Lynn Garrison

Garrison in cockpit of an RCAF Mustang, July 1956

RCAF MENTOR 205 over RCAF Station Penhold, Alberta August 12, 1954

Lancaster KB-976, flown by Garrison, over FM-136, Calgary, Alberta on 4 July 1964

At the age of 17, Garrison joined the RCAF and trained at the RCAF Officer Selection Unit (Ontario) and Course 5411, 4 Flying Training School (RCAF Station Penhold, Alberta). During October, 1954, the Beechcraft T-34 Mentor was introduced to RCAF service in a quest to find a replacement for the Harvard. Courses 5409 and 5411, at Penhold, were chosen as the test classes for the type. It was decided that the T-34 was too easy to fly and was dropped from the RCAF in February, 1955. A total of 48 students participated in this experiment, including Garrison. After completing the course on Harvards he advanced to 2 Advanced Flying School (Portage la Prairie, Manitoba) for jet aircraft training in the Canadair CT-133 Silver Star.

Garrison received his wings on 6 April 1955 making him the youngest "winged pilot" in the RCAF since World War II, a record that still stands. Garrison's wings were presented by Wing Commander Joe McCarthy DSO, DFC, CD, a Second World War veteran who was famous for attacking the Sorpe dam on the Dambuster's raid.[1][2]

In 1962, Garrison served with 115 Air Transport Unit of the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF), on the Sinai Peninsula, where he flew de Havilland Otters and Caribous. While with 115 ATU he acted as Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations Dr. Ralph Bunche's pilot.[3]

On 4 July 1964, Garrison captained the RCAF's final flight of the Avro Lancaster with Flight Lieutenant Ralph Langemann as co-pilot. Specially authorized by Minister of National Defence, Paul Hellyer, the flight was complicated by the fact that Garrison had never flown a Lancaster and had broken his ankle the previous day. It displayed at the Calgary International Air Show, an event created and coordinated by Garrison. After the flight, Garrison purchased the aircraft, KB-976, which is now included in Kermit Weeks' Fantasy of Flight collection in Florida.[4]

In his classic, Fighter Command Air Combat Claims, 1939–45 (1939–1940), John Foreman commented on the question of pilot temperament and ability. Foreman observed that Garrison had remarked, "In every squadron there were, perhaps, four or five pilots who exuded confidence. They knew that they were going out to shoot. The rest knew sub-consciously, that they would make up the numbers, mill about, and get shot at".[5]

Garrison P-51D Mustang CF-LOQ at Calgary, July 1962

In 1960, Garrison obtained a contract to ferry 75 ex-RCAF P-51 Mustangs to new owners in New York. Milt Harradence took time off from his law practice to accompany Garrison on the trips. Flying mainly without radios, they navigated by following the Canadian Pacific Railway tracks eastward. Harradence and Garrison acquired two Mustangs as part of their compensation and registered them RCAF 9221 44-74435"CF-LOR" and RCAF 9223 44-74446 "CF-LOQ";[6] the first of their type registered in Canada.

Garrison at a committee for Federation Aeronautique Internationale conference in Dublin, Ireland, 1973

During 1961, while ferrying surplus RCAF Mustangs from the old BCATP airfield at Macleod, Alberta, Garrison spotted a number of Lancaster bombers slated for the melting pot. He purchased Lancaster FM-136 and created the Lancaster Memorial Fund to see the aircraft on permanent display in Calgary. His aircraft was without engines. The government loaned him 4 for the ferry flight to Calgary. Lancaster FM-136 was mounted on a concrete pedestal. The memorial was dedicated by Air Marshall Hugh Campbell, Chief of the Air Staff on April 12, 1962. FM-136 would later be removed for display in Calgary's The Hangar Flight Museum. A number of Garrison's original collection formed the original basis for the museum and are displayed alongside FM-136.[7][8]

During the sixties, Irving P. Krick & Associates operated a successful cloud seeding operation in the area around Calgary, Alberta, utilizing four Harvards to disperse silver iodide into the atmosphere in an attempt to reduce hail damage. For several years, Garrison, Ralph Langeman and Stan McLeod, all ex-members of the RCAF's 403 Squadron, spent their summers flying hail suppression. The Alberta Hail Suppression Project is continuing with C$3 million a year in funding from insurance companies to reduce hail damage in southern Alberta.[9]

In 1964, Garrison established the Air Museum of Canada.[10] Prior to the creation of the Museum, Garrison had accumulated a personal collection of 45 classic aircraft including:

In 1963, Garrison acquired a number of Hawker Hurricanes from farmyards in Alberta and Saskatchewan for his collection. He planned to create Canada's first flying aviation museum but could not generate interest. One of these now flies as G-HURI while Hurricane 5389 is now under the stewardship of the Calgary Mosquito Aircraft Society and is under restoration in Wetaskiwin, AB. During December 2013, Bonham's Auction House offered one of Garrison’ Hurricanes for sale, valuing it at between $2,000,000 and $3,000,000.[11]

