#CANADIAN KNIGHTHOOD FREE#

Evelyn, whom Magill refers to as “a peach,” died in 2010.A Gold Coast-based working holiday company has copped a fine and agreed to refund thousands of dollars to young travellers after Queensland's employment watchdog took the company to court. They moved to Vancouver in 1956 for his job with the railway, then to Winnipeg nine years later. In 1947, a friend introduced him to a woman named Evelyn Cameron, an encounter Magill, a great-grandfather of two, calls “a good stroke of luck, if ever there was one.” Jim and Evelyn got married in 1949. Memorabilia from Magill's time spent serving in the war.When the war ended in 1945, Magill returned to Winnipeg briefly, before moving back to Saskatoon. “I was the bombardier, or bomb aimer, but I was also trained as a pilot, navigator and wireless operator in case there was an emergency, and I needed to take over one of those other jobs.” “We had two Scots, two Englishmen, one Welshman and a ‘stupid’ Canuck - that was me,” said Magill, who achieved the rank of pilot-officer. He spent a few months in Bournemouth, in southern England, before being assigned to an air base near Lossiemouth, Scotland. Memorabilia from Magill's time spent serving in the war.After completing his basic training in Brandon and Prince Albert, Sask., he travelled to Halifax, where he boarded a boat - the Louis Pasteur - that took him overseas. A year later, he and a buddy from work enlisted for duty, largely because there was a good chance they’d get “called up eventually,” he said, and they wanted to make sure they were in the air force, as opposed to “letting ‘em put us wherever they wanted.” Magill, born in Saskatoon, moved to Winnipeg in 1940 to take an apprentice position with the Canadian National Railway.

#CANADIAN KNIGHTHOOD FREE#

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Sir Jim Magill (left) with Bruno Burnichon, the honourary French consul in Winnipeg. That’s how bloody close we were to ending up in the drink.” Listen to this: the very second we got to the end of the runway, our engine sputtered and died. “When we finally got down to 1,000 feet, he radioed us again, saying, ‘OK, we’re going to put a couple lights on for you guys, come on in,’ and dagnabbit, all of a sudden, there they were. “He told us to put our nose down, throttle back a bit to conserve gas and lose height gradually, maintaining airspeed at the same time,” Magill said.

Not sure they’d have enough fuel to make it back, the pilot radioed a master controller located on the eastern seaboard of England, to let him know about their predicament. Magill, who will turn 96 in July, said it wasn’t until he and the rest of his six-man crew were over the North Sea, safely out of harm’s way, when they realized one of their gas tanks had been punctured during the exchange and had lost all its contents. Those guys took violent exception to anyone who went near their airspace and let me tell you, they hammered away at us, but good.” “In error, we flew directly over Kiel, which was the headquarters of the German navy, including their U-boat division. “There was one night we were flying home from a mission, home being a little village outside Selby, North Yorkshire,” said Magill, 95, seated in the living room of his neat-as-a-pin suite at the Waverley, 857 Wilkes Ave. A day before that cememony, Magill, a Royal Canadian Air Force veteran, reflected on how lucky he was to make it home from the war, period, never mind being honoured for his efforts 73 years later. Jim Magill says he couldn’t have imagined in ‘a million years’ receiving a knighthood.The medal was presented to him by Bruno Burnichon, the honourary French consul in Winnipeg. Janice Filmon, was named to the rank of Knight of the National Order of the Legion of Honour by the French government, for his role in helping liberate France from Germany during the Second World War. Last Thursday, Jim Magill, surrounded by family, friends and an assortment of dignitaries including Mayor Brian Bowman and Lt.-Gov. This article was published (1606 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Canadian knighthood