In Control

 Sepia Saturday prompt #387 shows the cockpit of a 1948 B-36 bomber. I think I have a pretty good match in my family history collection this week.

The photographs below were taken by my uncle Kenneth Forbes Morrison of other planes that were flying alongside his, when he was training to be a pilot in Canada in WW2. They are Cessna Cranes, as shown here on the Canadian War Plane Heritage Museum site. The Cranes were used by the RACF in Canada to teach recruits from allied Commonwealth countries to fly multi- engined aircraft. Ken from New Zealand was one of those recruits, as was my father-in-law Bob Featherston from Australia. Ken took quite a few snaps of his time in Canada and the US and I think that after his death either my mother or another member of the family must have lovingly placed them in an album of which I am now the keeper. I've blogged previously about Ken, the uncle I never knew.

This photograph of the Cessna controls is also from Ken's album. The clue to the type of plane it was is the word Cessna, which appears on each of the foot pedals below the control panel. 

I don't think this is Ken but it may be a snap he took of one of his fellow pilots, standing in front of a Cessna Crane and proudly displaying his graduation certificate.

After Ken qualified he went to England where he flew a Halifax heavy bomber. It was in one of these much larger planes that he was tragically shot down and killed while taking part in a bombing raid over Germany, along with all his crew and so many other young men, on 23 June 1943. 

• Last week we were in London and took the opportunity to visit the RAF Museum at Hendon, which has a lot of old aircraft on display. I don't believe they had a Cessna Crane in their collection, but they did have this unrestored Halifax, which had been salvaged many years later from the depths of a Norwegian lake. It is one of only three surviving examples of the Halifax. Here are a couple of photos I took of it.

View inside the cockpit of the recovered Halifax, which a friendly volunteer guide pointed out was very spacious, compared for example with the Lancaster bomber flown by Bob Featherston.  

The insignia of the 78th RAF Squadron to which Ken was seconded

 This restored Lancaster heavy bomber was also part of the collection

For more blogs prompted by Sepia Saturday #287, just check those dials, pull the levers, raise the flaps, prepare for take off and go up, up and away to your next destination here

"They had bombed London, whether on purpose or not, and the British people and London especially should know that we could hit back. It would be good for the morale of us all."

— Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister, ordering the RAF to start bombing German cities, cited in M. Hastings, Winston's War, 25 August 1940

It may have been good for British morale generally but it was far from good for all the families of those thousands of young men who were to lose their lives as a result of Churchill's order, not to mention all the civilians on the ground who must also have been killed.

Here is a song for Ken, Blue Yonder, sung by my favouite Canadian, David Francey.
 https://youtu.be/gOCzkekEKpQ

One in front and one behind

Cute kids indeed! Those two terrors like they would be getting into mischief just as soon as they climbed off that make-believe axe-headed horse of theirs.

I've posted about kids on rocking horses before here, and I'm presently on holidays but before I left home I found this sweet little studio portrait of my mother's sister Joan Patricia and her brother Ken. The photograph was probably taken in about 1925 or 1926, the year my mother was born. I've blogged about both Pat and Ken before. I never knew Ken, because he was killed in 1943 in WW2 at only 19, well before I was born, but my Aunty Pat almost made it to 90 and achieved much in her long life.  Here they are just innocent little children looking angelic and natural together, even though this is a posed shot. I love it.

For more posts on the theme for Sepia Saturday #384, click here.

Happy Father's Day!

We're away on holiday in England at present but back home in Australia it's Father's Day today, so here are a few favourite old photos of my Dad that I just happen to have access to online.

New father

Granddad, Dad and daughter, March 1953.

Dad with daughter Louisa

With one of his granddaughters

                 And one of his grandsons

               Happy Father's Day Dad,
           and thanks, for all you did for us!
             I know you would have loved all                     your great grandchildren too.                                       Six at last count.

            Ian Alfred Murray Cruickshank
            5 Aug 1924 - 17 February 2000

Postscript: Not to be entirely at odds with this week's theme, I just found this relatively recent photo of a husband, father, grandfather and a penny farthing :

For other posts on the Sepia Saturday theme below, click  here: