One last engine run becomes a sendoff for longtime RCAF member

David Clemens could not think of a better way to send his late father off than in a Lancaster aircraft at the Bomber Command Museum of Canada.

Bill Clemens, 98, died in December.

The former mechanic worked on several types of aircraft during the Second World War.

“He worked on Wellingtons, Halifax and Lancasters,” said Clemens.

Bill was a mechanic at RCAF Claresholm before going overseas to work on the Halifaxes and Lancasters of RCAF 427, 429, 435, 436, and 437 Squadrons.

“Young guys doing their best, out in the open, no hangars, fixing bombers so they could go every night, so that we could have freedom and victory,” said Karl Kjarsgaard, director of the Halifax project at the museum.

On Sunday, Clemens brought his dad’s ashes inside the cockpit of the Lancaster at the museum for one last ride.

“He volunteered to join the RCAF for World War Two,” said Clemens.

“We were down in Claresholm yesterday at the BCATP, the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan Airport, where he had done some of his training and then today we brought him here to take him up in the Lancaster for the final engine run.”

The experience was moving for Clemens, who lives in Olds.

“It will stay with us,” he said.

An engine run in front of a couple hundred people was the perfect gift on Father’s Day.

“It was great for me and it was the last thing I could do for him,” said Clemens.

Kjarsgaard says he was proud to honour the Clemen's family wish on a special day.

“When the war was over, the Royal Canadian Air Force squadrons they tabulated which squadrons, British, Australian and Canadian had the highest serviceability rate in all of Bomber Command,” he said.

“The Canadians were number one and it was guys like Bill Clemens busting their buns for four years.”

It also signified a day for Kjarsgaard to remember the veterans who are no longer here.

“Most of the veterans are gone now,” he said.

“But the thing is, we treasure their memories, and we're all free because of them.”