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Gordon Mundell
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Police officer, war veteran.
Born at Winnipeg on 23 March 1912, the son of Benjamin Mundell and Katherine Gannon, he graduated from St. John’s High School in 1929 and completed a correspondence course in radio repair through the National Radio Institute in Washington, DC in 1935. He served with the Winnipeg Light Infantry as machine gunner in 1929 and 1930; he achieved the rank of Corporal. When he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force on 14 September 1940, he was working as a policeman and living in the RCMP Barracks on Portage Avenue in Winnipeg. He had participated in the Musical Ride.
He enlisted initially in the Service Police because of defective colour vision and a false promise of specialist training. In January 1941, his eyesight was reassessed colour defective safe, and he was recommended for remuster to aircrew. On 5 February 1943, he qualified as a Bomb Aimer and was promoted to the rank of Sergeant. He proceeded overseas on 8 March 1943, was commissioned as a Pilot Officer on 5 May 1943, and joined 624 Squadron at Blida, Algeria, on 2 December 1943.
On 4 March 1944, shortly after take-off for a special operation, he and the crew of Halifax aircraft BB386 encountered sudden bad weather and the aircraft crashed five miles northwest of the aerodrome at Blida. All seven members of the crew perished in the crash. The probable cause of the accident was assessed to be the failure of an engine after take-off.
He was buried in the Dely Ibrahim War Cemetery in Algiers, Tunisia. In 1995, the Province of Manitoba named Mundell Lake in his honour.
This page was prepared by Robert Nash.
Page revised: 24 May 2024
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