John Murphy 1923 - 2013

by Frank Tibb

On Nov. 7 and 14, 2005 the Aviation Column featured John Murphy. Bob Kieley (ROK) called me last Tuesday (Sept. 17) to inform me that John had passed on. Well I decided to read the columns again and realize that there is information there that exists nowhere else. John Murphy had a phenomenal memory which lasted until he died.

He came to Gander in January 1941 to work for  Canadian Pacific Air Service which, a year later, became RAF Ferry Command. Later he became Secretary to the Base Manager and subsequently Confidential Secretary to the Commanding Officer.

We’d check in the crews, as a matter of fact I checked in Sir Frederick Banting. The Eastbound Inn was finished just a short time before I got here, before that the crews used to stay in railway cars.

Everyone older than yours truly and lots who are younger remember John Murphy. I remember him mainly because he was one of the smoothest hockey players that ever played for Gander. Subsequently he was one of the first to be inducted into the Gander Sports Hall of Fame. He was, without doubt, one of the best players in Newfoundland.

The first rink here was an open-air rink back of the old Banting Hospital. Later we built one down on the RAF Side and then in 1945, the RCAF set up one in Hangar 4 opposite the Administration Building. It was only 165 by 100.  We used it for two years, 1945 and 1946. Then we moved to Hangar 12 on the American Side.  That hangar was opened and operated initially by Mr. Jack Lush, his son Max still lives in Gander on Earhart St. Mr. Lush got a one dollar lease to put a rink in the hangar in the winter of 1947. Jack Nolan and Frank  Broderick later operated it and Father McCarthy actually ran it for a year until the Gander Hockey Association took over the reins. The Herder Memorial  playoffs were actually played in Gander in 1948 between Grand Falls and St.  Bon's.

John said that prior to Hangar 12 being used as a rink it was utilized for several months to handle international flights until the terminal on the RAF side was ready in the summer of 1946.

I was supposed to go to work with TWA in January in 1946, but Ferry Command asked me to stay on until April 15. My first job was transportation agent, then I became lead agent , then assistant manager and then manager in 1955. Forty to fifty people worked for TWA here. I left August 22, 1960 for New York on a temporary assignment which became permanent on January 1, 1961. In New York I was manager of passenger and cargo service and then I became Ramp Manager in Kennedy Airport. After that I went to LaGuardia as the manager. In 1975 I was made director [TWA] of the three airports, LaGuardia, Kennedy and Newark. In 1979 the job was eliminated and I went to Phoenix as TWA manager for six years and retired in 1986.@

John Murphy was, without doubt, one of the most respected and efficient managers in the airline system. Every day on the way to his office he’d have a chat with the ramp staff, all of whom he called by name.

Just last Saturday while in the beautiful hospice facility in Phoenix  and waiting for the end he was singing: "Have I told you lately that I love you" to family and nurses. They loved it, all the while knowing the end was only days away.

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