Following the war James Edwards decided to stay with the RCAF, as his experience as a fighter-bomber pilot was in demand in the post-war airforce. Unfortunately, he could not retain his Wing Commander rank as there were just too many highly experienced, high ranking pilots staying in the airforce after the war. His first posting was as Officer Commanding (OC) RCAF Station Centralia in Ontario. In March 1947, he was sent to KTS in Toronto on administration courses before heading to Trenton, Ontario on a flight instructor's course. The RCAF was planning on putting his flying expertise to good use in training the next generation of pilots.
Following Trenton he was posted as OC Vampire Flight, training pilots on Canada's first jet fighter. As no regular fighter squadrons were formed around the de Havilland Vampire, the Vampire Flight instructors trained men attached to Auxiliary Squadrons at Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver. This is where Omer Levesque got his first experience on Vampires and would become Canada's first pilot to down a Russian built MiG 15 jet fighter over Korea.
In the fall of 1948 he was posted to OC Flying at St. Hubert outside of Montreal. He was in charge of Regular Force Staff, as well as training and administering 401 and 438 Reserve Squadrons from Montreal.
A year later he moved to British Columbia to head up RCAF Station Sea Island operating a Search and Rescue Unit flying Lancasters and Canso Flying Boats. Now his twin-engine experience from 1944 came in handy as he was checked out on these two aircraft. Following this post he headed up a Vancouver recruiting depot for six months while waiting for a posting more in line with his experience. Finally, he was posted back to St. Hubert and then North Bay, Ontario where in 1951 he formed Canada's first squadron of North American F-86 jet fighters as 430 Sabre Squadron. The Korean War was raging by this time and some of his pupils from Vampire Flight were posted to American Sabre Squadrons defending South Korea.
In 1952, he finally returned to his war rank of Wing Commander and was posted to France to lead 2 Wing at RCAF Station Grostenquin flying Sabres over the continent and maintaining a NATO presence in Europe. He again commanded his old Squadrons numbers 430, 416 and 421. To get to Europe they developed a flight plan to fly from St. Hubert, Quebec to Goose Bay, Labrador, then to a staging and radar base called Bluie West on Sonderstorm, to Keflavik, Iceland, to Prestwick, Scotland and finally to Grostenquin, France. The Cold War against the Russians was building in Europe with the Russians engaging in displacing the governments in Czechslovakia and Hungary. NATO could not afford to be quiescent about the defense of the rest of Europe that was trying to rebuild from the war.
He spent nearly three years in Europe flying Sabres before he was returned to Canada to attend Staff College and was then posted to the USAF Air Defense HQ in Colorado Springs, Colorado for four years. This organisation was the heart and sole of the North American Air Defense (NORAD) network during the Cold War period and was considered to be a very important posting. On return to Canada in 1959 he took a refresher course in flying and then took the OTU on Canada's one and only operational aircraft, the CF-100 Canuck (also known affectionately as the "Clunk") at RCAF Base Cold Lake, Alberta. The Canuck was one of the world's first all-weather, day-night interceptors and was highly regarded in this role.
The Cold War was now at it's peak, with the Russians trying to infiltrate nuclear missiles to Cuba and the American's demanding their withdrawal. Eddie was assigned a staff job as Deputy Sector Commander of Ottawa Sector, Lac St. Denis, Quebec. Shortly after he was transferred to 41st Air Division at North Bay, Ontario as Deputy Operations Officer operating a new radar base running the Semi-Automatic Ground Radar Equipment (SAGE). This was the second line of radar defense for NORAD for the detection and tracking of nuclear missiles that were expected to be launched by the Russians over the north pole. The first line were the DEW Line sites being built along the Arctic coast. It was a tedious, but important position. Fortunately, nothing warrented their use.
In 1966, he was back to Colorado Springs as Plans Officer Staff at NORAD HQ. His last posting was rather inglorious as the CO, Canadian Forces Station Badly Hughes, another radar unit in north-central BC southwest of Prince George. He held the rank of Wing Commander from 1952 to 1972, but with the unification of the Canadian forces in 1969 he was converted to the equivalent Army rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He retired in 1969 from the RCAF.
Somewhere in his post-war history, his nickname changed from "Eddie" to "Stocky". This was based not on his physique, which was anything but stocky, but on his nature. He refused to let anyone or anything get the better of him, and he played by the rules given to him. Today (January 2002), Stocky Edwards and his wife Toni live in Comox, BC in happy retirement.
This page is located at
http://www.grostenquin.org/other/gtother-245.html
Updated: January 16, 2002
