Reid,J.W.("windy") D.F.C. RCAF/RAF Group Captain WW2

[JohnReid]

His story ! Dedicated to my dad.:)

[JohnReid]

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[JohnReid]

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[innuendo]

Was he not also at one time the owner of a Staggerwing Beech? Remember him with high regard from AC. :ok:

[JohnReid]

I addition to the 29 Travelair,he also had a Skybolt and a Pitts during the '80s.

[JohnReid]

Shot down 2 confirmed He177 near Le Havre on 13/14 June 1944 and a Ju 88 south of Rouen on 25/26 July 1944.

His aircraft on the first occasion was MM560 KP-F, on the second MM587, both NFXIIIs.
The other two were probables as there were no explosions seen on the gun cameras.I prefer to believe my dad.

Group Captain J.W. (Windy) Reid D.F.C. (U.S.A.)

-instructor RCAF Central Flying School
-RAF Ferry Command
-Wing Commander RCAF409 Night Fighter Squadron
-RAF 1425 Flight
-RAF 511 Squadron
-Wing Commander 442 "City of Vancouver" Squadron
-Wing Commander 401 "City of Westmount" Squadron

In his personal logbook he has over 50 types of military aircraft that he flew before and during the war.

[JohnReid]

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[JohnReid]

Old Friends and other stuff ! 70 years of personal memories about my involvement in aviation. Some of which was told to me but most things I actually remember.http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/images/smilies/smile.gif You guys might find it interesting and I want to get it down before I forget !

[JohnReid]

You might say that I was born into aviation on Nov 15,1940 at Barrie Ontario near Camp Borden ,where my dad was a RCAF flying instructor.
On that day my dad, on the pretext of "checking the air for night flying students", he did a "Victory roll" over the hospital . This of course was told to me but I know that it is accurate as I have his original RCAF logbook.

[JohnReid]

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[JohnReid]

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[JohnReid]

The following is in no particular order.

[JohnReid]

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[JohnReid]

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[JohnReid]

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[JohnReid]

This may be getting a bit confusing. JLW was re-built in Montreal as a model D4D,then it went with dad to Toronto ,then to his snowbird home in Daytona Beach.After his death it was donated to the Canadian Warplane Heritage in Hamilton .Many years later it was disassembled and trucked to the Reynolds Museum in Alberta, where it was converted back to a D4000 and got a new paint job more in keeping with its antique style.

[JohnReid]

Why bother ? You know we all get pretty blase about our own history, as we are all so busy just living it.How many times though have you heard, damn wouldn't it be nice to have a description or picture of this or that ? That exact color of .............or whatever.
Future historians will have it a lot easier to get the facts right than in the past but for the flavor of the times you need eye witness accounts.The first hundred years of aviation or anything else to do with that century of rapid innovation, will in the future be of very keen interest to a lot of people.I think that it is important to get this stuff down and stored somewhere in cyberspace ,while you can !

[JohnReid]

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[JohnReid]

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[JohnReid]

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[JohnReid]

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[JohnReid]

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[JohnReid]

Why the American DFC ? Dad never talked much about his wartime experiences but through some of his fighter pilot buds I finally found out about his DFC.One of the reasons he was awarded it is the following:

It seems that while patrolling the English Channel he overheard a conversation between a wounded American fighter pilot and his home base.He dove down and intercepted the wounded flier who was now slipping in and out of consciousness from loss of blood.Dad flew up along side and was encouraging the pilot to fight to remain conscious singing dirty air force songs with him and even bumping his wingtip.He stayed with him until he finally crashed into the sea and was KIA.
The whole episode was heard on the radio back at fighter command and I guess they wanted to formally recognize the event.The one problem was that breaking formation especially by the leader was against British air force regulations, no matter what the reason and he could have been called to account for it.Luckily for dad they officially ignored the whole thing as they couldn't be seen as rewarding him for breaking regulations. So that is where the Americans stepped in and said it was for helping them set up their own night fighter squadron or something to that effect.
This account was later verified to me by the sister of the American pilot.

[JohnReid]

Another interesting story overheard by my son who attended a fighter pilots reunion with my dad many years ago was:
Sitting at a table after a few drinks they got to talking about their wartime adventures.One guy was relating how he was shot down and was being strafed on the ground by a Nazi fighter pilot and along came a buddy and forced the enemy to break it off .He swore that if he ever saw that guy he would buy him a case of scotch.Another pilot sitting there overheard this a said ,hey I am sure that was me ! They couldn't believe it so they checked their log books and sure enough the proof was there.

[JohnReid]

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[JohnReid]

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[JohnReid]

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[JohnReid]

Harold Krier. This man ,Harold Krier,was the best aerobatic pilot that I have ever watched perform.When the National Airshows was blazing the skies along the border states , I finally got to meet him.Dad was close friends with Harold and even assisted him to obtain an ex-RCAF Chipmunk.

[JohnReid]

The cone of silence ! http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/images/smilies/smile.gifHere is a funny little incident that was related to me the other day by another old timer.It seems that while flying the radio range a crew passed over the range inbound.When the pilot reduced power both engines quit,he then powered up again and the engines roared back to life.Someone was heard to say "Damn now that's a cone of silence".Seems the the engine controls were rigged improperly and the engines quit at low RPM.You younger aviators may not get it,just ask some old timer to explain.

