I’m starting a new project. Like most of my plans, it will take forever but a journey of 1,000 mile begins with a single step. I want to publish all of Grandpa’s logs from the war so that you can all have a copy. These books make great reading. It is real history and you can hold it in your hands. As a help to organizing it, I am going to post the pages as I scan them and clean up the images. Once that task is done then I can begin to assemble the book. I will use these pages to keep you all posted on how I am progressing.

There are actually four books. Dad didn’t know if he would be coming back from the war so he began a Journal which he addressed to me. It is just a collection of his thoughts from before he left Canada until sometime in 1944. He didn’t write regularly and there are large gaps in it. But you can certainly get a flavor of the times.

The Air Force required that every pilot keep a log book. I have Dad’s two log books and they cover from his first flight in 1940 until he is flying with TCA (Trans Canada Airlines) in 1946. He tells me that he did not carry his logs with him in his airplane but he filled it in every evening recording every flight.

Dad flew with a navigator who operated the radar in the night fighter. The man he flew most with was Joe Carpenter and after the war Joe moved to the United States. He died many years ago and Joe’s widow gave Dad his log book as well. So that is the fourth volume I have. It covers the same combat period as Dad’s books and it is interesting to compare the books. Joe was much more descriptive in his writing than Dad.

I have created a separate menu item called “Grandpa’s Logs” where you can read the pages from these volumes as I post them. As I find other material I will link it here as well. I hope you find it as interesting as I do.