Winston Churchill's flight engineer in Bridgetown

By Geoffry Agombar

The Spectator

NovaNewsNow.com

Upon being discharged from the Canadian Air Force on medical grounds in 1941, John Affleck may well have thought his wartime adventures had come to a close. The young flight engineer was quickly scooped up, however, and set on another path, one that would place him in the air alongside some of the key historical figures of the 20th Century.

Prior to the Second World War, only about 100 aircraft are said to have attempted a North Atlantic crossing, all under ideal weather conditions. Of these, only half survived the attempt. By war's end, however, some 10,000 American-built aircraft had been transported to the front by air, shattering a geographical and psychological barrier and sowing the seeds of today's intercontinental transport industry.

This barrier was broken not by military pilots, but by a largely unheralded band of civilian airmen flying untested bombers fresh off the assembly line. These “cowboys of the sky” flew without today's navigational or meteorological technologies, braved the yet-unknown forces of jet-stream winds, often picking their route by the stars.

Affleck worked his way into the crew of legendary Ferry Command pilot Bill VanDerKloot, Winston Churchill's wartime pilot. Although the Ferry Command was a perilous post, VanDerKloot's legendary abilities as a navigator rarely placed their craft in imminent danger. “I flew more than 3,000 hours in that plane, from its first flight from Montreal to London to Cairo to Tehran to Moscow [to deliver Churchill to a meeting with Stalin], right up to it's second-to-last flight,” Affleck said in an interview. “Despite flying through enemy territory, we mostly kept out of trouble. It was our job to stay out of trouble. Not that trouble was far off. When we landed in Moscow, the Germans were only five miles out.”

Affleck remembers a who's-who list of historical figures transported aboard Vanderkloot's legendary “Commando,” including Montgomery on his way to face down Rommell in Northern Africa, Eden on his way to Roosevelt's funeral in Washington, Montbatton traveling to India and China to take his post as South East Asia Commander, and of course Churchill to numerous historical meetings in Moscow, Canada, or Casablanca (with Roosevelt).

NICE PEOPLE “For the most part, I remember them all as very nice people. Down-to-earth. You could talk to them just the same as anybody else. No authority or distance to separate you. Except Churchill, that is. He was very convinced of his special authority. If Churchill was awake, he was up in the copilot's seat. The rest of them were well behaved, and kept to the passenger area out back. But Churchill was right up in the copilot's seat.”

So, where would the copilot sit? “Oh, the copilot would just have to sit wherever he could find a seat now, wouldn't he?” Affleck laughs.

NEW DOCUMENTARY

A new documentary, Flying the Secret Skies: The Story of the RAF Ferry Command, relies heavily on the memories of Affleck and a handful of other surviving Ferry Command members to shed light on this secretive operation, so crucial to the Allied efforts. The film was made by Bill VanDerKloot's son, Wiliam VanDerKloot, Jr., a Peabody Award-winning filmmaker, and will next air on PBS (Boston), 4 p.m. on November 9.

Valley residents will be further interested to learn that Affleck spent nearly two decades in the region, working and raising a family in Bridgetown. Affleck's memories of that time remain vivid. “Everybody loved Bridgetown. It was such a congenial place. It didn’t matter if I was talking to the doctor or the guy digging the ditch. They were both friends of ours. I couldn’t think of a better place to have raised my boys.”

Affleck initially came to Bridgetown in 1951 to work as Maritime Sales Manager for 7Up and Evangeline sodas, which were distributed from the numerous Graves bottling plants then operating in the area. When a Toronto distillery bought out an apple warehouse and canning plant on the West side of Bay Road, Affleck was hired as the general manger of Acadian & McGuiness Distillery. He worked with the distillery from 1956-1970 through several years of expansion which included the construction of the brick buildings which still stand today on the east side of Bay Road. In 1970, Affleck moved to Toronto, to accept a promotion as executive vice president for both the Toronto and Bridgetown plants. “I'll tell you a story my son still tells to describe what Bridgetown was like at that time,” Affleck says. “One day my son was walking past the bench in front of the post office. Sitting on the bench was an Arab man talking to a Jewish man. Along came a black man to sit with them. And, then a white man to sit with them, too. I mean, it was just such a broad, but homogenized, community,” says Affleck. “But I'll tell you another thing, and this too I can't confirm, but it's a story I've heard a number of times: The black man and the white man both had one leg. But opposite legs. So, it was said that the two would go shopping at Bruce's shoe store together and split one pair of shoes. ”

Affleck recently made a visit to the 'Valley' to visit his two sons and their families. John is 93 years "young" and currently lives in Saskatoon where he is an avid golfer, recently shooting under his age. He still likes to travel and fly the open sky.