Canso Remembered
Reading the Winter 1987 issue of Warbirds International, I thoroughly enjoyed the article "Forgotten Canso" by Ron Mak. This feature stirred lots of memories because my late father, Flying Officer Garfield Darroch, Royal Canadian Air Force No. 4 Bomber Reconnaissance Squadron, was based at Tofino, British Columbia from 1943 to 1945. He was the flight engineer on the Canso that was sent on the night search for Canso A11007 after officials realized the amphibian never reached its destination. After spotting the plane and returning to Tofino, he was then assigned as the flight engineer on another Canso that took off after daylight to direct the rescue ground party that hiked to the wreck to retrieve the crew.
My father and at least three other RCAF personnel later went in by foot to the wreck in an attempt to retrieve the machine guns and radio equipment. He took his camera at this time and shot six photos of the wrecked Canso, I have made some copies from original negatives that I think readers of Warbirds International will enjoy.
In the photographs, the serial number of A11007 is clearly evident and the timber of the dense rain forest shows that it was a miracle that the entire crew did not die.
In one of the photos, my father can be seen standing on top of the fuselage behind the wing with machine gun ammunution belts draped over his shoulders. Checking my father’s log book which documents the search flights for the Canso, a slight discrepancy arises. Mr. Mak refers to 10-11 February 1945 as the dates for the take-off, crash, and night search-spotting versus 9 February for the search and rescue flights according to the logbook.
Mr. Mak’s photographs compared to my father’s form a unique record of 42 years exposure upon Canso A11007 and serve to document a classic Warbird.
This article was written by Garfield J. Darroch and was printed in the March/April 1988 issue of Warbirds International.
