F/O. John McKinley Carswell
Royal Air Force
John Carswell came to RAF Hatfield as a under-training pilot in NO.1 EFTS (Early Flying Training School). Pre-war, he was training to become a chartered accountant and joined the Non Permanent Active Militia in Montreal, Canada, ten days before war was declared. A motorcycle dispatch rider in the NPAM, he was mobilized into the Canadian Army Signals Corps, trained to drive a 5 CWT right-hand drive truck and after 4 months of bootcamp at Barryfield near Kingston, Ontario, he was sent overseas to the UK as part of the (CASF) Canadian Armed Service Force's first contingent scheduled for fighting in Europe. Then Dunkirk happened and 336,000 soldiers returned to Britain and the Canadians found themselves stuck with special duties in the UK for most of the war with one exception when a failed attack in 1942 killed a great many of them.
Having originally applied to the RCAF in Canada, John Carswell found they were not equipped to train the large number of applicants at that point. He would not end up in the air force until he was posted to the UK. It was at No.1 EFTS (Early Flying Training School) at RAF Hatfield that John Carswell met Geoff De Havilland then testing the new Mosquito in secrecy. It was here that John Carswell also met his first German spy trying to find information about this new aircraft.
John had befriended a corporal in the library and once he earned his wings, he asked him if he knew a good photographer in London. The corporal did, offered to get the address and make the appointment for him. It turned out that the photographer was the Photographer to the Royal Family, and later a 3-time Academy Award winner. It seems the Corporal was a member of the extended Royal family doing his war service as the station librarian at RAF Hatfield. Once he was told he had earned his wings, his instructor gave him permission to fly back to the airbase in his favourite position. For the next 5 miles they flew upside down. John McKinley Carswell earned his commission as a pilot officer, went on through the war to the rank of Flight Lieutenant. He became a training pilot, a flight commander, ran a parachute folding operation, became a 2nd Class Navigator (only 7 became first class), a navigations instructor and was assigned to the Navigator selection board in Harrogate Yorkshire. Married at this point to the senior WAAF officer at RAF Wigtown, Pat Leonard, they were separated by the war for many months. Married and Pregnant after almost 3 years of service, at RAF Biggin Hill fighter station and RAF Wigtown, she would leave the WAAF to become a mother and housewife in Harrogate. Just after their marriage on 27th of August 1942, John Carswell flew as co-pilot on a Lancaster Bomber seeing action over Germany and Poland. Returning to Harrogate, he was appointed to the Pilot Training Board where he would remain until he left to return to Canada in June 1944. A member of the RCAF in April, 1944, Flight Lieutenant John McKinley Carswell late of the RAF, was retested and grounded for the duration of the war, which meant he could not return to his family. After training at RCAF Trenton, he was appointed station adjutant of No. 10 EFTS at Pendleton, Ontario. He would serve out the war there as senior officer of the station, his wife and two children from the UK having joined him in March, 1945 after a split of almost nine months.
Returning to Montreal after WWII he became a corporate secretary and director of nine companies before his early retirement at age 54 to a lake property north of Kingston, Ontario. His wife, the former plotter, cipher officer and subsequently senior WAAF officer at RAF Wigtown and survivor of the Battle of Britain at RAF Biggin Hill Fighter station, arrived in Canada as a Canadian War Bride with two Canadian War Babies. "Paddy" Leonard Carswell as she was nicknamed, would have two more children in Canada and live to the ripe old age of 85 passing away at Dog Lake, off Burnt Hills Road, RR3 Seeley's Bay, Ontario in 2005. John McKinley Carswell who was virtually blind by then, spent the next two years in a special needs home in Kingston, Ontario where he died in 2007 at the age of 88. His unique war record, like hers, was matched by few and yet they survived well into their mid to late 80's. Their ashes were scattered on Dog Lake, beside their beloved retirement home of thirty years. RIP
