A photo reproduction of a painting by W. Avis depicts Bell-Irving and his observer engaging enemy aircraft on Dec. 19, 1915, between Lille, France, and Ypres, Belgium. [Public domain/City of Vancouver Archives]

High fliers: The legacy of Malcom McBean Bell-Irving and other Great War pilots

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

Mention parasol and one might think of Mary Poppins floating among the chimneys of London or Impressionistic images of dainty Victorian-era ladies at refined picnics and garden parties hiding their coiffed heads from the English sun.

A “light umbrella,” the Oxford English Dictionary calls it. Delicate. Fringed with lace.

In First World War Europe, however, the Morane-Saulnier Type L Parasol was a French-built, two-seat monoplane—originally a scout aircraft that, once fitted with a single machine gun, became the one of world’s first successful fighter aircraft.

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Colonel David Grebstad is deputy commander of the Canadian Armed Forces Transition Group. [DND]

Walking “Civvy Street” with the Canadian Armed Forces Transition Group

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

“We had to do better,” remarked Colonel David Grebstad regarding the services available to military personnel transitioning out of the Canadian Armed Forces, particularly ill and wounded members, after the War in Afghanistan. “We had to.”

The process took several years and “several efforts,” he said in a Legion Magazine exclusive, to hone strategies that could help uniformed men and women preparing for “Civvy Street.” It was a process that culminated in establishing the Canadian Armed Forces Transition Group (CAF TG) in 2018, an organization that’s part of a broader effort to enhance care for veterans. The group became fully operational in April 2024, and now hosts nine units and 26 centres across Canada.

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The Mynarski Lancaster, a tribute aircraft owned and operated by the Warplane Heritage Museum of Canada in Hamilton, is one of only two Lancasters flying in the world. [Stephen J. Thorne/LM]

Remembering Mynarski: A marker and a broken treeline at VR-A’s crash site

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

Nestled in a nondescript corner at the intersection of two pathways in the commune of Gaudiempré, southwest of Arras in northern France, there lies a stone marker commemorating the night in June 1944 that a Lancaster crashed in what is now the tree-lined cornfield behind it.

There were 7,377 Avro Lancasters built during the Second World War, 430 of them in Canada; 3,932 were lost. But this Lancaster, VR-A of 419 (Moose) Squadron, Royal Canadian Air Force, Tail No. KB726, was, as the stone notes, Andrew Mynarski’s Lancaster.

Pilot Officer Mynarski was the mid-upper gunner from Winnipeg who earned a posthumous Victoria Cross after desperately trying to save his trapped rear gunner from their crippled aircraft until flames forced him to jump. The rear gunner, PO Pat Brophy, miraculously survived the crash. On fire when he parachuted from the airplane, Mynarski did not.

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A young Arthur Theodore Clarkson was sent to Canada as part of the British Home Children program. He would serve Canada during the First World War.

The British Home Children who fought for Canada

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

Arthur Theodore Clarkson’s trauma began long before the trenches.

Labelled incorrigible for skipping school in order to care for his widowed mother, the boy had been removed from his family, sent to a group home, and shipped off to Canada on Feb. 25, 1909, at age 11. From there, the British Home Child—one of more than 100,000 such children consigned to life in the Dominion against their will between the 1860s and 1940s—was housed by a Tilbury, Ont., farmer.

“He was whipped and beaten so badly,” said President Lori Oschefski of the Home Children Canada organization, which raises awareness of the program and its complex legacies. “He would sleep in an unheated attic without glass, where snow came in and piled up at his feet until they became swollen with frostbite. He was still sent out to work as the infection grew, and he was soon unable to get out of bed. And the farmer later came in and horse-whipped him and dragged him out for labour.”

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Under billowing clouds of an August day in northern France, the Canadian National Vimy Memorial looms over the ridge where Canadian soldiers carved the country its rightful place in the world. Its walls bear the names of 11,285 Canadian soldiers killed in France but whose remains were never identified. [Stephen J. Thorne/LM]

Vimy today: A photoessay

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

As far as war monuments go, the Canadian National Vimy Memorial is widely regarded to be among the most magnificent, if not the most.

It is set on the ridge where all four Canadian divisions—100,000 troops—fought together for the first time, won a great victory, and thus staked their country’s place at the table and in the world.

Surrounded by battle-scarred field and forest where trenchworks and shell craters still disfigure the landscape and live ordnance renders much of it impassable, the memorial looms over the Douai Plains of northern France.

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Retired corporal Kate MacEachern takes a break at Kate’s Café in Ballantynes Cove, N.S.

[Annie Bowers]

Canadian veteran talks service at home and in Ukraine

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

Retired corporal Kate MacEachern understands the true meaning of service. To the Ballantynes Cove, N.S., native, it meant joining the Canadian Armed Forces in 2005, training as a tanker with Lord Strathcona’s Horse (Royal Canadians) until an accident left her with critical head and spinal cord injuries that transformed her military career. Her service, however, continued through to her medical release in 2014, although not even discharge papers could end her dedication to the uniform.

MacEachern has since carried out three charitable walks across large swaths of the country, amounting to more than 5,000 kilometres trekked—all to raise awareness of post-traumatic stress, something she has dealt with herself. In doing so, she has also collected over $100,000 for various military charities and similar institutions.

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