Canada; Includes two pieces: Officer's dress tunic and service cap. The dress tunic is fabricated from a grayish-blue cotton-wool blend, the traditional look of the RCAF, with CANADA shoulder flashes on both shoulders, with light blue embroidered lettering on steel blue wool. The front has four large pockets, one on each breast which have decorative straps giving them a pleated-look, the other two at the waist are without pleats and are larger and deeper than the breast pockets. All four pockets have fold over button down flaps with reinforced button holes and small brass buttons with the crowned RCAF eagle insignia, the breast pockets with dual snaps. Each of the pocket buttons are maker marked "J.R. GAUNT & SON Ltd. LONDON ENGd" on the reverse. Above the left breast pocket there is an Observer's wing in rolled silvered bullion wire, in various textures, on a black wool base. Sewn in place below the wing is a three-ribbon ribbon bar, with the ribbons of the GRVI Distinguished Flying Cross, the 1939-1945 Star and the Canadian Volunteer Service Medal with silver Maple Leaf overseas clasp.
There is also a flap-less pocket midway between the upper and lower pockets on the right side. The front is completed by four large brass buttons on the right side, each with the crowned RCAF eagle insignia, facing an equal number of reinforced button holes on the left, the large buttons maker marked "Wm. SCULLY Ltd. MONTREAL" on the reverse. The rear of the tunic is single-vented. There are loops on either side at the waist for the placement of a belt, which has been lost to time. Each of the sleeve cuffs are purposely designed without buttons and have Captain rank stripes in light blue and black embroidery sewn upon them. The right cuff has a period laundry tag stapled in place, along with a metal wire housing a red strip of cloth fed through the fabric. The inside of the tunic comes with a grayish-blue rayon lining, while the sleeves are lined in the same material. The armpits incorporate u-shaped grayish-blue cotton-wool blend pads just below each opening. There is a pocket on the right side, with an embroidered Hudson's Bay Company manufacturer's label sewn upon it, along with two period laundry tags staples in place. There is a small metal hook sewn in place in the collar for placing the tunic upon a locker hook. The tunic measures 440 mm across the shoulders x 720 mm in length, exhibiting some separation along the seams of the lining on the interior, the exterior free of interruptions in the fabric. The fine quality peaked officer's service cap is fabricated from a grayish-blue wool-cotton blend, matching that of the tunic, featuring the classic high peak. It has four black eyelets on the underside of the cap at the rear for ventilation, along with a 43 mm wide black band around its circumference, which supports the RCAF cap badge insignia at the front. The insignia is composed of a gilt metal eagle, the open-ended wreath and King's crown in silver and gold-coloured bullion wire, maroon felt accent in the crown, along with touches of red and green embroidery in the crown's base, on a padded black wool base, the insignia measuring 60 mm x 70 mm.
The stiff visor is also in a grayish-blue wool-cotton blend, matching the rest of the cap and has a black patent leather strap, composed of two pieces, with dual adjustable sliders that runs across the front between the black finished posts on either side. The underside of the cap is covered in an emerald green synthetic fabric. The 50 mm wide dark tan sweatband is leather, emboss stamped with the "MUIR CAP CO LIMITED TORONTO" manufacturer's mark on the left side. It is named in handwritten black ink "A E FRANKLIN J.14225" on the sweatband on both sides, with "RCAF" added to the naming on the right side. There is a 20 mm black leather protective strip sewn in place on the dark tan sweatband at the front. The ends of the leather sweatband at one time were joined together at the rear via a white strip, but have separated with age and remain finished with a brown bow-tied ribbon sewn in place. The dome is lined in a salmon-coloured rayon with an overlaying reddish brown waterproof liner that exhibits extensive fraying, exposing the "MUIR CAP CO LIMITED TORONTO" manufacturer's mark stamped in gold-coloured ink on the rayon dome. Overall, the cap measures 240 mm x 260 mm x 120 mm in height. It exhibits collapsing on the top, discolouration on the bullion wire on the open-ended wreath on the cap badge, the aforementioned extensive fraying on the waterproof lining, along with age and wear soiling throughout. As worn.
