North Atlantic Crossroads – getting planes to Britain during WWII

I discovered Darrell Hillier and his book North Atlantic Crossroads while browsing FaceBook last week. Immediately fascinated, I contacted Darrell who is a former resident of Gander, Newfoundland with a lifelong interest in Newfoundland and Labrador’s aviation history. That might sound esoteric, but wait until you read about the heroics involved in ferrying planes across the Atlantic during WWII. Over to you, Darrell.

My interest in history began at an early age, influenced by my historian and genealogist father who first introduced me to an archive and a microfilm reader. My grandfather served in the Royal Navy in the first war, plying the seas aboard the battle cruiser HMS New Zealand. Concurrently, my two great uncles were embroiled in trench warfare in France and Belgium with the Royal Newfoundland Regiment. Their stories and heroism inspired me.

As a teen, my family moved to Gander, Newfoundland and Labrador, an airport town steeped in aviation history. I wasn’t long there when a high school friend told me of a Second World War bomber crash adjacent to the Trans-Canada Highway. Off we went on our bicycles. For me, this was something tangible, a direct connection to that conflict. But I wanted to learn more. The who, what, when, where, why of things. It all went downhill from there! I was hooked.

I soon discovered that Gander, although constructed prewar for an anticipated commercial transatlantic mail and passenger service, evolved during wartime as a strategic refueling and maintenance stopover for aircraft en route overseas. The airfield itself was cosmopolitan in nature, with American forces occupying one side (location of the present-day terminal), the Royal Canadian Air Force on another, the Canadian Army nearby, and on the east side of the field, the Royal Air Force Ferry Command. 

What was Ferry Command, you ask? In a hardly adequate nutshell, Ferry Command was established during the war to deliver factory new fighters and bombers across the North and South Atlantic and Pacific oceans to the Royal Air Force operational units. But it all started at Gander, the focus of my book North Atlantic Crossroads. Early in the war, the British needed aircraft to conduct their air war against Germany. For this, they turned to the United States, and eventually Canada. Initially, these aircraft were dismantled, shipped by sea, and reassembled on arrival. Time was of essence, so to expedite the process, Lord Beaverbrook (Canadian-born William Maxwell Aitken), then British Minister of Aircraft Production, spearheaded a scheme to instead fly these aircraft overseas. Gander, as the easternmost airfield in North America, was the logical starting point. It was fortuitous, to say the least, that the airfield existed at the time. 

So it was that during November–December 1940, a small collection of daredevil pilots, radio operators, and navigators, set out from Gander and safely, but nervously, delivered twenty-five Hudson bombers overseas. A significant achievement in and of itself. Moreover, no one had before attempted an Atlantic crossing in wintertime. The ferry service was born. At Gander, construction soon began on a basic infrastructure to accommodate and support the expanding operation, including barracks, a mess hall, and two large hangars. (Today, these two hangars still stand, the only original wartime hangars left at Gander.) Once completed, Gander’s Ferry Command sector assumed the name Beaverbrook Centre, or Beaver Centre for short, after Lord Beaverbrook.

The role of Ferry Command at Gander was to keep the aircraft moving. To get them overseas. These were brand new, expensive aircraft. So, when an aircraft went down near the airfield or some rural coastal community, or perhaps in some remote corner of the Newfoundland wilderness, first priority was to rescue the crew, or in some unfortunate instances, recover their bodies. After that, the men of Gander’s Ferry Command maintenance section jumped into action, headed by chief maintenance engineer, Irishman John Joseph “Joe” Gilmore. The work of Gilmore and his exclusively civilian maintenance team, comprised of Newfoundlanders and Canadians (Newfoundland and Labrador had yet to join the Canadian confederation), was crucial to the success of Gander’s Ferry Command unit. Their efforts are a key aspect of my narrative. Who has heard of pilots flying twin-engine bombers from remote wilderness areas on skis, aircraft dragged from hillsides in wintertime using brute strength and horses, or floated on rafts to awaiting ships? Gilmore’s men did it all. But it wasn’t a one-person show. Gander’s air traffic controllers and wireless operators tracked and guided aircraft overseas. Female radio operators worked around the clock too, handling codes messages between Gander and Montreal, New York, Prestwick in Scotland, and Foynes in Ireland. 

By war’s end, Ferry Command had delivered about ten thousand aircraft worldwide, with Gander at the forefront. But this is also a story of the men who risked their lives crossing the North Atlantic. Their efforts opened the transatlantic skyways and accelerated the growth enjoyed by commercial carriers in the immediate postwar years. The sacrifices made by these pioneering airmen is evident at Gander’s Commonwealth War Graves cemetery where many of them rest.

Should you wish to know more about Ferry Command, I suggest visiting the North Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, or better yet, read North Atlantic Crossroads. I recommend both!

Many thanks, Darrell. Such an amazing story with great significance to the outcome of WWII. Readers can find North Atlantic Crossroads at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble. Many will also recall the role Gander played on September 11, 2001 when it served as a landing point for 38 commercial flights after the terrorist attacks closed US airspace.

North Atlantic Crossroads by Darrell Hillier ~~ The true story of Gander’s RAF Ferry Command unit and the men and women who kept the flights moving. “A masterly piece of work which, no doubt, will find its place on the bookshelves of aviation enthusiasts.” —Frank Tibbo, author of Charlie Baker George: The Story of Sabena OOCBG 

Gander, Newfoundland, was a bustling hub of aviation during the Second World War as thousands of bombers passed through on their way to Britain. In North Atlantic Crossroads, the challenges and hazards of transatlantic ferrying come alive. Tales of search and rescue, aircraft salvage, medevac missions, and VIP visits highlight the activities of the Ferry Command Gander unit, notably the work of its aircraft maintenance department, headed by the incomparable John Joseph “Joe” Gilmore.

Postwar, the burgeoning market for transatlantic commercial air travel gave new life to the Ferry Command sector of the field. The buildings once occupied by civilian and military personnel, and the hangars where they serviced the “Bombers for Britain,” became the site of an air passenger terminal and hotel complex, setting Gander on its way to becoming the “Crossroads of the World.”

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M.K. Tod writes historical fiction. Her latest novel THAT WAS THEN is a contemporary thriller. Mary’s other novels, THE ADMIRAL’S WIFE, PARIS IN RUINS, TIME AND REGRET, LIES TOLD IN SILENCE and UNRAVELLED are available from Amazon, Nook, Kobo, Google Play and iTunes. She can be contacted on Facebook or on her website www.mktod.com.