APPOINTEE GRACIOUSLY ACCEPTS ACKNOWLEDGMENT
A Brandon man who has dedicated his life to agriculture and his community has joined Burton Cummings, Duff Roblin and Izzy Asper in the ranks of the Order of Manitoba.

"It's company I don't belong in but somebody thought I was worthy of it," said Reg Forbes with a laugh Sunday.

Forbes, 75, is among 27 members of the new order  -- Manitoba's highest honour -- announced by Lt. Gov. Peter Liba Friday.

Forbes said Liba called him personally to notify him of the honour a week earlier.

"It was an absolute complete 100 per cent surprise. I'm honoured to be nominated by somebody and I haven't got a clue who. I guess somebody thought I had done more than I thought I had done myself."

Forbes played a key role in developing Manitoba's PMU (pregnant mare's urine) industry in the mid-1960s and the Keystone Centre in 1973.

During a long and distinguished agricultural career, Forbes helped spearhead soil conservation efforts in the province and served as commissioner on the Grain Handling and Transportation Commission. He is past president of the Provincial Exhibition of Manitoba, the Agricultural Institute of Canada and a member of the Manitoba Agriculture Hall of Fame.

Forbes, now retired and president of the Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum, was quick to share credit for his accomplishments with others and his profession.

"I've been very, very fortunate to have worked in the most respectable profession in the world -- agriculture," Forbes said.

"I was also very fortunate in serving in southwestern Manitoba, which I consider to be populated by the most wonderful people anyone could work with in the world."

Retired farmer and past Provincial Exhibition president Mel Wolfe said Forbes is respected as a man who gets things done.

"He really frowned on anybody who gave political speeches and never got any action," Wolfe said. "Anything he tackled he certainly accomplished in my mind."

The Order of Manitoba was established to recognize Manitobans who have demonstrated excellence and achievement leading to outstanding benefits to the social, cultural, or economic well-being of Manitoba and its residents.

Appointments are made by the chancellor on the recommendation of a seven member advisory council.

Forbes will be officially invested into the order at a ceremony in July.

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CATP MUSEUM HONOURED BY ATTRACTIONS CANADA
The Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum has won the
Attractions Canada National Award for 2000.

Museum Director, Stephen Hayter (L), accepting the Attractions Canada Award

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Cash Keeps Coming
Brandon Sun ~ 2000.04.29

                                                               BRUCE BUMSTEAD/BRANDON SUN
John Robinsong of the Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum,
points out the stressed rafter beams of the museum's hangar to
MLA Scott Smith following the presentation of $463,000 on Friday morning.
The money, which was the final payment of a $500,000 grant,
will help in the renovation of the museum's vintage hangar that houses
the static display of training planes used during the plan's operation.

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CATPM RENOVATION IN PROGRESS
Volunteers Start To Move Vintage Aircraft Out Of The Hangar

2000.05.13 ~ Brandon Sun
BUFFING UP THE MOTH

                                 COLIN CORNEAU/BRANDON SUN
Derek Stone dusts off a Tiger Moth biplane at the
Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum Thursday afternoon.
Stone is a tourism student at Assiniboine Community College and is
lending a hand at the site over the summer.

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2000.05.03

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CATPM WWII RCAF Exhibit in Downtown Brandon
SOO'S Restaurant on 10th & Princess is hosting an Air Museum Exhibit in their Show Hall/Banquet Room.

Accompanying the display of photos and artifacts is a continuous video presentation.

The video consists of excerpts from the movies: FOR THE MOMENT and CAPTAINS OF THE CLOUDS
as well as a 40-minute video tour of the museum with music by
Vera Lynn, Glenn Miller and other popular wartime artists.

CATPM Exhibit in Downtown Brandon

FOR THE MOMENT, starring Russell Crowe
(Academy Award nominee and star of the new blockbuster film, GLADIATOR),
was filmed at the Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum in Brandon,
while
CAPTAINS OF THE CLOUDS starring James Cagney,
features some of the best colour location footage of actual WWII BCATP bases available anywhere.