Footnote: Arthur Edmond Franklin was born on June 25, 1921 in Saskatchewan. He was a member of 418 Squadron, Royal Canadian Air Force, flying aboard de Havilland Mosquito fighter bombers during the Second World War. In an interview conducted with Franklin in later life, he recounted his war experiences: "One day they said to us, "Okay. Pack up, you’re going to go." So they packed us up, put us into a parade, with a band in front of us, and marched – a band! “Loose lips,” (reference to seeing a “Loose Lips Sink Ships” poster, cautioning the men to keep quiet about when they were shipping out) the band? Couldn’t believe it. They marched us down to the dock. And there was a ship the size of the (RMS) Queen Mary or the (RMS) Queen Elizabeth and, “Oh, are we lucky!” We heard they could get across in four or five days and they were faster than the U-boats. They marched us right past that beautiful, big ship to a miserable little 10,000 tonne converted coal schooner at the end and marched us on board. So, 150 air force officers were now in this little converted coal boat. It was really something. Well, then of course they had to make up the convoy. And we heard later that the convoy that we were in had almost 250 ships and was one of the largest convoys to go across the Atlantic during the war. And we went up around Iceland and then into England. Then they sent us to (RAF) Cranwell in Lincolnshire (England) and we were there to learn how to use British equipment, we having been taught on training equipment. And they had little single-engine aircraft, I forgot the name of the single-engine aircraft. But it was just enough for a pilot. But what they had done was to modify it so that we could sit back to back with the pilot, do our work and then tap them on the shoulder when it was time to go. So that was fine. But, one day, our plane crashed and killed the pilot and they had to saw me out. (The instructors said) “If you’re ever in an accident, in a plane crash or something was wrong, please, try to go back into the air as soon as possible.” So as soon as I could, I went back up for a flight. Now, when we got to the squadron we found out that, of course, German aircraft were high on our list and we would often be sent, maybe I shouldn’t say “often”, but we were sometimes sent to a German airfield ahead of time, like, before the British bombers went over so that we could maybe inactivate that airfield, so they couldn’t get their fighters off to be a problem with our bombers. So we did all our flying at night, everything was out at night. We could attack anything that moved at night. So that French, German - I mean French, Belgian, Dutch, Danish, to heck with the Germans, they were told not to go out at night because it was dangerous. So any time we saw a train engine going along we’d fly up behind it and knock it out. And we knocked out a good many trains like that. And sometimes on short trips we would carry the bombs in the aircraft so we could drop them here and there and cause a bit of damage. Like, for example, drop it on a train station, we could drop it at the foot of a bridge and make it bad. One time, we dropped a bomb where two railways intersected and we saw all kinds of bright lights and we couldn’t figure that out at all. Turned out they’d electrified them and we didn’t know it. So we could do that. And then, after we had a bit of experience, they asked to – well, they didn’t ask us, they told us – to drop a parcel.
So, of course, they gave it to me and said that I was to go south of Paris, find a farmer’s field – they told me where to find the farmer’s field – the corner of a farmer’s field, and a drop a parcel by parachute. My goodness, in the dark, how was I going to do that? And you identified them, for example, when the people on the ground heard our engine, they’d fire off three coloured lights. Then they would use a flashlight or some light and give us three code letters. And we would do the same thing back to them, then they’d do the same thing back to us. But, each time, they were a different code. So we wouldn’t drop unless we had this special code that we’d been told about ahead of time. So then we would drop, and whatever it was dropped also with a parachute. And they wouldn’t tell us when we were dropping it. I didn’t keep a record of how many of those we did but we did quite a few. Then we eventually, found out we were dropping money for the French underground. And we dropped a transmitter, along with the money so that the people that picked it up could use the transmitter and tell England they got it. And England would know they got the money before we got back. Now, this didn’t happen every time. One time we were dropping money down in the southeastern part of France, near the Swiss border where the Alps, the mountains, start. And we dropped money there and apparently our parcel went down an icy slope, and it took them two or three days to get it. They finally got it and let us know. Another time, they said that they want us to drop a bomb near the Loire River (France). They showed us where, so we went down. When we dropped it, we saw that there was a train coming in. So there’s a huge, high bridge over the Loire River at that point. So we decided to wait until the train got in the center of the bridge then we could knock it out. So we did. And that was quite interesting. Another time, they said that they wanted us to go on a trip with another squadron. Turned out to be “The Dambusters.” (Operation Chastise by No. 617 Squadron, Royal Air Force, “The Dambusters”). They weren’t called Dambusters then, but they were the one eventually called Dambusters. So we didn’t know what it was all about. But we eventually found out they wanted us to go Dortmund–Ems Canal in Germany. And the Lancasters wanted the Mosquitoes to fly information with them over there at tree-top level, low, to avoid radar and that sort of thing. So we did. And we were so fast and they were so slow, we had to fly with our wheels down. Oh, we just hated that. And then we got just onto the continent and the word came back that the target was fogged in and we had to turn around and go back home. So we turned around to go back home and one of the Lancasters near us was shot out by a machine gun on top of a barn not very far from us. So then we went back out the next night with Mosquitoes that said, “We’re not going to fly information anymore, we’ll meet you over the target.” So we met them over the target. When I say “we” I mean Harold (his partner, Flying Officer Harold Lisson) and I. We went after search lights to try and knock them out and we did. Once we actually flew down, a search light, and knocked it out because there was a machine gun bunch at the bottom.
