I’ll double-check the publication dates and send them to you in a PM, as soon as time permits.

I seem to recall reading about BSAA’s experiments with in-flight refuelling, too,  but I think that was the previous year. Again, I’ll try to carve out a bit of time to retrace my digital footsteps.

I’ve replied.

Oh, I should have mentioned this. I found reference to a radio programme about the in-flight refuelling trials, around the time they were taking place or soon after. It was broadcast on CBM, which I think was (is?) the English-language station of CBC radio in Montreal. That’s about all I can remember at the moment, I’m afraid.

Incidentally, CBC have been pretty good at retaining old programmes in their archives, though whether they would have kept this one is open to question. 

I’ll dig out the newspaper report in the next few days and post it here.

To establish when the previously posted photograph the BOAC staff in front of AL627 at Dorval might have been taken, it is helpful to look at [1] the flights undertaken by AL627 in July 1943 and [2] the itinerary of Viscount Knollys in that period.. 

[1] AL627

The attached chart shows the flights made by AL627 during July 1943, based on the Prestwick records.

These do not show the whole itinerary of the flight, only the airfield from which AL627 arrived and to which it departed. These were mainly intermediate stops en route to and from Montreal – unless it was a direct flight.

If AL627 made any other intermediate stops between Montreal and Prestwick, scheduled or unscheduled, these were not apparently recorded at Prestwick.

[2] VISCOUNT KNOLLYS

Edward George William Tyrwhitt Knollys, the 2nd Viscount Knollys, was appointed Governor of Bermuda in 1941. His appointment as the Chairman of BOAC was announced in May 1943.. Once Knollys took up his new role, he toured aircraft manufacturing facilities, met officials of other airlines and visited BOAC bases around the world.  

The following seems to have been his itinerary for the period in question, based on contemporary newspaper reports.

Knollys had been in the United States visiting factories where some of BOAC’s aircraft were built. On Saturday 3 July, he flew “up the coast” on a United Air Lines flight, arriving in Vancouver that evening. On Sunday, 4 July 1943, he took a TCA flight from Vancouver to Winnipeg. On 5 July, he visited the TCA workshops in Winnipeg and conferred there with senior TCA officials. On 6 July, he flew to Ottawa, where he stayed overnight in Government House, and, on 7 July 1943, he arrived in Montreal.  The date of his departure from Montreal has yet to be established.

POSSIBLE DATING OF THE PHOTOGRAPH

The photograph was published in Montreal’s GAZETTE newspaper on 22 July 1943. It is entirely logical to suppose the photograph was taken between 15 and 20 July 1943, when AL627 was at Dorval. However, it seems unlikely that Knollys, having arrived in Montreal on 7 July 1943, would still have been there a week or more later.

More likely, the photograph was taken during AL627’s previous visit to Dorval.  Having left Prestwick on 5 July 1943, AL627 probably arrived at Dorval on  6 July, the day before Knollys arrived from Ottawa..

Since AL627 arrived back at Prestwick on 10 July 1943, it probably left Dorval on 9 July,

Therefore the photograph could have been taken on the afternoon of 7 July 1943, at any time during 8 July or on the morning of  9 July..

Comments and/or corrections welcome.

I just posted a couple of images on other threads and, when clicked on, they pretty much fill the screen.

That said:

[1] It took two attempts to get one of the images posted

…..  and  …..

[2] I had to post the ‘second attempt’ image in the following post because the ‘EDIT’ button seems to have disappeared.

Any suggestions from the KEY AERO crew???

I hope that the attachment is of interest to some here. It shows a number of BOAC personnel ranged  in front of a Liberator at Dorval in 1943. The quality of the image, being taken from 75-year old newsprint, is not the best but it looks as though the serial number of the Liberator shown is AL627.

One of the BOAC staff in the photograph is Capt. Poole.  He was the captain of Liberator AL528 (a photograph of which started this this thread, when it crashed and went up in flames landing at Charlottetown (Prince Edward Island) a few years later. He survived, though badly burnt, but his co-pilot, D.W. Ray, sadly did not  The other crew members and all eight passengers all got out alive. The aircraft and its cargo were lost.

Anyway, here’s the newspaper clipping.

Here’s a contemporary report on that event.