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ENGLISH MEMORIAL RAISED FOR CANADIAN CREW
Royal Canadian Legion Magazine
May/June 2000 ~ page 13

Louise Campbell-Hillman, accompanied by son William Hillman, attends the ceremony

The Sandon and District Branch of the Royal British Legion has erected a cairn to pay tribute to a crew mostly comprised of Royal Canadian Air Force  members who died April 30, 1945, when their Lancaster Bomber crashed nearby.

A portion of the cockpit was found in a loft in a house belonging to Dr. Henry Bocking who had attended the crash scene. Six Canadians and one British airman, members of 428 (Ghost) Squadron, were killed during the training flight. Among those attending the ceremony to unveil the headstone were Louise Campbell-Hillman and her son William Hillman. Campbell-Hillman is the sister of Flight Lieutenant William Campbell of Strathclair, Man. He was 23 when he died. The cairn is at a busy intersection but police shopped traffic for three minutes for the brief ceremony that included a flippant of Royal Air Force vintage aircraft (Lancaster and Hurricane).

See more on this story at the F/L CAMPBELL TRIBUTE & LANCASTER KB879 MEMORIAL Website

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THROUGH THE VIEW FINDER
 Websites of Interest to our Readers
Pay them a visit and
check out the photos and stories.

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http://radio.cbc.ca/programs/thismorning//lfnsound/index.html

Imagine a collection of richly layered stories - evocative and haunting - radio stories that chronicle, reflect and celebrate the changing century - that mark the turn in sound.  Lost and Found Sound is designed to create a special series of stories that explore Canadian life through sound - endangered sounds, sounds on the verge of extinction, shifting accents, vanishing voices, the merging of languages, the stories of people obsessed by sound, music and the people who make it.

http://radio.cbc.ca/programs/thismorning//lfnsound/paststories_apr07.html

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Radio Tokyo The April 7 , 2000 Lost & Found Sound takes us back to a particularly dark period in Canadian history -- November 16, 1941.
Nearly two thousand Canadian soldiers land in Hong Kong to help defend the British colony from a possible Japanese attack. The men are from two battalions: the Winnipeg Grenadiers and the Royal Rifles of Canada, the latter comprised mostly Quebecers from the Eastern Townships and the Gaspe region. The units had not received proper training required for front line troops, but battle with Japan was not imminent.

However, only three weeks after landing, the Japanese attacked. And, despite the unbelievable bravery of Canadian soldiers, there was little they could do to defend Hong Kong. By Christmas Day, 1941, it was all over. 286 Canadian men were dead. The rest were sentenced to hard labour in prison camps scattered across Hong Kong and Japan.

And it is here that our search for Lost and Found Sound begins. By any standard, life in these camps was brutal - prisoners suffered from disease and malnutrition, they lived in unspeakably poor conditions, and to add insult to injury, they were subjected to a barrage of propaganda broadcast over Radio Tokyo.

Many will have heard of Tokyo Rose or Orphan Ann, whose sign on was, "Greetings Everybody! This is your number one enemy, your favourite playmate, Orphan Ann on Radio Tokyo, the little sunbeam whose throat you'd like to cut...." Her program and others like it were broadcast to the POWs in Japan daily.

The broadcast that we hear today was recorded on June 10, 1944. It was not a Tokyo Rose program, but was still a type of propaganda. This one was aimed specifically at Americans at home. The Japanese Imperial Army was under pressure from Geneva to ensure the interns were well taken care of.  So, it did everything in its power to convince the world that the prisoners were well and comfortable. So, Radio Tokyo would broadcast programs that could be heard over shortwave, on which POWs could read letters to their families.

And while this June 10th show was being broadcast, several Americans were recording it off shortwave radios in the hopes of sending these "letters" to the families mentioned. And that's how we here at Lost and Found Sound managed to get hold of it.

