As a young pilot, he first flew the Sabre in the mid-1950s, then moved on to its replacement, the Starfighter, in 1962.Supplied
It says something about Paul Manson’s skill as a pilot that his favourite plane was the CF-104 Starfighter, a notoriously difficult plane to fly with stubby wings and a powerful engine that could take it to Mach 2.35, more than twice the speed of sound.
General Paul Manson, who has died at the age of 88, was a fighter pilot who rose to become the chief of the defence staff. Before taking on the most senior job in the Canadian Armed Forces, he was in charge of the program that chose the CF-18 Hornet for the Air Force. In his retirement, he urged the government to buy the F-35 fighter, which it did this year. And he was a key player in the campaign to get the Canadian War Museum the new building it needed.
Gen. Manson certainly knew fighter aircraft. As a young pilot, he first flew the Sabre in the mid-1950s, then moved on to its replacement, the Starfighter, in 1962. The Starfighter was a supersonic aircraft, designed to intercept Soviet bombers. When intercontinental ballistic missiles replaced the threat of long-range bombers, the CF-104 became a ground attack aircraft. It had a poor safety record, but it remained Gen. Manson’s favourite aircraft over the course of his long flying career, according to his wife, Margaret.
Paul Manson was born in Trail, B.C., on Aug. 20, 1934. His father, Robert Manson, was a chemical engineer; his mother, Mary McLeod, ran the household. The family moved to Arvida, Que., then to Montreal for several years, and young Paul started school there. During the war, he was fascinated with the feats of the Royal Canadian Air Force, and a family photo shows him in a junior RCAF uniform. No one knew then, of course, that he would one day become the commander of Air Command and later chief of the defence staff.
In 1947 the family moved to Deep River, Ont., where his father worked at Chalk River, the experimental nuclear plant 180 kilometres northwest of Ottawa.
After high school in Pembroke, Ont., Paul attended Royal Roads, a military academy on the West Coast, as an air force officer cadet, then the Royal Military College in Kingston – he graduated as the top cadet at both – followed by a degree in electrical engineering at Queen’s University in 1957.
Like many pilots before him, he trained on the yellow Harvard and then the T-33 jet trainer.
In 1957 he married Margaret Nickel, received his pilot’s wings and was promoted to flying officer. He and his wife then moved to the RCAF base at Cold Lake, Alta., ideally suited to intercept incoming Soviet bombers, which luckily never happened. There he flew the CF-100 Canuck, a long-range interceptor and the only Canadian-designed and built aircraft used by the RCAF.
In 1958 the family moved to Europe. He was posted first to the base at Zweibrücken in Germany, then Metz in France, near the border with both Germany and Luxembourg. He returned to Canada in 1960 for a number of postings.
In 1968 he returned to Europe as commanding officer of a squadron based in Lahr, Germany. He was promoted, but by that time air force ranks had disappeared with the unification of the Armed Forces, and he was a lieutenant-colonel. Back in Canada in 1972, he was marked for bigger things when he served as executive assistant to the chief of the defence staff from 1972-73.
He then became base commander at CFB Chatham, N.B. While there, Mrs. Manson produced and directed two Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, The Mikado and HMS Pinafore, in which her husband had leading roles. In the latter he played the part of Dick Deadeye, an appropriate role for a top fighter pilot.
In 1977 the family spent some time in Quebec City to polish their French language skills. “He became quite fluent in French,” recalled Mrs. Manson. She also remembers how quickly a military family had to respond to transfers. “In Quebec, Paul was told on a Wednesday to report to Ottawa the following Monday.”
In Ottawa, he was promoted to brigadier-general and became program manager for the search for Canada’s new fighter jet; eventually, the CF-18 was chosen, which the Air Force flies to this day.
One of Gen. Manson’s big retirement projects was as the full-time volunteer chairman of the campaign to establish the new Canadian War Museum.Supplied
Prime Minister Brian Mulroney appointed Gen. Manson Chief of the Defence Staff in 1986. He remained in that post until he retired from the Armed Forces in 1989.
In civilian life, he became president of Paramax, a Montreal-based aerospace company, and then chairman of the board of Lockheed Martin Canada. He was a frequent commentator on military affairs in print and on television.
In 1991, during the Gulf War, recently retired Gen. Manson sat in a CBC studio with then-anchor Peter Mansbridge.
“We tried to interpret information with maps and live feeds from Baghdad, Washington and occasionally Ottawa and London. I learned a lot from the general, an old fighter pilot, from what he could tell us about those first days of what was primarily an air war,” recalled Mr. Mansbridge. “Gen. Manson kept us away from the clichés of war, reminding us it wasn’t a video game and that people were dying.”
One of Gen. Manson’s big retirement projects was as the full-time volunteer chairman of the campaign to establish the new Canadian War Museum.
“Back in about 1997, in the days of the old Canadian War Museum, I was approached and asked if I would be interested in being involved in fundraising,” said Gen. Manson in an interview in 2015. “About two years later, the plans started to gel, and the Prime Minister at the time, Jean Chrétien, at the request of Barney Danson, agreed to put federal money into the building of a new War Museum provided that the museum was able to raise $15-million from the private sector, and that task was given to me and my small group of volunteers and we set to work.”
The museum opened in 2005.
In 2002, Gen. Manson was named an officer of the Order of Canada, partly for his contributions as a “dedicated and selfless volunteer” for both the War Museum campaign and the Aviation Hall of Fame. (He was also a trustee of the Canadian Museum of Civilization.)
Paul Manson had several hobbies. He was a keen amateur astronomer, played golf and bridge and loved music. “He played the trombone and was a good singer,” said Mrs. Manson. While he was Chief of the Defence Staff, from time to time he would contact the Armed Forces director of music and ask to come and play with the band during rehearsal – the musicians reported he was good enough to join them.
Paul David Manson died in Ottawa on July 1. He leaves his wife, Margaret, his children, Bob, Cathy, Peter and Karen, and five grandchildren.