After 90 years, the Wartime Pilots' and Observers' Association is planning its "last hurrah."
"It's closing down because we're all too damn old," laughed Dusty Titheridge, 85, who is helping to organize their last reunion June 6 in Winnipeg.
Arthur Eastman (left) and Dusty Titheridge are looking forward to one last pilots’ gathering.
The association with members around the world was organized in 1919 in Winnipeg by a few pilots and observers who had flown in the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War. Its purpose was to foster a spirit of fellowship and mutual help. The members formed close ties during active service and kept in touch after the war.
When the Second World War broke out, some volunteered again, but most stayed in their civilian jobs. Association members would put on their berets and armbands and greet the new air cadets from all over the Commonwealth coming to Manitoba.
"Some met trains as they were bringing new recruits in for training. They'd welcome them to Canada and give them cigarettes and candy," Titheridge said.
The association grew after the Second World War.
"We all had a common experience during the war, and we hung around together for mainly social reasons." They kept in touch. From 1970 until 1992, every four years they would gather in Winnipeg from all over the world for a reunion.
"At social functions, we've swapped stories so damn often nobody believes them." During the heyday of the association, there were 1,700 members. Now, they're down to 375 members and the veterans' group is calling it a night.
"We haven't got the horsepower to run the show," said Titheridge.
"Those of us who are left are well into our 80s some into our 90s," said the airman from Britain who was posted at the Commonwealth air training centre in Brandon during the Second World War. He married a Brandon women and they settled in Winnipeg after the war.
"The constitution of our organization demands you earn your air crew badge in war time," he said "Canada hasn't declared war since 1939. We're unable to have new members," he said.
"We thought we better go out with a bang rather than a whimper."
On June 6, at 11 a.m. at 17 Wing, there will be a military parade to commemorate the association, followed by a get-together in the officers mess.
"It'll be our last hurrah," said Titheridge, who is expecting 200 members from across Canada and as far away as New Zealand to attend.
He said he has mixed feelings about their final reunion.
"I'm happy those of us who can still walk will be able to stand up there one more time."
The association has left its mark here, Titheridge said.
"There all kinds of physical mementoes of our presence," including a monument by the cenotaph on Memorial Bouelvard and stained glass windows at Deer Lodge Centre.
carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca
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