This particular recording belongs to Mrs. Hazel Campbell of Grand Cascapedia in the Gaspe region of Quebec. Her husband, Rifleman Charles George Campbell, of the Royal Rifles of Canada, was a POW in Tokyo for three years, 7 months and 20 days. He was one of the soldiers invited to read a letter to his family for this Radio Tokyo broadcast.

The Americans recording the show took down the name of Charlie's parents -- in this case, Mr. and Mrs. Russell Campbell of New Richmond, Quebec -- and sent it off.

Charlie Campbell died two years ago, but we speak with his wife Hazel and hear the record with Charlie's letter on it.

We'd like to thank Ray Smith of Black Cape, Quebec for alerting us to this historical treasure.

Listen to Radio Tokyo.
http://radio.cbc.ca/programs/thismorning//lfnsound/paststories_apr07.html

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Sayonara, “Tokyo Rose” … Hello Again, “Orphan Ann”!
The Orphan Ann Homepage

“Greetings everybody! This is your Number One Enemy, your favorite playmate, Orphan Ann on Radio Tokyo—the little sunbeam whose throat you’d like to cut! Get ready again for a vicious assault on your morale, 75 minutes of music and news for our friends—I  mean, our enemies!—in the South Pacific.” —Iva Toguri as “Orphan Ann” on a simulated Zero Hour program staged for American newsreels, 20 September 1945.

You’ve probably never heard of Iva Toguri and, if you have any association with the name “Orphan Ann” at all, it’s probably to the Little Orphan Annie comic strip. On the other hand, you probably have heard of “Tokyo Rose” and think you know all about her: the sultry, Japanese radio propagandist who taunted our boys in the Pacific during WW2. There never was anyone called “Tokyo Rose” on Radio Tokyo or any of its subsidiaries. She, like “Kilroy,” is a myth based on the frustrations and fears of young men waging war in difficult circumstances far away from their homes. There were Japanese women broadcasters, over a dozen of them, and a few of them, most notably Foumy (“Madame Tojo”) Saisho and Myrtle (“Little Margie”) Lipton, even broadcast along the lines attributed to “Tokyo Rose;” but no such person ever really existed. This wouldn’t be much of a problem as problems go, were it not for the fact that a real person was unjustly arrested, tried, convicted, fined, and imprisoned for broadcasting as “Tokyo Rose;” a real person who, by rights, should have been hailed as an American hero and, to this day, remains one of the most loyal Americans I have ever known. Read her story at:
http://www.dyarstraights.com/orphan_ann/orphanan.html#land

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A Second World War Love Story on
CBC's Lost and Found Sound

In 1943, Desmond Lewis-Watts was sent overseas with the 4-19 bomber squadron. He was assigned to a Halifax bomber, a "hally-bag" as they called it. He was a bomb-aimer, the guy who sat in the window under the nose of the plane.To his squadron, he was known as "Gramps" because, at 28, he was the oldest among them. To those at home, he was Des, a loving husband, the second of four brothers, a lover of the outdoors and a tenor with the prestigious Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. Sometime in early 1944, while on leave, Desmond went to Star Sound Studios at 17 Cavendish Square in central London. There, he recorded his beautiful voice for his wife, Lois. On the label of the 78 RPM he wrote, "With all my love, Treasure. Des." A month later, Desmond's plane went missing. A week after being notified her husband was MIA, Lois received the recording in the mail. Neither Desmond nor his six crewmen were ever found. Lois never remarried. After her death in 1987, the records were given to Desmond's brother, Noel. Noel was much younger than his brother. In fact, he was only a young boy when Des was sent overseas. But he remembers Desmond's sonorous voice and his undying love for Lois, his Treasure. "With all my love, Treasure. Des."
Listen to their story at:
http://radio.cbc.ca/programs/thismorning//lfnsound/paststories_jan28.html