In Memory Kenneth Wynne CD Macdonald - 192 Squadron, Colonel
Ken took off on his final flight at North Vancouver on 12th February 2014, in his 91st year.
He is survived by his beloved wife of 70 years, Catherine Raine (Renee, nee Kier). Father of Lorraine (Kwan), Heather Jane, Kathryn Louise, Ian Roderick (Helene), Laura Lee (Coulthart), he was Grandfather to numerous grandchildren, and a Great Grandfather.
Son of the late Kenneth Wylie Macdonald and the late Nellie Wynne Jones; with his brother Thomas Stanley Macdonald, they lived in Australia. He is pre-deceased by his son Kenneth Malcolm.
Ken was born in Toronto on 23 December 1922. He attended Swansea Public School and Runnymede Collegiate Institute, was a Bugler in the Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada Militia Battalion, and left school at the age of 18 to join the Royal Canadian Air Force as a pilot trainee. Ken was posted to the UK as a Sergeant Pilot in 1942. Subsequently commissioned, he completed a Tour of Bomber Command operations as a pilot on 192 Royal Air Force (Special Duties) Squadron flying Halifax aircraft. While hospitalised at the RAF Hospital in Melksham, Wiltshire, he met and married Renee who was on the hospital medical staff.
He served in the Air Force for 31 years. Just after the war, he was a pilot on 413 (Photo) Squadron, and then a pilot and Detachment Commander on 408 (Photo) Squadron, employed in aerial survey photography of northern Canada on Lancaster aircraft. During the Cold War period, he was stationed for 4 years in Marville, France, with 445 (All-Weather Fighter) Squadron flying CF100 jet interceptors, culminating in his appointment as 445 Squadron Commander and later as the Base Chief Operations Officer. On return to Canada, he was Squadron Commander of 410 (All-Weather Fighter) Squadron at Uplands, flying supersonic CF101 Voodoo interceptors, with the dual appointment as Base Chief Operations Officer. Interspersed with his flying postings were a number of other activities such as: Editor of Air Force publications, Executive Assistant to the Air Force Chief of Personnel, Staff Officer for Air Defence Command training and NORAD Region operations, the Director of Continental Plans in NDHQ, a member of the Canada-USA Permanent Joint Board on Defence, and a member of the Canada-USA Military Co-operation Committee. The Air Force defined Ken, and he relished the challenges faced in regular postings to new and diverse jobs.
Latterly at North Vancouver, BC, Ken is formerly of a number of post-Air Force addresses, including Crysler and Maclaren’s Landing in Ontario, and Brentwood Bay and Qualicum Beach in BC. Active in many organisations in his retirement years, he was successively on the Executives of the Finch and District Lions Club. The Amprior Lions Club, the Amprior-McNab Lions Club, and Central Saanich Lions Club. Ken was one-time President of the Finch, Ontario, Royal Canadian Legion Branch, and held various executive posts of the Qualicum Beach, BC, Legion Branch. Similarly, he held executive posts in the St Andrews UC at Fitzroy Harbour, Ontario and in the Brentwood Bay UC. His hobbies included writing, photography, hunting, woodworking, gun-smithing, cabinet-making, furniture restoration, computer graphics and genealogy.
Gordon Macdonald: ‘Your memory will live on with me’. Ian Macdonald: ‘I have always been proud of my father; he excelled at most things he turned his hand to and was a very productive person all his life’. Heather Macdonald: ‘Thank you for your spirit of adventure and love of nature’. A private cremation was held, and on Sunday 2 March a celebration of Ken’s life brought friends and family together.
This article is from the Autumn 2014 issue of Confound and Destroy
