In Memoriam

[Kip Powick]

Spitfire pilot dies

Toronto man flew 75 missions

The cockpit cover flew off. The wind lashed his exposed head and face. And Ian Keltie felt like he'd been "hit with a hammer."

Keltie, a pilot barely 22 years old and fighting for Canada in World War II, struggled to assess the damage to himself and his aircraft during that mission on Aug. 24, 1942.

He was escorting American B-17 bombers on a daylight raid of a target in France. He was under attack.

"I took violent evasive action and climbed hard and fast," Keltie wrote in Spitfire II, a book about Canadian fighter pilots published in 1999.

But as he mounted his defence and tried to retreat from the German enemy, he was careful not to turn his gaze too far to either side, into the wind.

"He didn't want to lose his sunglasses," Ross Keltie, Ian's son, said yesterday from his Toronto home.

"He had brand new sunglasses. They cost him two weeks' pay. He was always like that."

Ian George Secord Keltie died in Toronto on Jan. 29. He was 86.

Known to his family as "Grampie," Keltie is believed to have been one of the few surviving Canadians to have flown a Spitfire. With a Rolls-Royce engine, it was the top fighter plane of its day.

He flew under Billy Bishop, who was Canada's highest-scoring fighter pilot in World War I.

As a fighter pilot with the Royal Canadian Air Force, 402 Winnipeg Squadron, Keltie flew 75 missions over enemy territory between 1940 and 1944.

He was the second pilot to land in Normandy on D-Day, Ross says, noting his dad told him the first plane plowed into a farmer. Keltie flew in support of the Dunkirk evacuations in 1940.

King George VI awarded him the Distinguished Flying Cross at Buckingham Palace.

Throughout his life, Keltie loved to travel and spend time with family.

A modest man, he rarely talked about his life during the war, barely telling his children about his missions.

Ross Keltie knew little about how his father was wounded that "hot" day in 1942 on the flight back to Kenley air force base in southern England.

"He'd tell parts of the stories," Ross Keltie said. "We'd have to squeeze it out of him."

Keltie was halfway over the English Channel when his plane was hit. His leg was numb, he wrote in Spitfire II, so he wasn't in too much pain.

He opened fire on one of the two German Fw190 planes that he could see were closing in on him. Black smoke erupted into the air.

"He kept heading back to England," Ross Keltie, 53, said. "That was the safest thing to do."

Keltie flew low over English land, praying enemy planes would retreat for fear of being hit by ground troops.

Within minutes he landed on the base. Shrapnel had hit him in the leg. His boot was full of blood.

After three weeks in the hospital, Ross Keltie said, his father was back in the cockpit of his Spitfire, which had the spunky cartoon sailor Popeye painted on its nose.

The eldest of five children, Ian Keltie was born May 26, 1920, in Millet, Alta. The son of a farmer who served in a Scottish cavalry regiment in World War I, Keltie joined the air force in 1939.

He was 19, fearless and raring to go.

"He always wanted to fly," Ross Keltie said.

Keltie grew up on a farm before moving to Edmonton to attend high school with his siblings. When he finished his studies the war broke out.

He returned to Edmonton shortly thereafter and married June Martin, who died 14 years ago at the age of 69.

For a while he worked as a bush pilot. After that he sold life insurance, then spent 25 years as a distributor of floor coverings. He flew a plane out of Toronto's Island airport until he was in his 50s.

Keltie was proud of his role in the air force. He let his children play dress-up with his uniforms, even if he wasn't able to talk about his experiences.

Ross Keltie had plans to ask his dad for more stories.

"You keep putting it off and then it's too late," he said.

Ian Keltie leaves his three children – Heather Sloan, Margot Dobson and Ross – seven grandchildren and a great-grandchild, who was born Friday.