Earth Angels Rising - Authors Note September 2015 by Ted Beaudoin

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This book is a collection of anecdotes, extended narratives, photographs, maps and other graphics along with diaries, memoires of many never-before-published accounts, most of them intriguing, many fascinating, others heart-warming, and some gut-wrenching. It is a literary hitch-hikers guide to what became the Royal Air Forces Ferry / Transport Command of World War II - the RAF FC / TC, and was popularly known throughout WW II as simply Ferry Command.

Trainloads of information about bombers and fighter aircraft have been produced since 1945, dazzling readers and movie audiences everywhere, but by comparison, little information has been made public about how these airplanes got there.

To this end, I have dedicated, as a labour of love, much of the 10-year period between 2005, the Year of the Veteran in Canada, and 2015 to researching from as many sources as I could find anything to do with the RAF FC / TC, and wound up writing three stand-alone books.

Thousands of men and women and many children today would like to know more about the RAF FC / TC but do not quite know where and how to find detailed information which is contained within the three books resulting from this research. For this reason the final chapter in each book provides Finding Aids which can help these folks find more about the RAF FC / TC.

The language in all three books is Commonwealth English. All measurements are given in the now almost-outdated Imperial System such as feet, miles, gallons, pints as that was the measurement system in place before, during and immediately after World War II. The books contain many never-before-published anecdotes, numerous extended narratives and stories, along with personal memoires and photographs from those who served in the RAF FC / TC. To avoid any perception of favourites, anywhere there is a need to publish a list of anyone or anything, it will appear in alphabetical order.

The book titles are:

Book 1 Earth Angels Rising Book 2 Sworn to Secrecy

Book 3 Youngest Canadian teenager serves Canada in a British military unit Book 1 tells the many stories behind the creation and operation of the RAF FC and how some 3,500+ civilians from 23 allied nations made it happen along with how these civilian veterans finally got their recognition from Canada in 2000, thanks to a feisty former radio operator employee for the RAF FC, 92-year old Louis Lang, Cote-St-Luc, Qubec, Canada, who campaigned across Canada for years on their behalf. Book 2 deals with the children of Ferry Commanders, all of whom were sworn to secrecy in one form or another by automatic fealty to ones allied country military unit, or as civilians who took an oath of secrecy, which left many of their children - todays adults - wondering just what it was their relatives did during World War II. Book 3 is the remarkable story of the youngest teenager - 88-year old Larry Sellick, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, to actively serve the RAF FC / TC as the only remaining air cadet apprentice after all other apprentices quit when one of their colleagues fell out of an airborne bomber and lived to tell the tale. All the research material obtained over the last decade to track these stories is being digitized and will be donated to Canadas National Archives Canadas Department of National Defences Royal Canadian Air Force through Major Bill March, Historian,

Directorate of History and Heritage, Canadian Forces Base in Trenton, Ontario, and editor Air Force Magazine allied air forces who seconded many personnel and resources to the RAF FC, along with allied commercial airlines who attached personnel and resources to assist the RAF FC civilians, and to any aviation-interested archive and / or museum anywhere in the world. DISCLAIMER: I take full responsibility for any omissions and / or errors in these pages. All permissions have been obtained, where possible, to reproduce the material in these pages, and where this has not been possible, I have named and credited the sources.