An important day in history

On this day sixty-nine years ago - 24 Jun 1944 - Flight Lieutenant David Hornell (the hero that daddy's Air Cadet Squadron is named for), and his crew sank U-1225 while on a North Atlantic patrol near the Faroe Islands. For his skillful attack and the subsequent 21-hour ordeal in the frigid waters, he received the Victoria Cross; the Commonwealth's highest award for valour.

Action painting of the attack on the U-boat

This is the PBY-5A Canso, the plane F/L Hornell flew, there is a replica of this plane in Hamilton, ON

To honor the pilots that have given their lives for our freedom here are two of our favorite poems to remember those brave pilots.

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

— John Gillespie Magee, Jr

Impressions of a Pilot

Flight is freedom in its purest form,
To dance with the clouds which follow a storm;

To roll and glide, to wheel and spin,
To feel the joy that swells within;

To leave the earth with its troubles and fly,
And know the warmth of a clear spring sky;

Then back to earth at the end of a day,
Released from the tensions which melted away.

Should my end come while I am in flight,
Whether brightest day or darkest night;

Spare me your pity and shrug off the pain,
Secure in the knowledge that I'd do it again;

For each of us is created to die,
And within me I know,
I was born to fly.

— Gary Claud Stokor