As many of our members are former air force, this RCAF Association item may be of interest to some.
The RCAF Association Trust Fund has formally offered its support to the Royal Air Force (RAF) Wick Gate Guardian (Spitfire Restoration) Project. RAF Wick was home to many RAF units and squadrons four of which were Royal Canadian Air Force. You can learn much by visiting YouTube at the following link:
Some 379 personnel lost their lives while operating from RAF Wick, including 34 members of the RCAF.
One particular casualty whose loss is now a central figure in the RAF Wick Gate Guardian Project is Flying Officer Alastair Gunn, RAFVR, who flew photo reconnaissance Spitfires from Wick. He was shot down over Norway, near Trondheim, while looking for the battleship Tirpitz. He was captured, and sent to Stalag Luft III as a prisoner-of-war. While there he was one of 75 men behind the “Great Escape” and Alastair was one of 50 executed by Adolf Hitler – a war crime for which the coward avoided prosecution himself when he committed suicide, as Berlin fell to the allies.
The RCAF Association Trust Fund supports this important project to restore Alastair Gunn’s Spitfire, which was recovered from a peat bog in Norway in July 2018.
If you would like to donate to this very special project, please visit the RCAF Association Trust canadahelps.org donation page here at this link. All proceeds will be forwarded to the Wick Trust in the UK, to help them reach their goal of 60 thousand pounds sterling.
This e-mail was sent from Royal Canadian Air Force Association (rcaf_list@airforce.ca)
Royal Canadian Legion, US Branch #25 