Go For Shakedown follows my experiences through Afghanistan. It is a fictionalized dialogue between characters based on true events. It aims to capture the human side of war from the absurd situations to the complexity of actual helicopter missions; all through the development of about a dozen characters and their interactions and reactions both on the ground and in the air. Shakedown is a call-sign for the helicopter. The helicopter is a civilian pattern helicopter that was converted into escort gunships by Canada in order to “get the job done.”…
News Article / April 18, 2017 From National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces About 60 members of 408 Tactical Helicopter Squadron, based at 3rd Canadian Division Support Base in Edmonton, Alberta, departed on April 17, 2017, for northern Iraq. There, they will assume the duties of the Tactical Aviation Detachment of Air Task Force–Iraq as part of Operation Impact, the Canadian Armed Forces’ commitment to the fight against Daesh. “The Royal Canadian Air Force is proud to be part of the Canadian Armed Forces’ contribution to the ongoing fight against Daesh,”…
RAYNER, Henrietta May “Molly” Peacefully at Brampton Civic Hospital on December10, 2015 at the age of 96. Loving wife of the late Don. Will be sadly missed by two daughters and her extended family in Ontario, Quebec, Australia and Wales. During World War II, Molly cooked for and was known as “Mother Goose” to the 408 Squadron Private family services have will be held. Interment at St. Elias Cemetery Please visit the Book of Memories at www.wardfuneralhome.com
Charley Goes to War is an account of the Second World War told through the experiences of an RCAF airman from Wolfville, Nova Scotia. Glen Hancock takes us from the streets of Wolfville on September 4, 1939, to Canada’s training camps, and from there to his first operation out of No. 408 Goose Squadron until the final defeat of Nazi Germany and his return to Canada in 1945. Hancock’s memoir maintains a refreshing balance between the headline events of the war and daily life in training and on air force…
Title: 408 Squadron History ISBN: 0-920002-32-3 Publisher: Canada’s Wings Year of Publication: 1984 Author: Hardcover: Yes Dimensions: 10.5″ w x 8.5″ h Pages: 108 Comments: 1941 to 1984. Covers operations overseas in WWII on the Hampden, Halifax, Lancaster. Post War on the Lancaster, C-119, C-130, T-33, Huey and Kiowa. Many period photos, mainly B & W, of squadron personnel and aircraft.
Letter to a New Grandson: The Story of a Ww2 Lancaster Pilot Paperback – Jun 8 2014 by Wally Kasper (Author) Letter to a New Grandson, The Story of a WW2 Lancaster pilot depicts the fears, the tactics, the dramas encountered by those brave men of Bomber Command. Wally’s unique voice will take you along with his crew on missions fraught with danger. The story of a young couple in war torn England will touch the heart and bring to mind the realities of war. It is a story suitable…
Been There, Done That: Through Treacherous Skies Paperback – Jan 25 2006 by Ron Butcher DFC CD (Ret’d) (Author) It is the gripping life story of a decorated Air Navigator who, with his crew in a Lancaster, did a tour of operations in a Canadian squadron of RAF Bomber Command in WWII, spending nine months in the front lines. There are tales of night raids to Southeast Germany and 6 raids to Berlin. This milieu had up to 1 million personnel, 20,625 guns, 6,680 searchlights and about 400 fighters, a…
Argunners Magazine As Warbirds News reported back in February the combat veteran Avro Lancaster KB882 which has long been on outside display in Edmundston, New Brunswick was set to move to a new home. The local town council, which owns the former RCAF bomber, had come to the sad conclusion that they no longer had the means to care for the rare aircraft in its deteriorating state, and decided they had to pass the torch to another group, even if that meant that KB882 had to leave its home in…
408 Squadron officer wins Ironman World Championship military division News Article / January 14, 2015 Major Joel Maley is the squadron aircraft maintenance and engineering officer at 408 Tactical Helicopter Squadron (THS) at Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Edmonton, Alberta. He has competed at the Ironman World Championship in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, USA, for three consecutive years. 2014, however, will go down as the most memorable because he won the military division in the first year that the Championship opened the military division to countries other than the United States. “This is…
By RCAF public affairs Members of Edmonton-based 408 Tactical Helicopter Squadron (THS) rescued a seriously injured hiker near Cline River Heliport on Monday, September 22, at approximately 3:45 p.m. MDT. A Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) CH-146 Griffon helicopter from 408 THS was conducting a Landing Zone (LZ) reconnaissance flight in support of the 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry Basic Mountain Operations Course when it received a radio request from the nearby Cline River Heliport to assist a seriously injured hiker. Responding to a life-threatening situation, the Griffon…
