Halifax 57 Rescue (Canada)
RCAF HALIFAX LW170 Recovery
(424 Squadron)
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Halifax 57 Rescue (Canada)
RCAF HALIFAX LW170 Recovery (424 Squadron)
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LW170 Recovery Phase I
Progress Reports
Halifax 57 Rescue
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Progress Report No.26 December 18, 2008 Registered Charity 84586 5740 RR0001
MERRY CHRISTMAS and a Happy New Year to all our Members and Supporters from all the Directors of Halifax 57 Rescue (Canada). As we approach this most festive season, with all the goodies and good people to share these festive times, we are thankful for these special moments together.
We ask that you would take some of these moments to think of today's fighting forces overseas, our men and women warriors, who are fighting for Peace and Freedom for all Canadians and all our fellow human beings in far away lands. They might not have a special Christmas with their families, because of their duties, but our hearts and prayers are with them for their safe return to their families and our country. We are so proud of them as they carry on in the fight for Freedom.
As I look back even farther to our wartime years and remember our bomber crews, I think of how they must have felt as Christmas time drew near, while they served on their dangerous combat tours from bases all over the UK. So young and so far away from their homeland, knowing that their task was going to be hard and hazardous, yet they persevered against all odds to Victory.
With that Victory came a great gift of Freedom and Peace for all of us, a gift which has become a most precious gift, for it has lasted over 63 years!
How many of you still possess a gift given to you 6 decades ago? And which gift, of all those you have received 6 decades ago, would be the one which you would love to give to your children, grandchildren, and your generations to come that would protect them and allow them to live their lives to the fullest ?
As we look forward to 2009, when we will have our opportunity to find one of the world's rarest combat aircraft, RCAF Halifax LW170, and which will be the 100th anniversary of powered flight, I am sure you will all agree this is a golden and monumental opportunity to acknowledge and give tribute to the wonderful lasting gift given to all of us by the great effort and tremendous sacrifice of our bomber crews.
We will succeed in our quest.
Press on regardless...
Karl Kjarsgaard Project Manager Halifax 57 Rescue
On to Business, These are the Hali-facts:
In my last Progress report I told you about the wonderful developments of the new agreement in principal with the owners of the sonar ship "Polar Prince". They agreed that they would be able to perform the sonar survey of the Halifax survey box and the targets already plotted in this search box, this being done while in transit to the Mediterranean for a commercial contract in the spring/summer of 2009.
The Polar Prince people also stated they could give us these services under the condition that we would pay for their services for those days required to side-step to the Halifax survey area but NOT for the whole voyage to the Med., thereby giving Halifax 57 Rescue the best prices we could receive for such high-tech deep sea sonar.
We await now for a meeting with the ships owners in Jan. 2009 in Halifax, Nova Scotia to discuss details for the Halifax sonar survey. The Polar Prince is still in refit in St. Johns as new high-tech tools are being added to the vessels equipment. I will be reporting back to you on these meetings and the plans for the Halifax sonar survey as they happen in Halifax , Nova Scotia in the next few weeks.
While these plans are on the front burner we must tell you about some interesting developments for Halifax 57 Rescue with our international Bomber Command partners and friends.
Most of you will remember our historic expedition in 1997 to Belgium to recover RCAF Halifax LW682 of 426 Thunderbird Squadron, crashed in a swamp near Gerarrdsbergen in 1944. We were successful in recovering all of the Halifax (totally wrecked and not restorable) with the 3 missing airmen still inside ! After a beautiful military burial ceremony for the 3 airmen, with all the families attending, we were allowed afterwards to save and airlift the parts recovered from LW682 for the rebuild of the RAF Halifax NA337 being restored in Trenton, Ontario.
Those "not usable" aluminium (British spelling) parts from LW682, because of their historic significance and provenance, were saved and melted down into ingots and shipped back to Trenton. Later on these ingots ( 79 ingots totally 1,700 pounds) were donated by the 426 Squadron Association to "Canada's Bomber Command Memorial - The Nanton Lancaster Society Air Museum" for future memorial use in the making of plaques, statues, and memorial medallions.