[JohnReid]

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[JohnReid]

I can remember like it was yesterday,dad and I holding the poles with a ribbon attached to a string that was placed in the middle.Harold would fly by inverted,both hands out of the cockpit and grab the ribbon.(I think that he carried a spare in his pocket)

[pigboat]

John, I had the great pleasure of meeting your dad back in the late 1960's. The Simard family of Montreal owned a Cessna 185, CF-SZU, on floats that they used to travel to their salmon fishing club on the Washacoutai River, and you dad would fly them in there with it. He'd pick the family up in either Sept-Iles or Havre St. Pierre, which is where I met him. That Cessna had to be the best equipped and maintained 185 around, fully IFR equipped, including an ILS! The family sold it to Northern Wings about 1970, and I picked the airplane up at their private dock on Ile Bizard and ferried it back to Sept-Iles.

[JohnReid]

Nice to hear from you !
Dad loved anything do to with flying,it was his passion.He was a true aviator of the old school.If he wasn't researching and reading about it he was doing it.
It never seemed to be enough for him just to fly for TCA /Air Canada.He continued after the war to be invovled with the RCAF auxiliary for many years during the cold war where his rose to the rank of Group Captain,flying Vampires and Harvards on practise intercept missions involving the USAF.The RCAF summer camp was always on his schedule and he started the 401 Sqnd pipe band by stealing their pipe major ,Jock Laurie,from the Black Watch.
Yes.he loved bush flying too, both here in Canada and in Africa, salmon fishing and big game hunting .
Dad also was training corporate pilots on the side.He started a company called RANCO with ace pilot Jeff Northcott and Ralph Allen.I can still remember him disguising his voice on the radio so that his fellow TCA pilots wouldn't recognize him.
In his later years he would often call me and off we would go to watch the RC guys do their thing.At the time of his passing he was building(or having
built) an RC Travelair and a Skybolt which I still have.He packed a lot into those 67 years of his.

[JohnReid]

During the years of the Concorde development,through his old overseas buddy network, he got involved with that too , training and test flying.
Started on a Fleet Finch and ended with the Concorde.Not bad for a depression kid from Sidney Nova Scotia.:)

[JohnReid]

Dad ,fourth from the right in this pic,trying to look cool at the Sidney Flying Club in the mid 30's.The fellow on the extreme left was his flying instructor,Lindsay Rood who became VP of operations at TCA/Air Canada and on the extreme left is Alfie Cockle a good friend who I got to fly with many years later.

[JohnReid]

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[JohnReid]

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[JohnReid]

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[JohnReid]

When the conditions were right I have also seen him take off from one end of the runway with Charlie Hillard at the other end,in a super cub heading straight for one another and then both do a climbing quarter roll at the last moment to clear wing tips.
He would also often finish his routine by climbing a couple of thousand feet ,shut down the engine ,spin and land dead stick and taxi right up to where Bill Sweet was standing announcing the show.No sweat,literally !
I can still see him in the cockpit headed straight for the ground where dad and I stood with the poles and not knowing if he would pull it out negative or positive or even at all!http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/images/smilies/unsure.gif

[JohnReid]

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[JohnReid]

Things were a lot different in the early days.Whenever I traveled I always tried to get "up front" with the crew and ride in the jump seat.Actually my first recollection of flying was sitting on the knee of the captain of a Super Connie and actually handling the controls flying back from YVR.
Out of Barbados I actually got to sit in the left seat of a "North Star" and fly it.I remember my mother saying to me as I returned to the passenger cabin " I thought that there was something going on weaving through the sky like that".I hardly ever remember flying without grabbing the jump seat especially for landing and take off.ATC was also fun to listen to.I also often went on pilot training and competency tests riding in DC3's on up when dad was doing check rides.Imagine doing that today !:=

[JohnReid]

I remember one evening sitting at home and flight ops called to speak to my dad.It seems that there was a Viscount (which he was check pilot on at the time)flying around YUL burning off gas with a main gear stuck up.
Dad said "come on" and off we went to the ATC tower.After talking with the pilot for awhile and trying everything to get the gear down,it was decided to just leave down what they had and hold the wing off the ground as long as possible before grinding to a halt.It proved to be the right thing to do with minimum damage to the airplane.
I even got to sit in on the de-briefing of the crew which was cool .Dad said that this happened all the time during the war.

[JohnReid]

Don McVicar I first met Don McVicar in a cold hangar at Dorval.At the time dad was searching for a spot to rebuild the Travelair (rent free of course)Don owned some airline or another flying north in Canada and south to Cuba.While the hangar proved to be too damn cold and dark to work in, Don himself was a really warm guy.
I remember dad pulling his leg and saying "McVicar I flew the Atlantic when there were no nav aids,for you guys it was a piece of cake."
Later I met him again at a Ferry Pilots reunion in Dorval.

[JohnReid]

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[JohnReid]

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[DAVEIRWIN]

This message is from David Irwin, Son In Law to Ian P. Watson. Ian Passed away
on Sept 18, 2011. In talking to Ian about his War Time experiences he talked about a man named Windy Reid, and from what I see from your Postings it must be the same man.

Is your dad still alive and if so can we contact him or youself to share information and pictures.

Ian's funeral is on Sept 24, 2011 at the St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Niagara On The Lake at 11am.

These two men served together during WWII

Regards

David Irwin

519-578-2634

[JohnReid]

Hi David ! nice to hear from you.Sorry for your loss,my dad has been gone since 1985 but he had a very interesting and rewarding life in aviation.Those guys were really special .Cheers ! John.:)