▲ Alf Stringer (left), the first employee of Okanagan Air Services, and Carl Agar (right), OAS co-founder, just back from the bush in 1948. Photo courtesy of Evelyn and Pamela Stringer
Carlyle Clare (Carl) Agar was born on November 28, 1901, in Lion’s Head, Bruce County, Ontario, but the family moved to Edmonton four years later. Carl was the second child, six years younger than his brother Egan, who became his hero in 1917 when Egan and his friend Wilfrid Reid “Wop” May enlisted in the Edmonton battalion. On arrival in England both young men transferred to the Royal Flying Corps, and teenaged Carl was thrilled when his brother sent pictures of himself standing beside a fighter plane that was capable of travelling over 70 mph (112 km/h). But early in 1918 Egan was shot down and killed during a low level attack over German lines. He had survived a full 50 hours of combat, which suggests that he had been very good at his job as ground-attack pilots normally did not last that long. His friend Wop May survived the war and returned to Edmonton where he became one of the most legendary of the bush pilots who opened Canada’s North.
Even with his brother’s death, Carl’s enthusiasm for flying did not subside, although his parents, having lost one son to aviation, did not support his career choice. When the family moved to a farm southwest of Edmonton, Carl left school to work with his parents. In 1928 he married Ann Short and the following year their first child, Dorothy, was born; a year later a second child, Egan, arrived. With a family to support, Carl took on extra work with other farmers in the area in order to accumulate the $250 he needed to enrol in the Edmonton Flying Club. His first instructor there was Maurice “Moss” Burbridge, who was also teaching another young man named Grant McConachie. The two would meet again years later when McConachie was president of Canadian Pacific (CP) Air and Carl was vice-president of Okanagan Helicopters.
By 1929 Carl had obtained his licence, and Wop May promised him a job if he acquired a commercial licence. Unfortunately, the crippling effects of the Great Depression were beginning to hit Canada’s Prairie provinces, and Carl’s parents were getting older and needed more help on the farm; he could not turn his back on them. Knowing that farming could not support his flying, he reluctantly put away his logbook and licence. For a brief period between 1932 and 1934 he worked for the Department of Indian Affairs in agriculture then returned to farming full-time until World War II broke out in September 1939.
He tried to enlist with the RCAF, but at age 39 he was considered too old for active service and was only offered general duties. Devastated, he picked up his logbook and walked out. However, a chance meeting with his old flying instructor, Moss Burbridge, rekindled his hopes. Burbridge told him about the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP), which trained pilots, navigators, air gunners and wireless operators at various sites across Canada. They used the de Havilland Tiger Moth and Fairchild Cornell for elementary training and the Harvard and Anson for advanced training. Initially, instructors needed 250 hours in the air, but Burbridge was certain that this was about to change as more instructors were needed, and not long afterward he showed Carl a telegram stating that civilians with 30 hours total air time would be considered for positions as training instructors. Carl returned to the recruiting office in Edmonton, this time with a slightly amended logbook showing 39 hours and 25 minutes of air time.
He was sworn in as an aircraftman second class and sent to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, for basic training. The course was very demanding with a high number of washouts at the start, and while all the candidates were under considerable physical and mental pressure, at 39 Carl realized he would have to keep up with them as he would never get another chance. Twice he was grounded and twice he survived the washout check; after his second grounding, he had to wait three weeks for his check ride, spending his time pushing aircraft in and out of hangars and mopping up. When the day of the check ride finally came, his confidence was at its lowest, but somehow he managed to pass even though he had not touched the controls for over three weeks.
After earning his wings, Carl went on to Trenton, Ontario, where he obtained his instructor’s rating before returning to Edmonton. He still hoped to be posted to an operational squadron overseas, but his age prevented that. Instead, he was sent to No. 5 Elementary Flying Training School (EFTS) at High River, Alberta, followed by a posting to No. 3 EFTS Calgary, Alberta, and to No. 24 EFTS, Abbotsford, BC. He soon became known as an excellent instructor as he had empathy for his trainees and brought out the best in them. He also developed new methods of flight-testing that were eventually adopted by all the flying training schools across Canada. For his wartime services, in 1944 he was awarded the Air Force Cross, which was given for an act or acts of valour, courage and devotion to duty while flying, though not in active operations against the enemy.1 (It was finally presented to him in 1954 at a special ceremony in Victoria, BC.) After his honourable discharge in 1945, he tried farming in Abbotsford but after six months moved his family to Penticton.
Arnold H. (Barney) Bent was born on November 9, 1914, in Revelstoke, BC, and moved with his family to Penticton in 1919. His father, Percy, had been a coppersmith during World War I and later started a welding business in Vancouver with his brother. However, since Percy suffered from severe asthma, his doctor advised him to move to the Okanagan, and there he opened another welding shop and developed a low-pressure irrigation system for use in the local orchards. Eventually he branched out into heating and sheet metal jobs. Barney learned to weld in his father’s shop and worked in the family business from an early age, but when orchard business declined in the 1930s, he went to Vancouver to work with his uncle. An industrial accident at a local refinery damaged his leg, but he underwent therapy and eventually made a full recovery. On returning to Penticton he married Aurelia (Rilla) and they had three children.
In 1943 Barney, now aged 29, was inducted into the RCAF as a trainee pilot and within three months had gained his wings. After basic training, he was sent to No. 6 EFTS, Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, where he was selected as a candidate for flying instructor. He taught at many of the BCATP elementary flying schools in western Canada, but after the war he returned to Penticton and the family business. Carl Agar’s chance visit to the Penticton garage reignited his love of flying.
With their air force experience behind them, both men wanted to find a way to make flying a career, so they decided to start a flying club, a relatively simple process in those days. By associating with the Royal Canadian Flying Club, they were able to purchase two Tiger Moths, including spares, for the sum of $200; both aircraft were in excellent condition and had low airframe time.
With two aircraft to maintain, they needed to hire a licensed air-maintenance engineer. The lack of suitable candidates in the Okanagan sent Carl to Vancouver, but he found that none of the engineers at the Vancouver Airport were willing to give up secure airline jobs to work for a small flying school in the Interior. However, he did hear of a man with an aircraft engineer’s licence who had recently been discharged from the RCAF and who was working in a garage in downtown Vancouver.
That man was Alfred (Alf) Stringer, who was born in Lancer, Saskatchewan, on July 26, 1921. His father, a Yorkshireman, had come to Canada in 1912 but returned to England with the Canadian Army to fight in World War I. While convalescing from wounds in England, he met his wife who was a nurse at the hospital. The couple settled in Lancer, a very small town started by the Canadian Pacific Railway, and that is where their three children were born. Alf, the second child, began helping with the tractors and farm equipment at an early age.
Alf’s mother, however, did not like small-town Prairie life, and following one particularly violent hail storm, she moved with the children to Vancouver to stay with her sister; Alf’s father joined them after he sold the farm. Alf attended Vancouver Technical School, in those days an all-boys trade school, where he learned the automotive trade. In 1943 with his apprenticeship complete, he joined the RCAF as an air-maintenance mechanic. During his service he was stationed at a number of air-training stations in western Canada and eventually was commissioned as an engineering officer. On discharge he had returned to Vancouver looking for aircraft-maintenance work,