1946-58

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Reminiscing with John Murphy

by Frank Tibbo

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. John usually comes back to Gander on an annual basis and it was during his 2005 visit that I talked to him.

FT: When did you first come to Gander?

JM: I left St. John’s Jan 30, 1941 - I was 17 years old - on the Bullet, and arrived in Gander on the morning of Jan. 31.

FT: What were the circumstances? .            

JM: Mr. Pattison (Pattison Place, Gander) was the head of the airport which came under the department of Public Works - Ray Manning - was the head guy in the Public Works Dept. My uncle Jim Organ was a friend of Mr. Manning, and heard from him that they were looking for guys to go to Gander to work for Ferry Command. I went to work as a clerk with the Canadian Pacific Air Service which, a year later, became RAF Ferry Command. Later I became Secretary to the Base Manager and subsequently Confidential Secretary to the Commanding Officer.

The Eastbound Inn was the location of the office. We did all the clerical work and helped load airplanes - we did almost everything. 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.

Later, the office was closed in the Eastbound Inn and we moved over to Hangar 20. We'd get a phone call from Signals in the Administration Building, which was located nearby, that there was a message there and we would have to go there to retrieve it and then go to the office to decode it. We moved to the RAF side a year later and operated from Hangar 21.

The Canadian Army was guarding the hangar at that time and we’d have to show identification before we got in.

The first boss was a Canadian, Lloyd Samson. He was followed by Capt. Ian Ross who was a pilot with Imperial Airways. He lived in the Eastbound Inn with his wife and daughter. He supervised the building of the Flying-boat base at Gander Lake, that was in 1941.

They turned it (Ferry Command) over to the military and Group Captain  Anderson came and then Group Captain Brown, Group Captain Cottle and Wing  Commander Botting - he was the last one before it phased out. All the RAF  officers were surprised when they came that they would have a civilian  secretary. I managed to survive them all and maintained civilian status all  through the war.

FT: What do you remember about all the aircraft taking off for overseas?

JM: They all lined up.  Most of them had a pilot, navigator and radio operator. The Lockheed Hudson aircraft had an extra tank installed in the cabin in order to increase the range. Quite often they’d stick about 200 pounds of freight on the aircraft and some of the pilots, concerned about takeoff weight here, would throw the freight on the ground and we’d have to go around and pick it all up.

Initially they were civilian crews but later on we’d get military guys just out of training school, the average age was usually less than 20.

FT: You regularly read this column even though you live in Phoenix, Arizona and you - as well as one of the old-timers living here - had some comments about the columns on Dr. P.D. McTaggart-Cowan. (Nov. 3 - Dec. 8/03) What is it you disagreed with?

JM: I take issue with some of the statements made by McTaggart-Cowan in his interview with Bob Banting . One was the statement that Ratcliffe and Gilmore got killed because of the stupid actions of the C.O. on a fishing trip. That isn’t true. He was on a mercy flight. There were some fishing trips but that airplane went through the ice near one of the villages around the coast. They wouldn’t be going fishing in the ocean in winter time.

FT: Then there was the bit about McTaggart-Cowan on the way back from Montreal and the pilot being off course and being set right by him.
         
JM: I’ll tell you what happened one day. A pilot was confused with the runway configuration and was a long time before he got on the ground. As soon as he came in, they relieved him of his duties and put him on a plane back to Montreal. If what McTaggart-Cowan said was correct about the pilot being off course, that pilot would never be allowed to fly the aircraft back to Montreal.

FT: You knew Joe Gilmore? (Gilmore Place, Gander)

JM: Joe Gilmore was like a surrogate father to us young guys away from home. His son Pat went to St. Bon’s for a couple of years and used to come down to our house for dinner on Sundays.

FT: When did you start working for the airlines?

JM: 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. Jack Kostesich was manager before me. 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.

FT: Whom did you play hockey with prior coming to Gander?

JM: I played for the under-16 St. Bon’s team in 1939.

FT: What was it like playing hockey here then?

JM: 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.

Hgr12
           

Incidentally, 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.

In 1954 we had a good team but we had a mild spell and 10 days leading up to the playoffs against Bell Island in Grand Falls we weren’t on skates. Bell Island had artificial ice. There was no practice time available in Grand Falls. We lost the first game, won the second and lost the third.  

So after that Eric Winsor, Dr. Paton (James Paton Memorial Hospital) and others decided we’d get an ice plant. That was in 1956 or 1957. They formed a Board of Governors. Jerry Wakeham, Fr. McCarthy, Dr. Paton, Eric Winsor, Ted Henley (Henley Place, Gander), Frank Lawlor and I were on it.  The ice plant was actually installed in the RCAF Recreation Hall. Seats and stands were installed and it was the first real stadium that Gander had. It was used for several years until one was built in the town. We tried to get $20 from the workers. John O’Dea, Newfoundland Brewery signed a note for $10,000 and we got the ice plant and had it paid off in six months. I think the cost was $32,000.

Hockey really took off then and the brand got a lot better when Wes Trainor was hired in 1958.

Incidentally I was particularly interested in your column Clyde "Upside-Down" Pangborn,  (July/05). I met Pangborn several times in Gander and also Hugh Herndon. Herndon worked for TWA after the war and was our chief pilot in Cairo.

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As published in the Gander Beacon and written by Frank Tibbo

 

 

 

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