On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland to start the Second World War. On September 3, 1939, at 11:00 am Britain declared war on Germany to officially enter the conflict. Four hours later at 3:00 pm, a 23 year old RAF pilot from Ottawa, Pilot Officer Ellard Alexander Cummings, son of James Edith Cummings, was killed in a flying accident near Aberdeen in Scotland. He and fellow airman Sergeant Alexander Stewart of Paisley in Scotland were ferrying a Westland Wallace K6028 to be used as a target tug. Pilot Officer Cummings was the first Canadian aviator killed after the declaration of war.

About 24 hours later, On September 4, 1939, Sergeant Albert Stanley Prince of Vancouver (born Montreal) was Killed in Action in a raid on German naval facilities in Wilhelmshaven Germany. Sergeant Prince was piloting Blenheim aircraft N6240 which was shot down. His other two companions George Franklin Booth (RAF) and Lawrence Joseph SlaIery (RAF) were taken Prisoners of War. Booth and SlaIery are recognized as the first two Prisoners of War in the Second World War. Canada will not declare war until September 10, 1939, and already two Canadians are dead.

How do we know? This information is readily available in Canadian Aircraft Serials Personnel Information Resource or CASPIR, a Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum website that contains documents, images, and history of Canada’s military aviation – with personnel and aircraft data that has been carefully compiled using original source documents by trusted Canadian military aviation historians. The best way to understand CASPIR is to click here. Experience it for yourself.

CASPIR builds on the work of exceptional Canadian military historians. Aircraft by John Griffin and Bill Walker, personnel by Hugh Halliday, Les Allison and Harry Hayward who compiled “They Shall Grow Not Old” and Samuel Kostenuk who documents Canadian Squadrons. These are all important air war historians who did not have the benefit of modern computer systems to cross-reference their work.

To be included in CASPIR, aircraft must be any of the following: military aircraft or civilian aircraft having a military connection to Canada, manufactured in Canada, tested in Canada, crewed by a Canadian, ferried by ATFERO, “Atlantic Ferry Organization,” RAF Ferry Command or 45 Group of RAF Transport Command. If they were under control of one of these organizations, and they last set foot on Canadian soil, they are in CASPIR regardless of their nationality.

CASPIR is a museum product and must be true to Canada’s air war history, it must contain all aircraft used by Canadian military (owned, leased, crewed) and contain all military aircraft manufactured in Canada such as Ansons, Hurricanes, Hell Divers, Lancasters, Mosquitoes, Starfighters, Tutors and several more.

For personnel, it must contain all military and associated Canadians who were casualties or were otherwise famous and those “brothers in arms” who flew with Canadian casualties even if they not were Canadian. This data must be presented in a simplified fashion so that it can be understood by any interested person. This means replacement of all acronyms and abbreviations with easily understood terms.

CASPIR is Canadian Aircraft Serials Personnel Information Resource.

In 2016, Bill Walker was ill with cancer; he walked into the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum looking for a new home for his website, a lifetime effort of recording Canadian military aircraft serials and their history. Considering the relevance of his work in the preservation of Canada’s military aviation, the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum, quickly said yes! Sadly, Bill passed away shortly thereafter.

The Walker website was hosted by CWH, but no updates were being performed until new museum volunteer Greg Neid identified some errors in the database. After reviewing the issue, Greg agreed to investigate, over time the Walker website was replaced with CASPIR.

Bill Walker and John Griffin produced excellent work, though isolated and not cross-referenced. Les Allison and Harry Hayward created an extensive list of Canadian casualties with minimal cross-referencing. The CASPIR team then started digitizing, correcting, and thoroughly cross-referencing all data. COVID facilitated this process, allowing time to correct and consolidate data. Aircraft serials were streamlined into single airframes, as many were renumbered multiple times. This ongoing task has seen over fifty thousand volunteer hours contributed by spring 2025.

The Personnel database contains casualties Killed in Action “KIA,” Killed in a Flying Accident “KIFA,” Prisoner of War “PoW”, Evaders etc. At the height of the war, the RCAF had more than 240,000 personnel, so not everyone can be in the personnel database has many sources. Our team is continually reviewing data from a dozen sources to combine into a single record. RAF Commands is a great information source but is too researcher-oriented for CASPIR. Our goal is to provide information in a manner that is easily understood by a non-researcher. We rely heavily on the original Operations Record Books (ORB). We thank Bomber Command Museum which has provided a full set of ORBs for 6 Group (RCAF commanded units). However, half of Canadians were not in 6 Group, but spread all over the RAF. This means locating and downloading the ORBs from the National Archives in Kew UK.

PoW and Evader records are poorly documented and have taken hours and hours to complete. Working on these records takes excessive time. Most often, we only had initials plus a surname, and not a full name. Modern privacy laws have limited access to the details of living people, so we must search non-official channels. Newspapers.com has given us access to newspaper reports for the period. Much of our data has come from there. Once we have one airman; it is easier to find research on the others on that aircraft.

The CASPIR team also reunites crews. The CASPIR team has spent hours placing the men in their aircraft, that is, reuniting crews. Once the crews were united it was obviously time to create an event or mission associated with that aircraft and crew. An event is training, cross-country, a bombing mission, reconnaissance, mine-laying, search and rescue, or whatever the day’s orders required. Canadians flew with British, Australians, New Zealanders, Americans and many other nationalities. This process is far from finished and will take years to complete.

Images make the person real. Whenever possible we add an image. Images can be hard to come by. But more and more families are contacting us with images that complete the record.

There are many important persons in the database, Canadians or other air military figures who were not Canadian. Example: Pathfinder Force, as added due to his early role in ATFERO. Wing Commander Guy Gibson, Squadron Leader for 617 Squadron, The Dambusters – Operation CHASTISE was Killed in Action in Mosquito KB267. KB267 was manufactured at the Canadian de Havilland factory in Downsview Ontario.