After 50 years in storage, on 11 August 2012, Garrison’s ex-Spartan Air Services PR.35 Mosquito (RS700 CF-HMS) was transferred to the Bomber Command Museum in Nanton, Alberta, for restoration by the Calgary Mosquito Aircraft Society with half of the $1,650,000 funding provided by the City of Calgary.[12]

Garrison relocated to Los Angeles during 1966 and incorporated the American Aerospace & Military Museum, Inc. with Walker Mahurin, Mira Slovak, Chuck Lyford and Mickey Thompson on the board. Mahurin obtained displays from the USAF, the first being a HGM-25A Titan 1 missile. Ed McMahon, a former Marine Corsair pilot, and Johnny Carson’s nightly TV sidekick, was involved with the project. As a result, Carson heard about the missile and used it in a joke, one night, commenting on “people who forgot luggage at motels, but here was a guy who forgot a Titan Missile!” The resulting uproar saw the USAF retrieve their property.[13]

Between 1965 and 1969, Garrison was president of Craig Breedlove & Associates. Breedlove held the World Land Speed Record five times in 1965 with a top speed of over 601.1 miles per hour. During 1968, Garrison started a deal that saw Utah's Governor, Cal Rampton provide a hangar facility for the construction of a supersonic car. Bill Lear, of Learjet fame, was to provide support, along with his friend Art Linkletter. Playboy magazine hoped to have the car painted black with a white bunny on the rudder. TRW was supplying a lunar lander rocket motor. However, the concept was shelved. The group also negotiated to use the late Donald Campbell's wheel-driven Bluebird CN7 record-breaker.[14]

Garrison published the aviation magazine AVIAN from 1966 to 1969 with contributions from actor and pilot Richard Bach, Ernest Gann, Ray Bradbury and others. AVIAN started a tradition by including an aviation-oriented poem; the first issue featured "Planes that Land on Grass" by Ray Bradbury while the last issue, Vol, 2, No. 6 featured Garrison's Remembrance which has been used over the years by pilots’ groups such as Fighter Pilot University.[15]

Camera crew from Richthofen & Brown. Peter Peckowski and Peter Allwork in cockpit of Aerospatiale SA 315B Lama. Jimmy Murakami, Shay Corcoran, Garrison

Between 1964 and 1965, Garrison worked with the Irish Air Corps to establish a collection of First World War replica aircraft and support equipment at Weston Aerodrome, Leixlip, Ireland. It was originally established for 20th Century Fox's 1966 film The Blue Max.[16] The aerial fleet included a sole Caudron 277, two Fokker DR 1s, three Fokker D VIIs, two S.E.5As and two Pfalz D IIIs (all full-scale replicas) four de Havilland Tiger Moths, three SV4C Stampes, a Morane 230 and six Curry Wot 3/4 scale S.E.5As.[17]

Irish Air Corps pilots filming Von Richthofen and Brown, 1970. Garrison is second from right, front row

During the September 1970 filming of Owen Crump's film, Zeppelin, Garrison's unit lost an Alouette helicopter and S.E.5 in a mid-air collision over Wicklow, Ireland with a loss of five people including Burch Williams, brother of 20th Century Fox executive Elmo Williams. For the film Tora! Tora! Tora!, Garrison and Jack Canary created the large fleet of "Japanese" aircraft. Some of these aircraft still make appearances at air shows.[18] Garrison also worked on Darling Lili, Barry Lyndon, Ryan's Daughter and the TV series "Twelve O'Clock High".[19]

Garrison became a mercenary, flying as a combat pilot in various conflicts and later acting as a military and political advisor, allegedly with the support of several US Government agencies and U.S. senators.

During the Nigerian Civil War (1967–1970), Garrison joined a group of mercenaries fighting for the breakaway state of Biafra.[20] Garrison was originally dispatched to Biafra to research ways to neutralize the Nigerian Navy frigate Nigeria, which was blockading Port Harcourt to disrupt petroleum exports. Discovering his expertise as a pilot, the Biafrans asked for Garrison to assist. On 20 August 1967, he flew one mission in an almost unserviceable B-26 against Kano airfield, destroying three Mig-17s.[21] Then it was realised that light aircraft could operate as simple COIN platforms, gaining the support of Garrison's associates, James Baring and John Fairey, of the Barings Bank and Fairey Aviation Company families. Count Gustav von Rosen initiated this concept, which finally saw action in May, 1969. Garrison's RCAF experience help him destroy numerous Soviet-supplied aircraft, such as a MiG-17 and IL-28 at Port Harcourt on 22 May 1969. Numerous such raids were conducted around this period.[22]

Garrison introduced a Canadian method of dropping bagged supplies to remote areas in Canada without losing the contents. He showed how one sack of food could be placed inside a larger sack before the supply drop. When the package hit the ground the inner sack would rupture while the outer one kept the contents intact. With this method many tons of food were dropped to many Biafrans who would otherwise have died of starvation.[23][24]

