Jim O’Toole – Ripples in the water

My wife said this…

Ripples in the water

This is a comment I got with this post about Jim O’Toole.

Hi, my Dad is Jim O’Toole. We were visiting him this summer and went up to Comox to the museum. During our visit my Dad was looking at the photo you have of the pilots in front of the Spitfire. He started pointing out a fair amount of them and naming all but a couple. My sister Maureen has the list of names. If you ask Pat Murphy he can put you in touch.

ORIGINAL POST

Pat Murphy has been contributing to my blog about 403 Squadron.

Last night he sent me this picture of Charles Charlesworth who flew with 443 Squadron.

In a sense this post belongs here but I posted it first on my other blog.

Pat is a subscriber to my other blog and he saw the post I wrote about Chuck Charlesworth.

Remember I had posted it there by mistake.

Pat Murphy wrote this message…

Pierre really enjoying your recent postings and it’s always nice to see the Smith Brothers story again. Here is a picture that Art Sager gave me in 2004 of Charles Charlesworth at the far left, Art in the middle and Lloyd Hunt sitting on a jeep. It was taken in March 1945. Those are the only details I have.

Pat is the contributor who wrote the story about the Smith brothers.

He had more to say and share.

Art also gave me a 443 Squadron group photo probably taken around the same time. We never got around to identifying all those Spitfire pilots but you can see Art second from left, Charlesworth far right and Jim O’Toole is in the bottom row second from right without the hat.

Pat had even more in store…

Jim lives in Nanaimo and recently celebrated his 90 birthday at the Vancouver Island Military Museum with his family in attendance, Stocky Edwards came down from Comox to say a few words and it was a fun time to see these two Spitfire pilots together. Stocky was the Wing Commander for the last few months of the War.

Jim O’Toole on the left with Stocky Edwards

He had still more…

I’ve also included a picture of Jim O’Toole in his Spitfire.

All 3.9 megs of it!

Jim O’Toole

It was so beautiful that I could not resist sprucing it up a little.

We have a copy of Jim’s log book in the museum and it makes for interesting reading.

Keep up the good work

Work?

This is not work.

This is a passion!

TO BE CONTINUED…