These two articles provide valuable backroom for the subject of our March 2018 meeting, the tragic September 1946 of an RCAF Dakota transport at Estevan, killing 21 airmen.

The mysterious last flight of Dakota 962

MacAdam, Pat. The Ottawa Citizen; 07 Aug 1999.

It was the worst ever peacetime crash of a Royal Canadian Air Force plane. On Sept. 15, 1946, at Estevan, Sask., Dakota 962 stood on her tail, stalled, and crashed, killing all 21 on board.

With the exception of a leading aircraftsman, 20 of the 21 airmen on board were experienced pilots and highly decorated combat veterans. Seven wore the ribbon of the Distinguished Flying Cross and one had a Distinguished Flying Medal ribbon alongside his DFC.

To this day, the RCAF does not know who was at the controls when Dakota 962 crashed. There were 20 veteran pilots on board, but no record of who was actually flying the plane. It was an open and shut case of pilot error.

Or, was it? If so, which of the 20 pilots was responsible for the error that caused Dakota 962 to stall and crash? Or, was it a ground crew error as well? Was it an error of omission by a rigger who failed to remove one wooden wedge attached to the aircraft by a bungee cord?

Air Commodore Len Birchall, now retired, recalls: "They were mostly pilots with lots of Ops (operations), full of ginger, and there was plenty to do at the U.S. bases. There were no problems en route to Minot, North Dakota, and after a real hectic night there, all boarded the Dak to go home."

Reading between the lines, does this mean the pilots partied into the night at a U.S. Officers' Mess in Minot and were hung over the next morning?

The war was over, they had survived, and now their flying assignment ferrying trainers was a piece of cake. Were they too laid back? Too bored? Too careless? Too anxious for their discharge papers to arrive? We'll never know.

The pilots were attached to #124 Ferry Squadron ferrying planes back to Minot. The planes, Cornells and other trainers, had been loaned to Britain by the United States under the lend-lease program. The pilots' routine was to return the planes one day and fly back to Canada the next day in a mother ship, the Dakota.

Dakota 962 had the usual external and internal locks for ailerons, rudder and elevators to secure the aircraft for overnight outside parking. Locks would be put in place each night and removed the next morning prior to startup. The locks were simple wooden wedges that were jammed into place.

On the morning of Sept. 15, 1946, Dakota 962 was prepped for startup and takeoff. The elevator locks were removed -- all but one.

Veteran pilots who have flown the Dakota say that with the right trim settings and takeoff power, the plane would fly itself off the ground. The pilot -- whoever he was -- probably wasn't aware a lock was still in place until he was airborne and tried to move the elevator controls.

The official inquiry conjectured that the pilot kept the plane climbing with elevator trim tabs. It concluded the pilot reached a safe altitude and probably levelled off. None of the pilots seemed concerned. They all had parachutes, but no one was wearing one.

As Dakota 962 flew into Canada, the pilot and co-pilot probably felt the situation was manageable and flew on. Estevan was the nearest airport. It was a British Commonwealth Air Training Plan station manned only by a skeleton staff. It was closed to all active flying and had no tower or ground control.

Air Commodore Birchall, writing in Air Force Magazine, speculated: "They decided to carry on, land somewhere, remove the elevator lock and no one would be the wiser."

In an interview, he adds: "The other assumption was they were doing a practice run and overshoot in preparation for arrival at their destination. Whatever their intention, they came in on a long low approach with lots of power. One theory had them doing a big bounce but for whatever reason, they tried to do an overshoot.

"With overshoot power, the nose comes up quite strongly and it required a lot of trim to hold her down ... in the excitement, they put on nose down trim which only made it worse, or they just didn't have time to correct."

Dakota 962's nose came up, she stood on her tail, stalled and fell to the earth.

Six of the dead pilots had Ottawa addresses: Flying Officer Henry Hugh Cowan, DFC; Flight Lieut. Eric John Murphy, DFC; Flight Lieut. Maurice Cuthbert; Flight Lieut. Len Edgar Turtle; Flight Lieut. Camille Bouchard; and Flight Lieut. James Pyle Jesse, DFC, an American fighter pilot who came to Canada in 1941 to join the RCAF.

In a press statement issued within days of the crash, the RCAF stated "the aircraft was seen to approach the airport normally with its wheels lowered. For some reason, the pilot decided not to land on his first approach and opened up the engines to go around again. During this manoeuvre, the pilot apparently lost control and the plane crashed. A technical examination of the wreckage has shown that the control lock on the starboard elevator was in position and had not been removed before the flight commenced."

There were more surprises to come.

Because it could not be determined who the pilot and co-pilot were, the life insurance that the air crew carried was invalid.

The matter of compensation for the families of the dead pilots was finally turned over to the office of the Judge Advocate General who, along with Treasury Board, arranged for ex gratia payments. Treasury Board records of the payments are no longer maintained by the Board or by the National Archives, as the retention period for such financial records is 10 years.

