Herbert Hollick-Kenyon

Herbert Hollick-Kenyon

Herbert Hollick-Kenyon, aviator (b at London, Eng 17 Apr 1897; d at Vancouver 30 July 1975). He immigrated with his family in 1909 to Ewing's Landing, BC, and joined the Canadian Army in 1914. Twice wounded in France, he was invalided home and in 1917 joined the Royal Flying Corps. He returned to Canada in 1928 and, based in Manitoba, was staff pilot for a commercial airline. In 1935 he joined the Lincoln Ellsworth Antarctic Expedition and was pilot for the first transantarctic flight. He and Ellsworth covered 3500 km but ran out of fuel and landed about 25 km short of their destination; they were stranded for 2 months until they were picked up by a British ship. In 1937-38, Hollick-Kenyon piloted an aircraft commissioned by the Soviet government in a vain attempt to find a crew of 6 missing on a transarctic flight, a search that covered thousands of sq km of the Canadian Arctic. He flew for Trans-Canada Airlines until 1942, when he joined Canadian Pacific Airlines, becoming CPA's first chief pilot. He retired in 1962 and was named to Canada's Aviation Hall of Fame in 1973.