Croil Private is dedicated to Air Vice-Marshal George Mitchel Croil.
George Mitchel Croil was born in June, 1893, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. At the outbreak of the First World War, he joined the Royal Flying Corps and trained new pilots in Salonika, Macedonia and in the Middle East, and was, for some time, T.E. Lawrence’s (Lawrence of Arabia) own pilot on desert missions.
Appointed to the Canadian Air Board in 1919, Croil helped ensure that Canada maintained an air force during the peace era. When the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) was founded in 1924, Croil was among its first officers. In 1925, he was sent to Britain as liaison officer with the Royal Air Force (RAF) and attended training at the RAF Staff College. Back in Canada, he served for five years as Commanding Officer of the Camp Borden.
In 1931, Croil completed his training at the Imperial Defence College. He was appointed Senior Air Officer with the RCAF and in 1938 was promoted to Air Vice-Marshal and appointed Canada’s first Chief of Air Staff. In 1940 he was asked to take on the position of RCAF Inspector General and retired in 1944. He died in April 1959, in Vancouver.
