Shorty - An Aviation Pioneer

About the Book

Having survived the First World War in the trenches, Shorty Hatton started his aviation career in a near-fatal crash of an Avro 504K and ended it with another Avro aircraft, the Arrow.

In the intervening years he was a military pilot, bush pilot and test pilot. He taught fledgling aviators at Camp Borden. He survived forced landings on frozen lakes. He was the first to fly new air mail routes in an open cockpit plane. He tested newly-built Hawker Hurricanes before they joined the Battle of Britain and an early version of the "flying wing".

He may well have been the only person to work on all three of the only fighter aircraft ever developed in Canada: the FDB-1 Gregor, the CF-100 Canuck and the CF-105 Avro Arrow.

Six of the aircraft he flew are in the National Aviation Museum in Ottawa. Others are in museums in Canada, the United States and Great Britain.

About the Author

Jim Henderson was born in July, 1929 in Burlington, Ontario, too late to enjoy the affluence of the Roaring Twenties but in plenty of time fo learn about the Great Depression from his stockbroker-turned-chicken farmer father. His adolescence was spent in Brantford, Ontario where he joined the Militia. A Reserve Army commission while still in school led, after employment as a broadcaster at CKPC in Brantford, to full time military service with the Regular Army.

Early in 1950 he became editor of the Stoney Creek News, near Hamilton, but in the autumn of 1950 the far distant trumpet prevailed and he joined the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery bound for Korea. In Korea he was granted a regular commission.

During his military career he served in various artillery, staff and United Nations appointments. He comanded 2nd Surface Missile Battery, Royal Canadian Artillery and 2nd Regiment Royal Canadian Horse Artillery. He is a graduate of the British Army Staff College, Camberley, Surrey and the United States Armed Forces Staff College, Norfolk, Virginia. He also served on the faculty of the Canadian Forces Command and Staff College, Toronto.

On returing from the Canadian Forces in 1978, he joined the news staff at CHAY FM radio in Barrie, Ontario eventually becoming the station's News Director and Operations Manager.

From 1994 to 1999 he produced a quarterly publication, Military Digest, which was circulated by subscription. He has contributed regularly to two military publications, and is a member of the Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies and the Canadian Aviation Historical Society.

This is his second book to be published by Trafford. His first, The Nuking of Happy Valley, is a collection of amusing anecdotes from his military career.