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Artscene Oakville Beaver · WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2007 20 War veteran publishes high flying memoirs By David Lea OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF Airlifting wounded soldiers out of Second World War combat zones and flying shipments of gold into Argentina may seem like enough adventure for a lifetime, but for Squadron Leader Wess McIntosh they were only two. Now 92, the Oakville resident has committed his 55 years and 24,700 hours of flying to a book, written by Tom Douglas entitled, Permission Granted. Behind the title is the fateful story of McIntosh's transfer to the Royal Canadian Air Force upon the outbreak of WWII in 1939. As a six-year veteran of the Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve it was expected that McIntosh would spend the war at sea, however, he had other plans. McIntosh's passion was flying and so he applied for a transfer from the navy, which at the outbreak of war was not taken lightly. After a heated discussion with his commanding officer McIntosh heard the two words that would change, and ultimately save, his life. Permission granted. "If they hadn't given me permission I wouldn't be here. The first ship I was to go on was sunk off the coast of France with 42 people lost," said McIntosh. Things would have fared little better even if McIntosh had survived that disaster. "The second ship that I would have transferred to was the HMCS Margaree and the whole crew was lost except one or two." Initially tasked with training fighter, bomber and transport pilots McIntosh went on to transport VIPs. During this period he flew the Prince and Princess of the Netherlands from Ottawa, where they had fled after the Nazis occupied their country, to various destinations. In his book McIntosh notes how he enjoyed those encounters because Prince Bernhard was an accomplished pilot and would take over the controls, plus he shared his cigarettes with McIntosh and the crew. As the war dragged on a problem in getting mail from loved ones in Canada to troops overseas developed. "The troops were getting pretty angry because they'd been over there for five years and every time the mail went by ship it was being sunk," said McIntosh. "So they decided we were going to start flying it over." McIntosh was posted to the 168 Heavy Transport Squadron and given six decrepit American B-17s with which to perform the task. "They were pretty junky. The Americans were glad to get rid of them." McIntosh would deliver tones of mail in flights that would begin in Winnipeg, last for seven days, and finish in Cairo. In the summer of 1944 McIntosh was made a squadron leader and posted to Gibraltar. There he would receive mail from Canada and then fly it to Canadians stationed across the Mediterranean. SABRINA BYRNES / OAKVILLE BEAVER MOVING CEREMONY: Local author Tom Douglas (rear) teamed up with Wordl War II veteran Wess McIntosh to write Permission Granted, the memoirs of the 92-year-old Oakville resident based on his years in the Royal Canadian Air Force and post-war career as a transport pilot. In turn he would While trying to get "The troops were getting receive mail from home for Christmas Canadian soldiers, but pretty angry because they'd three of McIntosh's sometimes that was not all been over there for five comrades boarded a he received. plane heading across the years and every time the "We used to go to the mail went by ship it was Atlantic. front lines in Italy. When It disappeared over being sunk. So they decided we left we never had a full the Azores. load of mail so we would we were going to start "I was just taking off take wounded to Naples," flying it over." from Ottawa at the time saidMcIntosh. and I hustled right While in Gibraltar RCAF World War II through and got to the McIntosh contributed to veteran Wess McIntosh Azores. I started a search military intelligence by there, but we didn't find continuing to offload mail anything," said for Canadian soldiers in Italy even though McIntosh. they had been transferred to England to A few floating mailbags were all that prepare for fighting in Normandy. would be found. The ruse was preformed for the benefit of Another plane crashed on take-off from the German ambassador in neutral Spain Prestwick Airport in Scotland. who often spied on McIntosh's airfield from "I don't know what went wrong, but we his villa just across the border. lost a crew," said McIntosh. Like most war stories McIntosh's is not Near the end of the war another B-17 free of loss. from McIntosh's squadron crashed while trying to deliver penicillin to war-ravaged Poland. Douglas says it's important not to dismiss veterans just because they did not play a combat role in the war. "Some people think that bomber and fighter commands had all the risks, but there were risks in transport, too," said Douglas. When the war ended in 1945 McIntosh was over the Atlantic. He returned to Canada, but his adventures did not end with the war. These included flying shipments of gold into Argentina for Juan and Evita Peron and flying Canadian aircraft to corporate and military buyers in Africa, sometimes landing in the middle of a civil war. While transporting steel as the chief pilot for Hollinger Ungava Transport in Québec, McIntosh had a brush with death when the steel he was carrying shifted causing his plane to crash. "I had a DC-3 with 6,000 pounds of culvert steel and I had it chained down and on take-off one of the tie downs came out of the floor," he said. "I just went up a 100 feet or so and came down and demolished the airplane." Fortunately McIntosh and his co-pilot were unharmed. McIntosh continued to fly until his retirement in 1990. Committing his experiences in the air to a book has been decades in the making. "I've carted it around for 50 years. I'm the world's greatest procrastinator," he said. "One daughter was good with the typewriter, so she helped me a bit, but you have to have some guidance and I finally got the guidance I needed through Tom." Initially less than enthusiastic about taking on the project because of his heavy work schedule Douglas was taken in by McIntosh's story. "He hooked me," said Douglas. "I was getting up at four in the morning and writing his book for four hours and then doing the rest of my stuff." Between July and October, McIntosh met with Douglas recounting all of his experiences while Douglas listened. "We worked like mad trying to get it done," said Douglas. "We'd both be drained by the end of a three-hour session and then I'd go back write it up, come back, he'd read it." Douglas was amazed by the detail of McIntosh's recollections. "He's got a phenomenal memory. He's 92 now and you wouldn't expect him to be able to recall dates and times and names." All these recollections are now compiled in a book chronicling a life that is far from ordinary. Permission Granted is now being published by Pocket Press Oakville and is being sold for $24.95. Copies can be obtained from Wess McIntosh by e-mailing him at wjmcintosh1914@hotmail.com or from Tom Douglas at tmdouglas@cogeco.ca.