Royal Canadian Air Force personnel work with carrier pigeons in the Ottawa area in 1931. [LAC/3388456]

From the archives: Winged war messengers

​​​​​​​STORY BY LEGION MAGAZINE

This story appeared in a February 1941 issue of The Legionary, the predecessor for Legion Magazine that celebrates its 100th anniversary this year. The piece has been left mostly as it was originally published, with only minor copy edits to correct typos or glaring omissions.​​​​​​​

From May to November 1940, 320 messages were sent from British Royal Air Force (RAF) aircraft by pigeon, and 307 were delivered.

One of the messages brought news from Holland to the East Midlands, England, in four hours ten minutes. An exceptionally good performance was that of two pigeons which were released 340 miles from home in an entirely strange direction. They had to cross two countries and a sea, but both homed, the first in 11 flying hours.

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Women workers at B.C.’s Coldstream Ranch are trucked to orchards and fields in 1946. [courtesy Museum and Archives of Vernon]

Historian Kelsey M. Lonie on WW II’s Prairie Farmerettes in B.C.

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

“We often generalize the participation of women in the Second World War,” said historian Kelsey M. Lonie, “but in a country as large as Canada, regional differences contributed significantly to the opportunities and willingness of women to volunteer.”

Such was the case of Prairie women and girls, many of whom sought service in B.C.’s agricultural sector, plugging gaps left by men and, moreover, the province’s own female workers who often pursued alternative war industries.

Now, their exploits have been highlighted in Lonie’s latest book, A Vacation for Victory: An Illustrated History of the Women’s Land Army in Canada. So named because of recruitment drives that occasionally framed the role as a holiday rather than strenuous labour, the new publication—scheduled to be released on May 19, 2026—offers a comprehensive yet nuanced exploration of these farmerettes, all against the backdrop of the broader food story in WW II.

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The battlefield of St. Julien, Belgium, photographed in 1919 (O-4653/DND/LAC)

From the archives: Dead man appears to old comrade

STORY BY LEGION MAGAZINE

This story appeared in a June 1926 issue of The Legionary, the predecessor for Legion Magazine that celebrates its 100th anniversary this year. The piece has been left mostly as it was originally published, with only minor copy edits to correct typos or glaring omissions.

“Hello, Jack!”

“My God, Tom, I buried you in France – thought you were dead!”

“Not me, Jack; this is me here.”

And Guard John Reid at the Jail Farm, Langstaff, Ont., walking into the refectory for duty at dinner hour, a few days ago renewed his wartime friendship with Thomas Armstrong, a comrade he has been mourning since the sad day following the battle of St. Julien in the fateful spring of 1915.

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One of 430 Lancasters built at Victory Aircraft in Malton, Ont., the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum’s 81-year-old Mk. X is one of only two of the bombers flying today. The other is in Britain. [Stephen J. Thorne/LM]

An armchair tour of Canada’s only airworthy Lancaster bomber, Part 2

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

For 50 hours each year, the skies above Mount Hope near Hamilton, Ont., play host to a time capsule unlike any other. Its true uniqueness lies not in its make or model but in its spirit—in what, fundamentally, it symbolizes.

Only one other—sited an entire ocean away in Lincolnshire, England—bears any resemblance, at least as far as the clouds are concerned. Together, they’re titans, transatlantic feats of engineering and the last two airworthy Lancaster bombers in the world.

Of these, however, just one is Canadian.

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Sonia and Guy d’Artois. [Wikimedia]

Love behind enemy lines: An Anglo-Canadian couple’s D-day exploits

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

“Tell 14 the Queen’s terrace is wide,” said the BBC presenter over radio airwaves on June 1, 1944. To most listeners in occupied France, the strange statement would have meant little. To Guy d’Artois, a 27-year-old Canadian agent of the Special Operations Executive (SOE)—together with French Resistance fighters of the DITCHER circuit—the cryptic code signified the news they had been waiting for: D-Day would begin within the next 15 days.

There was no time to lose.

d’Artois’ duties, alongside the Maquis groups he led behind enemy lines, were to hamper German movements in advance of Operation Neptune. Whether sabotaging rail lines, cutting communications or ambushing convoys, it was his job to occupy the occupiers around Charolles and the wider Saône-et-Loire region of France while the Allied invasion proceeded in Normandy.

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The Lancaster bomber of the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum, one of only two airworthy Lancs in the world. [Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum]

An armchair tour of Canada’s only airworthy Lancaster bomber, Part 1

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

They call her Vera—and she sings.

Her voice may not carry through the sky like bluebirds, for bluebirds cannot roar. Her stature may seldom tower above the white cliffs of Dover, for her heart lies across an ocean. An English sweetheart she is not—although the late, great Vera Lynn did surely approve.

For a few months each year—a mere 50 hours in total—a very different icon leaves its hangar at the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in Mount Hope near Hamilton, Ont., as the sound of its four Packard Merlin 224 engines churns the air. Capable of reaching speeds of 443 kilometres per hour, the beloved beast is a true sight to behold when it graces the heavens, its roughly 21-metre-long frame looming large amidst the clouds.

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