City man takes flight of a lifetime in an airplane his father piloted

By Al Beeber - Lethbridge Herald on July 28, 2023.

Herald photo by Al Beeber Kendal Gibson was all smiles Wednesday as he prepared to take a flight in a Harvard trainer that his late father, an RCAF Second World War pilot and later a flight instructor, flew often at Penhold, training pilots.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com

Nearly 70 years ago, Kendall Gibson’s dad Gordon flew a Harvard trainer while serving as a flight instructor at CFB Penhold in central Alberta.

On Wednesday, Gibson had the flight of a lifetime by taking a seat in the exact same plane his father flew.

Gibson took a back seat in a Harvard trainer owned by David Watson of Beaumont that is in the city for a few days.

During the Second World War, Gibson’s Flight Lieutenant dad flew legendary fighters such as Spitfires, Mustangs and Hurricanes.

On D-Day he flew missions in a Mustang as a reconnaissance pilot, flying over the coast of Normandy behind enemy lines parallel to the shore, radioing back to the ships stationed off the landing beaches to help them direct their guns where to aim. Gibson would watch for tracer rounds and shells landing and then send radio instructions for the ship gunners to adjust their aim. He was 24 at the time and his wife – pregnant with their oldest child, only 19.

In a letter to his wife about D-Day, the pilot wrote “the sky was absolutely filled with flack. Five minutes after I was in it – I felt sure that before another 5 minutes went by I’d be dead. I was sure of it! For the first few minutes I was absolutely overcome. I was stiff in the cockpit – I couldn’t speak a word over the radio! To me there was only one place where there wasn’t any flack & that’s where my aircraft was.”

After the war ended, Gibson tried farming but “missed the clouds” and rejoined the RCAF in 1953.

Kendall recalls him flying Harvards at Penhold multiple times a day for four years before the family relocated to Germany for five years where his dad flew and trained other pilots in T-33 and Sabre jets.

When he eventually retired in 1964 and settled back in Saskatoon, he “went from flying to deep frying” and opened a fish and chip shop that is still operating today.

Kendall discovered that one Harvard his dad flew, No. 20243, was coming to Lethbridge and learned on the owner’s website that rides were being offered this week. Kendall couldn’t resist a chance to sit in the same seat his dad did from the fall of 1953 to spring of 1957 so quickly signed up.

Kendall’s brother has logbooks from that plane – a Harvard MK6 – kept in a safe at the chip shop which lists the date, the plane, the pilot and the name of the second pilot, pupil or passenger.

“It’s pretty cool,” said Gibson at Airwest Flight Support before climbing into the plane for a 30-minute long flight.

The plane is virtually unchanged since the days Watson’s dad flew it, one of the exceptions being an upgraded radio system.

“He’s got a lot of my dad’s memories in that plane. It’s going to be fantastic,’ added Gibson, saying he thinks his dad would be pretty impressed hearing his son was going up in that same plane.

Gibson says his dad seldom talked about the war but once during a five-hour drive, he opened up about the D-Day experience.

“He did tell me he was so scared that he couldn’t get any saliva to talk, spit or whistle. He also told me exactly what had happened when his engine quit. He had actually run out of fuel. He said he was so scared that he had forgotten that the plane had a reserve tank. It wasn’t until he was about to land behind enemy lines, in German occupied French territory, that he remembered about the reserve tank. He simply reached down turned the switch and the engine started again. I’m guessing that he didn’t want to tell Mom what happened in case she’d worry about him,” said Gibson.

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