Stephen J. Thorne/Legion Magazine

Small blessings: Military marks National Indigenous Peoples Day in Ottawa

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

For years after he joined the Royal Canadian Navy in 2004, Chief Petty Officer 2nd Class Patrick Stevens, an Anishinaabe from Nipissing First Nation in northeastern Ontario, hid his Indigenous roots.

The military was a lumbering organization, far from progressive and slow to change. Being anything other than white was perceived as a potential impediment to progress in the Canadian Forces—and worse.

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 Segundaguerra.com/bing

The unfortunate fate of convoy HX-49

There is safety in numbers, so the saying goes. That was the thinking that led to the merging of two Second World War convoys headed for Great Britain in June 1940.

The first convoy of 26 ships from Canada and the United States had left Halifax on June 9, accompanied by an armed merchant cruiser and two Royal Canadian Navy destroyers. On June 13, it was joined at sea by a group of 24 vessels from the Caribbean and South America, with two escorts.

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Ukraine Institute of Mass Information 

War’s first casualty: Russian forces target journalists in Ukraine

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

Ukraine’s culture minister says 32 journalists have been killed since Russian forces invaded the country on Feb. 24, more than half the number who lost their lives while performing their jobs worldwide in 2021.

Culture and Information Policy Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko made the announcement on June 6, Ukraine’s national Journalist’s Day. It came 103 days into the fighting.

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 Imperial War Museum

A daring aerial rescue at sea

On June 16, 1943, Nazi aircraft downed a British Typhoon in the Strait of Dover, off Cap Gris-Nez in France.

Flight Lieutenant John A. Spence of Guelph, Ont., was sent to the rescue in his Walrus aircraft.

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Ukrainian Defense Ministry Press Service 

Canadian expert: Ukraine war could end Russian power, influence

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

A Canadian adviser in Ukraine says Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade the former Soviet republic could spell the end of Russia as the world knows it.

Donald Bowser, an anti-corruption specialist who has worked in Ukraine for 30 years, says the Feb. 24 invasion and subsequent offensive has confirmed what insiders already knew—that the Russian army is a hollow shell of its former self.

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Parks Canada/National Research Council

Wallace Turnbull and the variable-pitch propeller

STORY BY SHARON ADAMS

In 1902, when most of the world thought heavier-than-air flight was a pipe dream, Wallace Rupert Turnbull began research into aeronautics in Rothesay, N.B.—and went on to make a major contribution to aviation.

After graduating as a mechanical engineer in 1893 and studying physics in Germany, Turnbull started testing aircraft stability and the efficiency of various wing designs in his Rothesay workshop, which included Canada’s first wind tunnel.

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