Post War Flying History

Heroes Remember

Post War Flying History

Transcript

And this flight sergeant said, “Get packing, you're going to Greenwood, Nova Scotia for your flight engineer training.” So I very happily packed in record time and I was away. And on completion of that course, I was back on Lancasters because the start of Cold War, Canada or the NATO was given part of Atlantic to patrol and also part of the West Coast. So from Greenwood, Nova Scotia air base we flew anti-submarine patrols because Canada didn't have a patrol plane as such but they had a lot of them in storage so they took them out and we used them. They weren't designed for patrols but we did use them. So I was back on the Lancaster which to me was an old friend of mine and so, but the Lancaster was soon retired and we obtained an aircraft called the Neptune from the United States Navy which was designed for that purpose but it was only a twin engine and short range so and that in due course was retired and then Canadair built a long range control plane called an Argus but by that time I had completed my maritime duties as a flight engineer so then they send me to Transport Command and we flew cargo planes from there. But I finished with Maritime Command and then I found myself as a flight engineer on a cargo plane called the North Star. It was basically a DC 4 air frame with Rolls Royce engines in them. For the most part we were given duties flying peacekeeping troops to whereve r they were needed and then, of course, Canada had two bases in France, two in Germany under the Cold War and so we supplied those bases. We supplied the Arctic bases and then we flew peacekeeping troops. We also flew mercy missions where there were earthquakes or disaster areas we flew relief supplies to them too. So I stayed with air force and retired as a flight engineer on the Hercules air craft. When they retired the North Star which was a good performance air craft, reliable but very noisy and Hercules was an excellent air craft.

Description

Mr. Kondra discusses his various flying assignments during the Cold War, and the improvement in aircraft he saw before retiring as a flight engineer on a Hercules.

William Kondra

On January 14, 1922, William Kondra was born in Prudhomme, Saskatchewan. He finished Grade 8 at his local school, and, with difficulty, finished high school through correspondence. He was working on local farms for a pittance, so he decided to enlist in the Air Force, where he trained as a bomb aimer/front gunner. Mr. Kondra's tour of duty was completed with his original crew members aboard a Lancaster Bomber, and primarily consisted of air strikes on industrial Germany. Mr. Kondra offers many insights into the technology, strategy and stresses of flying in a bomber.

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