to “Y” Depot. It was more an address than a place of residency. Airmen on the move would be assigned to this unit for pay and rations, but could be and would be physically located just about anywhere. On final graduation from their last BCATP school one could be assigned to this unit, but still in residency at the last school or at home until travel was arranged (usually by train), and then on the books of Y Depot while moving by train, in a hotel or barracks on the east coast waiting for a ship, and on board that ship en route to Europe. Before boarding a troop ship, Lambie was granted two weeks of Embarkation Leave. This was the case for every overseas bound member of the RCAF — a time to say goodbyes, conceive a child or maybe travel in-country a bit. All that time, he was a serving member of “Y” Depot.

After his leave, Lambie was to report to “Y” Depot which was not much more than five miles from Lambie’s home in Montreal. For the first years of the war, “Y” Depot was located in Halifax, Nova Scotia, close to troop transports, but by December 12, 1943 had moved to Lachine on the shores of the St. Lawrence River. Lambie then travelled to Halifax, Nova Scotia to board a troopship bound for Great Britain.

Embarkation, June 6, 1944

When my old friend Bill McRae and Spitfire pilot left for England in May of 1941, his convoy was repeatedly attacked en route by U-boat wolf packs. Nine of the 31 ships in his convoy were sunk during the crossing. As well, that same week, Nazi Germany’s biggest battleship, Bismarck , had sortied out of the Baltic into the North Atlantic with the intention of interdicting the supply of Britain by ship. Fortunately for McRae, Bismarck met her doom before she could wreak havoc on the remnants of his convoy.

By the time Donald Lambie crossed the Atlantic, the apogee of the U-boat menace had long since passed, though there were still U-boats lurking in the open Atlantic. They were under constant threat from long-range Liberator, Canso and Sunderland patrol bombers directed to their hunting grounds by high frequency direction finding equipment while sonar aboard escort ships kept U-boats from mounting continuous attacks. But the best defence against submarines was surface speed. With a top speed of 24 knots (44 Kph), HMT Andes travelled unescorted across the Atlantic, easily outrunning any underwater threat.

Coming Soon
Donald Lambie’s War — Episode Two

Adrift in England, Spitfire Training in Egypt, Operational Flying with 417 Squadron, End of the war and rejoining society.