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Sunday, August 11, 2013

Commander Gander

For those who attended or tuned in to the Gander Day celebrations, you might have noticed the mascot for the festivities , better known as Commander Gander, is a cartoon character beloved by all and promotes events during this special day. What a lot of people may not be aware, Commander Gander is not a very young bird, in fact he was 'born' during WWII and was the military mascot whose purpose was to boost moral for that time. Evidence of this can be seen on the various crests and patches worn by military personnel serving at Gander during the war. To view these special pages on our website, click on here and here to see the roles Commander Gander played way back then.

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Research in Progress

Our main go-to-guy, Bob Pelley, who does the major researching on historical events for Gander Airport, reports that he has a bunch of projects he is working on and we should have lots to read in the next few weeks. After all, we have to give Bob a little holiday once in a awhile. I know that one document will be dealing with the emergency landing of a returning Lancaster bomber at the airport in 1946 which stuck and killed several people who were walking on one of the streets near the approach path to a runway. This was the first fatality at the airport involving civilians due to an aircraft accident/incident.