Dr.M. MacLean Returns From Air Force Duty

[Welland Tribune 1945]

After an absence of five and a half years, during which  time he served with the medical section of the R.C.A.F, Dr. Malcolm MacLean, who holds the rank of wing commander in the airforce, has returned to Welland. Dr. and Mrs MacLean and their three daughters, Elizabeth, 41/2, Mary, three and Catharine, four ,months, have taken up residence at 114 West Main street.

Beginning practice in the Welland district, at Fonthill in 1933, Dr. MacLean assumed the practice of the late Dr. Duncan Allison in Welland in 1935, upon the latter’s death. He held appointments as coroner for Welland county; county jail surgeon; plant surgeon for Empire Cotton Mills Ltd, and the John Deere Plow Co. and examiner for Orient Lodge, I.O.O.F. He was also a member of the Welland club, the Optimist club and served on the finance committee of the church.

Gazetted  to the branch of the Medical Corps serving the R.C.A.F., Dr. MacLean brought in Dr. Alan D. Rice to serve his practice upon his enlistment. Upon graduation from the R.C.A.M. school of instruction and the first course held at the school of Aviation Medicine in Ottawa, he was promoted to the rank of captain and posted as medical examiner at the Niagara Falls R.C.A.F recruiting centre. Duriing his three months here, he examined. For enlistment many of the early R.C.A.F. recruits from the Welland area. He told the Tribune today that he had always regretted the extremely rigid physical requirements in the R.C.A.F. at that time, which caused the rejection of many aircrew applicants, who with the reduced requirements later adopted, would have passed the examination readily. However at the time the candidates accepted ground service and were later able to remuster for aircrew.

For the balance of 1940, Dr. MacLean served as medical officer in charge of setting up medical facilities and building hospitals for the No.1 bombing and gunnery school at Jarvis; No.6 serving flying training school at Dunnville and No.4 bombing and gunnery school at Fingal.

Senior M.O.

With the formation of the R.C.A.F medical branch in November 1940, he was transferred from the R.C.A.M.C. with the rank of flight  lieutenant. In January, 1941, Dr. MacLean was posted to the east coast as senior medical officer at No.9 service flying training school at Summerside P.E.I where he served for a year and a half and received his promotion to the rank of squadron leader.. He was posted to the R.C.A.F station at Rockcliffe as senior medical officer in June 1942. and here had supervision of the medical affairs of this large station including  No.7 manning depot for the Women’s Division.

Among the interesting features of his work at Rockcliffe were the setting up of the medical board for No. repatriation depot of the R.C.A.F. and the supervision of building a hospital to serve R.C.A.F. personnel in the Ottawa district. Success in these tasks brought promotion to the rank of wing commander.

In August 1943, Dr. MacLean was sent to Lachine, Que., to serve as  senior medical officer for  No. 5 manning depot which later, when the R.C.A.F approached full strength became No.1 embarkation depot. In addition to his duties as senior medical officer he was organizer and first president of No.3 command medical board, providing full-scale consultant service in all branches of medicine for the training command extending from Ottawa to the Atlantic coast..

Spell at Pacific Coast

A year later, he was posted as senior medical officer of the R.C.A.F. operational station at Patricia Bay on the Pacific coast and returned to the R.C.A.F. station at Trenton as senior medical officer in the spring of this year. He was granted his release from the R.C.A.F late in September on a priority basis and since has enjoyed a short leave and period of study.

Reviewing his war service, the doctor expressed gratification in the part he had been privileged to play in the medical branch of the R.C.A.F. and especially for the responsible medical commands he held in stations of the Commonwealth Air Training Plan. He also stated he was fortunate in being posted to  positions where his work was a combination of medical administration and clinical medicine so that he  had been able to keep in close touch with advances in all fields of medicine.

Dr. MacLean reports that Dr. T.Perrett, who practiced surgery in Welland and left at the same time to enlist in the R.C.A.M.C now commands No.4 Canadian General Hospital in England, with the rank of Lieutenant colonel.