This memorial is dedicated to the memory of Air Commodore C.W. Burgess, DFC and Brigadier General C.H. Mussells, DSO, DFC. It consists of sculpted Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) “wings” with a dedication plaque.
Charles Walter Burgess was born in November 1914 at Toronto. He enlisted in the RCAF Auxiliary as a Provisional Pilot Officer in October 1935 and was awarded his pilot “wings” in June 1937. From July 1940 to October 1943, he served at Training Schools in London, ON, Trenton, ON and Claresholm, AB. He was then posted overseas; first with 433 Squadron, followed by an appointment as the Commanding Officer of 426 Squadron in July 1944. Returning to Canada in August 1945, he continued to serve with the RCAF after the war and retired in March 1967 as an Air Commodore. He died in Ottawa in May 1988.
Campbell Haliburton Mussells was born in June 1920 in Montreal. He was a medical student at McGill University when he joined the RCAF in January 1940. For the first few years of the war, he was a flight instructor, but was then posted overseas; first with 426 Squadron and then with 405 Squadron, completing 30 missions between mid-September 1944 and early-March 1945. He remained with the RCAF after the war, holding various positions within Air Transport Command, Officer Commanding Central Flying School Trenton, Commanding Officer Station Uplands from 1957 to 1961 and Director Air Plans at AFHQ as well as attending the Imperial Defence College. He died in Ottawa in September 1987.
