Here’s another of Eugene Frandzen’s “Lives of the Aces in Pictures” from the pages of Flying Aces Magazine. The series ran for almost four years with a different Ace featured each month. This week we have his illustrated biography from the December 1934 issue featuring that famous Canadian Ace—Captain Frederick McCall!

By the end of the great war, McCall had become Canda’s fifth most successful flying aces with 35 confirmed and two unconfirmed victories. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order, Military Cross & Bar and the Distinguished Flying Cross!

After the war he went into civil aviation, trying his hand at Barnstorming and stunt flying as well as founding a pair of aviation companies. In 1920 he founded McCall Aero Corporation Limited which flew commercial freight and passengers and opened up regions of Canada that had previously been hard to reach. He later founded Great Western Airways in the late ’20’s once again flying cargo hither and yon. Including flying 200 quarts of nitroglycerin from Shelby, Montana to Calgary! On another occasion, he ignored all bad weather reports to fly a much needed doctor to the Skiff oil fields to treat two seriously injured workers. All the while, McCall worked to encourage the formation of Canadian flying clubs!

With the arrival of the Second World War McCall was recalled to service with the Royal Canadian Air Force as a Squadron Leader, based at numerous western Canadian bases.

McCall passed away in Calgary, Alberta on the 22nd of January 1949. He was 52.

• Download “Lives of the Aces in Pictures – Part 30: Captain Frederick McCall (December 1934, Flying Aces)