Fast forward to November this year when yours truly was talking to Douglas Radcliffe MBE, Secretary of Bomber Command Association (also proud wartime Wireless Operator for RCAF 425 Alouette Squadron ), about their exciting new plans to build a Bomber Command Memorial in the center of London, England. This Memorial would be unique as the only memorial ever to pay tribute to the 55,000 airmen killed on bomber operations (over 9900 of these airmen killed-in-action were from Canada).
When I mentioned that our Nanton Museum was the repository for these historic bomber ingots and ventured the idea that they could be utilized in this most important memorial's construction we immediately agreed we should meet in London to discuss this unique situation.
I must add that the Directors of the Nanton Museum were most supportive of this idea to share the ingots of Halifax LW682 for the Bomber Command Memorial in London and sent me off to this meeting with their enthusiastic support and encouragement including a formal letter of support from Nanton's Museum President Rob Pedersen.
So on Nov. 17th 2008 at the prestigious RAF Club in London we had a most enjoyable and important meeting of Douglas Radcliffe of the Bomber Command Association, James Dooley of the Hertitage Foundation, Gordon Rayner -The Daily Telegraph newspaper Chief Reporter, and yours truly toting a Halifax 10 kilogram aluminium ingot, in which we discussed the very positive possibilities of using these historic Bomber Command Halifax ingots in the actual construction of THE Bomber Command Memorial of England.
We are hopeful, that in light of the Canadian contribution to Bomber Command (over 20% of the bomber crews of RAF Bomber Command were from Canada) as well as that of all our Commonwealth comrades of Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, that the planning and design committee for this unique memorial in London will find a way to incorporate this historic metal into their design. Certainly the proposed contribution of such precious metal was enthusiastically received by all in November and we hope to work closely with the Bomber Command Association on this wonderful tribute to our Bomber boys.
(Please note that as of the date of this report the Bomber Command Association has raised over 700,000 pounds sterling for the Bomber Command Memorial with their target of 1 million pounds almost in sight ! ) Just do a Google search under "Bomber Command Memorial" and you will find out all the latest news about this wonderful memorial project.
With regard to our partners and friends at the Nanton Lancaster Society Museum we have some nice high-tech news that they have set up a digital-colour newsletter that is hot off the presses. It will be available soon on their Nanton Lancaster Museum website and as a Christmas treat I have included the NEW Nanton Museum colour newsletter link which is :
http://www.57rescuecanada.com/ProgressReports/Nanton_Museum_newsletter_2008.pdf
(or you can just go to the Halifax 57 Rescue site main-page and click on "Nanton Museum Newsletter" just below the Progress Reports )
In closing we hope you will keep the faith as we do, remembering that all your donations to Halifax 57 Rescue (Canada) of cash or stocks, bonds, and securities are all tax deductible. Any donations sent before Dec. 31, 2008 will credited to the 2008 tax year so that you will get a registered tax deduction in the next few weeks. Thanks again for your support.
2009 will be an exciting year for all of us and we thank you for your continuing support as we get ready to make some history of our own.
RCAF Halifax LW170 is out there and she waits for us.
MERRY CHRISTMAS with Health, Happiness, and HALIFAX for all of you in the NEW YEAR
Sincerely, Karl Kjarsgaard Project Manager Halifax 57 Rescue (Canada) Registered Charity : 84586 5740 RR 0001
Halifax 57 Rescue (Canada) Halifax 57 Rescue (Canada) P.O. Box 606 Unit 31C – 174 Colonnade Road Nanton, AB Ottawa, ON T0L 1R0 K2E 7J5 Phone 403 - 603 - 8592 Phone 613 – 863 – 1942 Or 613 – 226 – 4884
email: 57rescuecanada@rogers.com
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