And we flew around and, apparently, it wasn’t a great success knocking out the dam. Did some damage but didn’t knock it completely out. So the Lancs all went home. And I didn’t know until many, many years later that Harold and I were the last of Mosquitoes to leave the area. While I was at Fighter Command Headquarters I got my DFC and then I did something strange. I thought, “Oh, gosh, mother would be so pleased know I got a medal.” So I went across and got to a telegraph office and asked them to telegraph this message that Harold and I had both been awarded the DFC, and that was fine. My mother lived in Prince Rupert (British Columbia) at that point. When she got the message, anyone that got a telegraph from England meant either dead or missing. So mother said, "Don’t read it over the phone. Send it home." She gathered up the whole family together and they were all together before she opened up the letter, then she found out what it really was." J.14225 Flying Officer Arthur Edmond Franklin, No. 418 Squadron, Royal Canadian Air Force was at Fighter Command Headquarters when he learned that he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, his citation appearing in the Fourth Supplement to the London Gazette 36489 of Tuesday, April 25, 1944, on Friday, April 28, 1944, page 1951: "This officer has taken part in very many sorties, involving attacks on a wide variety of targets. He has displayed great courage and coolness and his high standard of navigational ability has contributed materially to the many successes obtained. His services have been of great value." Franklin's partner, J.4330 Acting Squadron Leader Harold Stanley Lisson was born on February 1, 1916 and joined the RCAF in Edmonton on May 29, 1940, completing his training at SFTS 5 on March 12, 1941 while at the same time obtaining his Pilot Officer stripes. He was sent to SFTS 7 as an instructor until November 1942, at which point he was transferred to Great Britain, where he was assigned to 418 Squadron until May 1944, flying with Flying Officer Arthur Edmund Franklin as a Navigator. Lisson was also at Fighter Command Headquarters when he learned that he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross on the same occasion as Franklin was awarded his, the citation appearing in the same issue of the London Gazette: "This officer has completed very many sorties during which he has attacked airfields and installations with success. In air fighting, Squadron Leader Lisson has shot down 2 enemy aircraft at night. His fine fighting qualities have always been evident and he has set an outstanding example of keenness and devotion to duty." Lisson's operating tour would end the following month, as he returned to Canada, where he became an instructor, first at OTU 36, then at UTO 8 from June 30, 1944. On February 1, 1945, he was posted to the Air West Command. He continued to serve in the RCAF after the war becoming Squadron Leader on January 1, 1948 and Wing Commander five years later. After the war, Flying Officer Arthur Edmond Franklin would distinguish himself as a Professor at the University of Toronto in Infectious Diseases and participate in the development of the polio vaccine Medium 199 at Connaught Medical Research Laboratories at the University of Toronto in the 1950s. The complex problem of polio dominated the first half of the twentieth century. While the grim terror of polio epidemics worsened, research progress remained deadlocked. Hopes were raised in 1949 when a way was finally discovered to grow the polio virus in test tubes using non-nervous tissues. This Nobel Prize winning advance by Enders of Boston greatly stimulated polio researchers, including at Connaught Medical Research Laboratories in the University of Toronto. Connaught researchers made two key contributions that allowed the polio virus to be safely cultivated in enough quantities to enable the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (NFIP) unprecedented trial of Salk's inactivated vaccine (IPV). Beginning in 1947, Dr. Andrew J. Rhodes (1911-1995) led a comprehensive polio research program at Connaught. With a research team that included long-time employees Frank Shimada and Eina Clark, along with researchers at the Hospital for Sick Children, Rhodes investigated the complex problems of polio's epidemiology and diagnosis. This work was funded by Canadian Life Insurance companies and Federal Public Health Research Grants, though more quietly by the U.S. March of Dimes. By 1951, Rhodes was growing polio virus in test tubes using Ender's methods. Not enough virus was being produced to be practical for a vaccine until a member of Rhodes' research team, the now Dr. Arthur Edmond Franklin, tried a new synthetic nutrient base known as "Medium 199." Dr. Franklin had joined Rhodes's polio group in June 1951, forming a friendship with Dr. Joseph F. Morgan (1918-1976), under the supervision of Raymond C. Parker (1903-1974) in Parker's laboratory and from him, learned about Medium 199, which Morgan had developed with Helen J. Morton. Medium 199 was a chemically pure mixture of over sixty ingredients originally developed for studying cell nutrition in cancer research. It was the first synthetic medium ever produced. Franklin tried it and, to his delight and surprise, discovered it was perfect for cultivating the polio virus. Franklin recounted that when Rhodes, his research director, first learned about the results with Medium 199, he jumped on a chair and cheered in an uncharacteristic display of emotion.
