1945-46

Pete Humphreys is killed in action. So are Ross Sturley, Johnny Hailstone, Ralph Derrick and Captain Steeves’ son Hugh. Gordy McCullough flies 35 missions over occupied Europe as a gun aimer in a Lancaster and lives to tell the story. He leads a charmed life. The survival rate for anyone in the RCAF was twenty-four percent. Many don’t survive their first trip, His squadron traveled across Canada to Halifax. Gordy had traveled across Canada with the band seven times then he did it again in the air force. When he arrived in Halifax, the squadron was split into two ships. Gordy’s ship went up to Greenland and over to England. His boat did not get hit by German U-Boats. The other one did! Like I said, he lived a charmed life.

He is pretty shaken up after the war. After a bit of a rest in Torquay he is called back for another series of missions and then the war ends. The mozzie planes (mosquitoes) would come in first and set the flares. The Lancasters came in and marked the targets. The Lancasters flew at eight thousand feet. Then the Lancasters at twenty thousand feet would drop the bombs. His first fifteen trips, I flew in at twenty thousand feet. I was in the front of the plane, telling the pilot, “Left, right, go, steady, steady.” My last fifteen missions, I flew in at eight thousand feet, marking the targets. I was stationed at Skellingthorpe, Lincolnshire. On D-Day, we bombed Caens.,” he told his son. They had missions into Germany.

Gordon Olson starts the Vancouver Junior Band.

March 28, 1946 Arthur again holds a massed band concert, this time at the Pender Auditorium. There are again two hundred and fifty young musicians ranging in age from eight to eighteen. This group consists of the West Vancouver, North Vancouver, Grandview, Point Grey Junior High School, General Gordon and the Kitsilano Boys’ Band.

Quotes from Ambassadors of Empire Season 2 Episode 4:

Gordy: “Left, right, go, steady, steady.”

Gordy: “When we played mark, which is kicking the ball back and forth in football, Norie always won. When we took up golf Norrie was a way better player.”

Gordy: “Don Endicott contracted polio in the 1950s and ended up in a wheelchair. But he had been a really good trumpet player.”

Gordy: “They just couldn’t believe how good we were. In England they had all adult bands.”

Gordy: I went across Canada nine times with the band but never played again after the age of 20.”

Sergeant: “Steady men. You have to be steady if you’re going to fight the hun.”

Rear gunner Davie: “I got a fix.”

Pilot Keith Perry: “I’m coming in!”

Airport: “No, no you can’t!”

Perry: “I’M COMING IN!”

Gordy: “I have got to get through this day.”

Gordy: “See you later.”

Gordy: “The mozzie planes would come in first and set the flares. The Lancasters flew at 8000 feet. Then, the Lancasters at 20,000 feet would drop the bombs.”

Wireless Operator: “They’ve jammed the G Box!”

Gordy about the pilot: “He was the best of us all.”