RCAF Aviation History: Air Marshal William Ross MacBrien, OBE, CD

Air Marshal William Ross MacBrien, OBE, CD

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3940981)
Air Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham, KCB, DSO, MC, DFC, AFC, AOC in C. of the 2ndTAF [Tactical Air Force], gives an informal fighting address to ground-crew,aircrew and RAF Regiment personnel during a recent visit to an RCAF airfield.By his side is Group Captain W.R. MacBrien,Ottawa, commanding officer of a Canadian Sector of the 2nd TAF, 30 May 1944.

Air Marshal William Ross MacBrien, OBE, CD, RCAF (1913–1986), commonly known as Bill MacBrien or Iron Bill,was a senior Royal Canadian Air Force officer during the Second World War and a senior commander in the 1950s and 60s. MacBrien was born in1913 in the United Kingdom. He joined the RCAF in 1935 and during the Second World War he commanded a Canadian fighter sector in continental Europe. In the early 1950s,he was a senior staff officer at the Headquarters of Canada's Air DefenceCommand in Saint-Hubert, Quebec before being appointed to further staff dutiesat No. 4 Allied Tactical Air Force(4 ATAF) at Lansberg in Germany.

In September 1958 MacBrien took over asAir Officer Commanding Air Defence Command. Deputy commander in chief at theSHAPE HQ in Belgium in 1967. From August 1967 to January 1969 MacBrien was the DeputyCommander of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). MacBrien died in 1986.His body was buried in the Beechwood National Military Cemetery in Ottawa. (Wikipedia)

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