Meanwhile, Jonas Salk was confident that an inactivated vaccine could prevent polio in humans as it seemed to in monkeys. However, it was not yet safe for human trial, nor could he make enough for the millions who were clamoring for protection from the dreaded crippler. Connaught solved both problems. Medium 199 provided a chemically pure culture base, which encouraged the NFIP to finance a major pilot project at Connaught to cultivate the polio virus in large quantities. In 1952-1953, this effort led to the "Toronto Method," developed by Dr. Leone N. Farrell (1904-1986). It involved culturing the polio virus in a solution of "199" and monkey kidney cells using large Povitsky bottles incubated on a special rocking machine. In 1952, Connaught's "199" gave Salk confidence to finally test his vaccine on children. By July 1953, just as Canada's worst polio epidemic began, the NFIP asked Connaught's Director, Dr. Robert D. Defries (1889-1975), to provide all the polio virus fluids required for a national field trial of Salk's vaccine. Connaught had established a prominent international reputation for making vaccines, and since it was a non-commercial biologicals producer, an open relationship with Salk and the NFIP was possible. Through the fall and winter of 1953-1954, large bottles full of each of the three polio virus types were sent in station wagons to Parke, Davis in Detroit and Eli Lilly in Indianapolis, for inactivation and processing. In total Connaught produced some 3,000 litres of polio virus fluids for the trial. After a number of delays, the mammoth experiment began on April 26, 1954, involving some 1,800,000 children who were given the vaccine, or the harmless "199" as a placebo, or were observed to see if they contracted polio. In May, in appreciation of Connaught's work, the NFIP, through Defries, offered the Canadian government a small amount of surplus vaccine to take part in the trial. The lateness of the offer was not overly appreciated in Ottawa, or most provinces, but the seriousness of the 1953 epidemic pressured Manitoba, Alberta and Halifax to accept it. For Connaught and Ottawa, however, their sights were set on an all-Canadian trial for the spring of 1955, no matter what the U.S. results were. In the meantime, Connaught went ahead to prepare a finished vaccine, which included the double testing of each lot by Connaught and Ottawa's Laboratory of Hygiene. On April 12, 1955, the announcement of the trial results became an international media event. After being immediately licensed by Washington, American commercial producers rush-released the vaccine, but with little government control. The Canadian trial was just starting, but unlike in the U.S., the federal and provincial governments shared the full cost of the vaccine and distributed it free to children. By the end of April, however, the public euphoria over the vaccine was shattered when some eighty polio cases were directly associated with vaccine made by Cutter Laboratories in California. This forced Cutter's vaccine off the market, and then the cancellation of the entire vaccine program by the U.S. Surgeon General. In Canada, the Minister of National Health and Welfare, Paul Martin, faced his most difficult political decision: what should Canada do? The Prime Minister was reluctant to let the Canadian trial to continue, but based on Connaught's long experience with the vaccine, Martin maintained his confidence. The vaccine had not yet caused any problems in Canada and vaccinations continued without incident. This Canadian experience meant a great deal to Salk. It also generated considerable media attention and debate in the U.S., especially over the differing levels of government interest in the vaccine between the two countries. The success of the Canadian program also played a major role in ensuring the future international use of the IPV vaccine in the control of polio. Subsequently, Connaught's pioneering work continued with the development of DPT-Polio and related combined antigens in 1958-1959, the first trivalent Sabin oral polio vaccine between 1959 and 1962, and an enhanced potency IPV vaccine in the mid-1970s prepared using continuous cell lines. Dr. Arthur Edmond Franklin was a true pioneer in the field of polio vaccine research. Arthur Edmond Franklin died at Headwaters Health Care Centre, Orangeville, Ontario, on Sunday, February 21, 2016, at the age of 94. His wife, Elizabeth "Betty" O'Neill Franklin (born in 1924) predeceased him on December 20, 2005. Both he and his wife are buried in Port Hope Union Cemetery (Saint John's Anglican Church Cemetery), Port Hope, Northumberland County, Ontario, Plot: 58, Row 24.