Ian Macdonald, Ottawa
AN INDEX OF EMERGENCY PARACHUTE JUMPS IN CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 1927-1945
This is an attempt to index emergency parachute jumps made in Canada and Newfoundland between 1927 and
1945 and comprises a chronological table of jumps followed by an alphabetical list of the jumpers. More than 440
jumps have been identified to date of which it has been possible to identify 420 personnel with an at least partial
name.
Civilian jumpers were identified from published aviation histories and newspaper reports. Information on the air
force jumps was extracted from unit diaries and courts of enquiry files held on microfilm by Library and Archives
Canada. USAAF and USN jumpers were identified from US accident reports available accident-report.com
Forty one of the jumpers were killed, bailing out too low and landing in water being frequent causes of death, the
unfortunate 41 are identified by an ‘X’ in the penultimate column of the first table. A check mark (‘✓’) indicates a life
saving landing although many were not without injuries, often serious.
The final column in the first table describes the circumstances of the jump, which may not necessarily have been
the primary cause.
The mark >> following an entry indicates that a note about the incident follows the chronology table.
Only one woman appears in the list. Two of the jumpers made a second jump and an unknown number would have
made second jumps overseas.
Thanks to John Henderson, Terry Judge and Tony Broadhurst for filling in some of the blanks
Bail out or bale out?
“In Canadian and American English, to bail out is to dip water out of a boat, to make an emergency exit from an
aircraft, to assist someone in an emergency, or to guarantee security for the release of a person held in custody. To
bale is to bundle and bind hay, cloth, etc.
In British English, bale means bundle and bind, but is also the preferred spelling for all the ‘bail’ meanings above
except the last, to guarantee security for a person in custody.”
(Oxford Guide To Canadian English Usage, Fee & McAlpine, 1997)
Updated: 21 July 2019: As a result of comments received I have updated the list of jumps; deleted one jump which turned out to have never happened, added a name to another jump, corrected the spelling of a name and added an initial to another. The revised list is attached.
JUMP 1927-45
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Version – 06 July 2019