During 2017, an American intelligence study investigating light COIN aircraft contacted Garrison regarding the Biafran action.[25][26] In response, Garrison provided details on his combat experiences in the conflict.[27] Each year, on 30 May, the IPOB - Independent People of Biafra - hold the Biafran Annual Remembrance Day; Garrison's role has often been noted. The 2018 remembrance activities were marked by publication of articles, one entitled: "Biafra Fallen Heroes: The Heroic Deeds Of Lynn Garrison In Focus".[28][29]

Later in 1969, Garrison flew in the last military conflict involving propeller-driven fighters (P-51 Mustangs and the Vought F4U Corsairs) during the Football War between El Salvador and Honduras.[30]

Garrison with RCAF 9281, 1956. It was flown in the US as "Cottonmouth" and used in the 1969 Football War

Garrison had owned an ex-French Navy Corsair which had operated in Vietnam and during the 1956 Suez Crisis, having bought it after its retirement from French service, it was transported to California for him with help from the U.S. Navy.[31]

Garrison's long-term involvement with Haiti commenced in August, 1980 when he accompanied Burt Lancaster as Producer/Director of a TV segment on paranormal phenomena. Lancaster was to be the host. They hoped to capture the secrets of Voodoo. Their project paralleled one by Wade Davis as he gathered material for his book, The Serpent and the Rainbow The crew filmed dozens of ceremonies around the countryside. Near midnight of August 23/24 Garrison's crew was almost killed by peasants as they tried to dig up a Zombie in the cemetery near Desdunnes, in the Artibonite Valley.[32][33][34]

By August 1991, Garrison was back in the political arena and, arguably, a military role as a personal advisor to Haiti's military ruler, Lieutenant General Raoul Cédras,[35] the US Senate and, allegedly, the DIA and CIA.[36] He acted as the interface between the American embassy and Cedras after diplomatic relations were severed; his code name was "'The Shadow".[37]

Garrison with Haitian Corps d’Aviation Marchetti and crew, 1990

In June 1992, Garrison, working with Colonel Pat Collins, the Military Liaison Officer with the American embassy, wrote a White Paper visualizing modification of the Forces Armeés d'Haiti (FAdH) into what they called, an Army of the People. This would see the FAdH undertake many projects to support Haiti's population, including road building, school and hospital construction, revival of the nation's 23 airfields and interdiction of drug traffic from Central and South America. Mobile medical/dental clinics, staffed by military personnel, were to be a major factor in the program. A team of 700 Canadian and American military engineers and technical staff was dispatched to Haiti on the USS Harlan County, on 11 October 1993, but left Haitian waters when its captain, Commander Butcher, perceived dangers not seen by Colonel J.T.F. Pulley, 7th Special Forces chief on board.[38][39]

In a final effort to avoid a full scale invasion of Haiti, on September 18, President Clinton sent a three-man delegation, made up of Jimmy Carter, Sam Nunn and Colin Powell to negotiate with Cedras. The American negotiators used Garrison's office, located adjacent to that of Cedras, as the focal point of their communications with Clinton's team. Their CIA crew had installed a scrambled telephone there, with “white noise machines" to preclude electronic eavesdropping. In his book, ‘Hazardous Duty’, David Hackworth recounted the final moments before the invasion, in which Garrison's eavesdropping, from a next door office, on a call between President Clinton’s office, and the Carter, Nunn, Powell team, revealed the fact that a 61 aircraft attack force was airborne and enroute to Haiti. Hackworth wrote, “The dream team had all the high-tech stuff. But they were being screwed by the most time-worn spy gimmick in the books: the old ear-to-the-hole-in-the-wall-trick. Garrison told General Biamby what he heard and Biamby acted, shielding Garrison’s identity.”[40] In his book, ‘My American Journey,’Colin Powell wrote: ”At 4:00 Biamby burst into the room. ‘The invasion is coming,’ he shouted. He had just been on the phone with a source at Fort Bragg, he told us, and American paratroopers were getting ready to board their aircraft at 5:00 P.M. Not bad intelligence, I thought, for a poor nation.”[41]

They then met with President Émile Jonassaint to negotiate a peaceful occupation. Garrison’s intercession effectively derailed a bloody invasion with predictions of 25,000 potential civilian casualties.[42][43][44][45]

Aristide returned on October 15, 1994.[46]

Garrison is credited with coordinating the effort that held Aristide out of Haiti from September 29, 1991 till October 15, 1994. Because of this he remained outside Haiti, though still heavily involved, until Aristide’s second flight into exile, in February, 2004.[47][48][49][50]

Garrison's Haitian Children's Fund is coordinating distribution of donated One World Futbol soccer balls in Haiti as part of a Chevrolet sponsored worldwide project to acquire and distribute containers of these undeflatable balls to Third World countries.[51]

Garrison's ancestors migrated from Ireland to Pennsylvania in 1728. Some moved on to Kentucky and then to Marion County, Illinois. Garrison's great grandfather, William Lloyd Garrison (born ca. 1830-32, not to be confused with William Lloyd Garrison, Jr. (1838–1909), the son of the abolitionist of the same name), served with the 40th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment during the American Civil War. He lost his leg in the Battle of Shiloh, and was subsequently released from service on 18 October 1862.[52]