National Archives microfilms contain details and transcripts of scores of RCAF crashes and fatalities in the 40s. The film is so old and the negative so faded it is all but impossible to read. Dakota 962 is only a memory to those who knew someone on board.

The only epitaph for the plane at National Defence History Section on Holly Lane in Ottawa is a faded handwritten entry on an Aircraft Record Card -- "16/9/46 -- struck off."

Bill Baldwin, an RCAF veteran who now lives in Manotick, remembers. Half of the dead pilots were his close friends: "Indeed, Morrie Cuthbert flew me home from Rockcliffe to Dorval on my last RCAF trip to Dorval for my discharge in June of that year.

"Talk about pilot error! All those pilots on board and they took off with a locking device still on the elevator. They almost made it, but not quite.

"Half of these men were close friends as I had just left the squadron several months before."

A mass funeral service for the dead was held in Estevan. The front coffin on the lead vehicle was that of Leading Aircraftsman Bill Kirko of Toronto -- the only man on board not able to fly the plane.

Ironically, his notice of discharge from the service was sitting in a basket in a Winnipeg orderly room.

Remembering doesn't end on Nov. 11

Bly, David. Times - Colonist; Victoria, B.C. 12 Nov 2013

Remembrance Day has passed; the remembering continues.

Few families in Hawarden, Sask., a village of about 200, had been untouched by the Second World War -of those who left to fight, 13 did not return.

So it was a great relief for Melville and Olga Perry when the war ended. Four sons had served; four sons had returned.

Ross Perry, now of Sidney, the fifth son, was too young to enlist, but he looked up to his older brothers. William had joined the Royal Canadian Air Force the day the war started. Jack did two tours of operations out of Malta as a wireless operator and air gunner. Joe also joined the air force but was discharged because of serious illness. Douglas trained as a paratrooper to fight in the Far East, but the war ended before he was sent into combat.

Ross said the family waited in agony when Jack was reported missing after his plane was shot down off the coast of Africa, but he was rescued and sent to England on a hospital ship. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

On Sept. 15, 1946, more than a year after hostilities ended, an RCAF Dakota transport plane carrying 20 pilots and a ground crew member crashed at Estevan, Sask., killing all aboard the plane, including Flying Officer William Albert Perry, 28.

Among the 20 pilots killed were nine recipients of the DFC. Two more received the medal posthumously.

The youngest was 20, the oldest was 34. Most were in their 20s.

"They were very experienced pilots," said Ross. "They went through a lot during the war, and they all came back. That was the tragedy of it all."

William had a varied career in the air force, serving as a flight instructor with the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan and flying Pacific and Atlantic patrols in Catalina amphibious aircraft.

He was also part of the Ferry Command, flying planes from Canada to England for war in Europe While that didn't involve combat, it was still a task with plenty of danger. Before the Ferry Command began operations, about a hundred aircraft had attempted to fly across the North Atlantic and only about half succeeded. During the war, with more than 9,000 planes transferred to Europe, flying the North Atlantic became routine.

Canada was central to the air training plan, providing more than 131,000 air crew for the war effort. The end of the war left thousands of unneeded aircraft parked at bases scattered across the West.

William Perry and his comrades were ferrying Cornell trainer planes, obtained from the U.S. under the lendlease program, from Estevanto Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota.

The Dakota transport plane was bringing the pilots back to Estevan for another series of ferry flights. The plane approached the runway for a normal landing, then the pilot gunned the engine and attempted to go around for another approach. The pilot appeared to lose control and the plane crashed into a ravine at the end of the runway.

Investigation of the burned wreckage showed the crash was due to an elevator control lock that had not been removed before the plane took off, making it impossible for the pilot to control the plane during a landing.

It's about 400 kilometres from Hawarden to Estevan, but 16-year-old Ross was at the crash site the next day and viewed the burned wreckage. He saw the 21 caskets lined up, a memory that haunts him still.

The crash brought grief to 21 families from across the country who had seen their sons serve diligently during the war and survive. They came from across the country, from B.C. to P.E.I. One was a U.S. citizen who had joined the RCAF.

Thirteen young women became widows, some of them with small children.William and his wife, Bernice, had a two-year-old son, named Jack, after his uncle.

Despite the crash, Ross followed his keen interest in aviation, and has owned six different planes. In the mid-1960s, he made a pilgrimage to Estevan, landing his plane near the spot where the Dakota went down 20 years before.

"I kicked around in the ravine and pieces of the wreck were still there," he said. One of the pieces was the airspeed indicator, which he picked up to give to William's son, Jack, who now lives in Vernon.

Remembering for the Ross family, and so many others, doesn't stop after Remembrance Day.

"I think about it always," said Ross. "It never leaves my mind.

"Life deals some pretty cruel blows."

Credit: David Bly; Times Colonist