123 The Royal Canadian Legion MANITOBA & NORTHWESTERN ONTARIO COMMAND www.mbnwo.ca LONDRY, Archie William WWII Archie was born in Minnedosa, Manitoba in 1922. He enlisted in the fall of 1941 after harvest. Being a product of the 1930’s when education for farm boys was hard to come by, Archie had taken grades nine and ten by correspondence, but did not have junior matriculation required for air crew at that time. By agreement between the Department of National Defence and Department of Education, he was granted leave and completed my Grade XI from October until April. Later, the “wet pee” (Wartime Emergency Training Plan) was established to allow for upgrading education to air crew requirements. His first posting was to Manning Pool in Edmonton where he was billeted in an old horse barn. In spite of the smell of paint, the smell of horse manure was quite evident. After he graduated from I.T.S. (Initial Training School) in Regina as LAC (Leading Air Craftsman), he was posted to 19 E.F.T.S. (Elementary Flying Training School), in Virden. Most of the instructors were old bush pilots. The planes used were bi-plane Tiger Moths. They were really primitive aircraft. He had never flown before he trained at Virden. Upon graduation from E.F.T.S. his next posting was to #10 S.F.T.S. (Service Flying Training School) in Dauphin, where he trained on two motor Cessna Cranes. During a night flying solo flight, Archie had just landed and started turning off the runway when he saw the clearance lights of another aircraft approaching from behind. It was piloted by another student flying his first night solo. Archie opened throttles wide open to get away in a hurry. When he saw Archie, he took evasive action to miss him, gave full throttle to do an overshoot, and hit his plane at right angles. His port motor chewed off Archie’s port wing swerving it around so that the starboard motor chewed off the fuselage right up to my cockpit. However, both of them were able to get out, expecting the aircrafts to explode. They took off like scared rabbits. (Neither seriously injured). He never knew until 40 years later that Fred Kolesar had watched it all happen. Fred was on night duty at #10. Following graduation from S.F.T.S., Archie was selected as a flying instructor – in as much as he really wanted to go overseas. He was posted to Pierce, Alberta Flying Instructors School. On one particular flight, flying a Cornell, all of a sudden Archie ran into hurricane force winds. Having no radio, they had no warning of its approach. He didn’t have enough fuel to outfly it, but was able to make the airport to attempt a landing. The anemometer broke at 120 mph. The wind was so strong and gusty it took the roof off the hangar and blew the guard houses over the fence. Archie was forced to land between two trucks travelling down the runway, and four airmen climbed from the moving trucks onto the wings of the aircraft to hold it down on the ground. They were the heroes of the event. A similar incident occurred while flying Oxfords out of Deseronto, Ontario. Caught out over the Bay of Quinte, it looked as if they were going to find if their May Wests (life jackets) really worked. But it also had a happy ending. On another flight with one of his students, night flying on Ansons practising S.B.A. (Standard Beam Approach), they were about 30 miles south east of Brandon, at an altitude of 3,000 feet when they ran into a severe ice storm with lightning. He had left a student at the controls and was in the rear of the aircraft trying to tune in their radio which was not functioning properly due to the storm. (Consequently they had missed a general recall). Suddenly there was engine trouble due to icing and by the time Archie was able to get back to the controls the starboard engine had kicked out and the port motor down to half power. The wings were also heavily iced. To avoid a complete stall, they had to maintain flying speed by losing altitude. The lightning helped Archie spot a small slough which seemed the only clear place to make a forced landing. The slough cushioned the plane before they crashed into the trees, tearing off both wings. There were no injuries but the crash marked one of many close calls experienced by flying instructors. Archie’s room mate, also an instructor, died in a mid-air collision between two Cessna Cranes. High casualty rate of instructors was caused by allowing students to get into every conceivable dangerous situation such as a spin off a stall and attempt to recover by themselves. There is just a split second of time when it was obvious that the student was not going to recover and it was too late for the instructor to make a recovery. Students did not learn by being told how to get themselves out of a difficult situation and it shattered their confidence to have an instructor taking control too soon or too often. An instructor had to go as far as he could with a student and let (Continued)
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