Authors

Hugh A. Halliday

Hugh A. Halliday was born and educated in Manitoba. In 1961, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force and was employed as a staff officer in the Air Historian Section and subsequently in the integrated Directorate of History, Department of National Defence. In 1968, he left the Forces to teach at the Niagara College of Applied Arts and Technology in Welland, Ontario. He joined the staff of the Canadian War Museum in 1974 and served in several appointments including that of Curator of War Art (1976-1985) until his retirement in 1995.

Today, Halliday is a well-known historian and author. He has such titles to his credit as The Tumbling Sky, 242 Squadron: The Canadian Years, Woody: A Fighter Pilot’s Album, The Little Blitz and The Royal Canadian Air Force at War 1939-1945, co-written with Larry Milberry. Over the years, Halliday has also been published in numerous scholarly journals, writing on military subjects, Canadian war art and shipwrecks. He presently serves with the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.

Fred W. Hotson

Fred W. Hotson was born in Toronto and received his early education in Fergus, Ontario. He joined de Havilland Canada from Toronto’s Central Technical School in 1935 and completed his pilot and air engineer’s licenses in 1938. He left de Havilland in 1941 to fly in the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, and in 1944 he went to RAF Transport Command as a ferry pilot.

After the war Hotson worked as a bush pilot in northern Ontario and Quebec, then moved into corporate aviation in 1948 with the Ontario Paper Company. There he flew a Mallard and DC-3 for 18 years. He became a founding director of the Canadian Business Aircraft Association and was its president during 1964-65. In 1966 he conducted a study in Afghanistan for the International Civil Aviation Organization on Twin Otter operations in that country. Next he re-joined de Havilland as a test and training pilot, moved into product support, then worked in sales, until retiring in 1978.

Hotson has been a director of the Canadian Aviation Historical Society since 1966 and was its president for 15 years. He has written numerous articles for the CAHS Journal. His three previous books are The De Havilland Canada Story, The Bremen and Business Wings. The recipient of numerous awards, he is a Fellow of the Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute (1984) and a Member of Canada’s Aviation Hall of Fame (1998).

Z. Lewis Leigh was the principal mover behind the development of an RCAF air transport service. A prewar bush pilot, then a TCA instructor and captain, Leigh joined the RCAF early in 1940. Initially, he was engaged on home defence anti-submarine work, but in 1942 he arrived at AFHQ to apply his considerable talents and experience in transport matters. Unusual for wartime officers, Leigh subsequently wrote his memoirs titled And I Shall Fly, published in 1985, which describes the challenges–administrative and operational–that accompanied his work.

Ron Pickler spent a long career in aviation, including 32 at Canadair, from which he retired as Director of Public and Media Relations in 1986. He is co-author, along with Larry Milberry, of Canadair: The First 50 Years.