The Naming of Parts

November 1999 Table of Contents

THE NAMING OF PARTS
by Jack Hardy

The Central Abaco District Council has decided to name public entities after notable Abaconians. Should Marsh Harbour International Airport be named after Captain Leonard M Thompson? Of course it should! The initiative taken by the Central Abaco District Council is entirely laudable. 55 years after he was shot down over Germany in the service of his country and the Western Alliance is far too long a period for us to let go by.

Capt Thompson left his Hope Town, Abaco, home as a young man. In 1939, after a brief banking career in Nassau, and a love for flying, he left with $300 garnered from the sale of his beloved motorbike and some donations from relatives and friends to join the Royal Canadian Air Force. Everything was against him but his indomitable spirit and never-say-die attitude carried him through some wonderful adventures and put him in the front line of the war as a bomber pilot.

Meantime, he met and married Mary Tofin, a Canadian lady born in Poland. Mary was Capt Leonard's lifelong partner until earlier this year, his rock upon which to cling, his best friend and advisor, his gentle critic, his most loving companion.

World War II bomber pilots were supposed to fly 25 missions and then receive a hiatus. After 24 harrowing missions - though if you read Capt Leonard's I Wanted Wings you would think that some of the missions were like Sunday outings in the car - the 25th mission came. On 28th July 1944, Capt Leonard's bomber was shot down near to Hamburg. He was detained at Stalag Luft III near Lukenwald. Freedom only came on a grab your stuff and run basis when the Russians advanced towards the area and the POWs were able to make a hasty exit towards the west.

Towards the west was The Bahamas and Capt Leonard's first child, Leonard Junior, born while he was a prisoner of war. After demobilisation, Capt Leonard was active in the first commercial airline of The Bahamas. He and Mary led a productive business life and Capt Leonard was elected an independent member of the House of Assembly for Abaco. As a politician, however, Capt Thompson was somewhat of a maverick. He did not kowtow to the UBP party line and was not averse to expressing opinions that were unacceptable at that time.

From his early days as a pilot, Capt Leonard had admired the beautiful stretch of beach known then as Sand Bank. Through many adversities, he began the development known now as Treasure Cay. And who named it Treasure Cay? Capt Leonard.

There were tragedies and disappointments in the years following the war. Capt Leonard and Mary lost their son, Jeffrey, in a drowning incident off Grand Bahama when he was 24 and newly graduated from university. Capt Leonard was caught up in the Abaco Independence Movement that fizzled out, but you can still talk to Abaconians who would tell you how advanced Abaco would be today if it could keep every cent it earned on the island.

Capt Leonard and Mary's other children are still very much part of Abaco. Kathy O' Kelleher, Terry Curry and Chris Thompson are all very active in Abaco's progress.

Capt Thompson is not a man who 'lives on the hill'. You will find him shopping next to you at the supermarket, rubbing shoulders with you at local events and waving as he passes in his Ford Ranger truck. Wonderfully lucid, yet still a humble island boy in many ways, you would never think that Capt Leonard Thompson was a hero. After all those years, it took a new generation of politicians to recognise Capt Thompson's war and aviation efforts. Capt Thompson has been honoured by his country, but mostly for civic and business endeavours.

I once asked Capt Leonard why his war efforts had never been fully recognised in The Bahamas. "Because those who recommended the awards stayed home very comfortably during the war while we put our lives on the line. And they were jealous afterwards," he told me a few years ago. "While they were going to the balls at Government House and directing war-drives, I was was flying over enemy territory, never knowing what would happen to me and my crew."

On Thursday 13th May 1999 came Capt Leonard's darkest hour. Mary, a life-long smoker, succumbed, as she knew she would, and faced death as cheerfully as she had welcomed every new day. That morning was the opening of the Bertram/Hatteras Billfish Shoot Out. They employed a World War II bomber to fly low over Abaco Beach Resort - another of Capt Leonard's business ventures - to announce the start of the tournament. In his grief, Capt Leonard, who lives near the resort, did not recognise the implication - the first World War bomber to pass over Abaco in so many years. But we who love Capt Leonard saw a wonderful symbolism in that event and maybe imagined a twinkle in the eye of Mary, who would have appreciated the appropriateness and the irony.

Capt Leonard Thompson is probably a man who, like many of us older people, looks back on what he did and wonders, "Did I do that?" Indeed he did. When I was looking him up early in September, his daughter Terry said he had jumped on to a an aeroplane to the States, not to buy anything or go anywhere, just for the ride. That's our Capt Leonard.

Read his book I Wanted Wings and then figure out any other Abaconian who is in the running for the name of the Marsh Harbour International Airport. "We are now landing at Captain Leonard M Thompson International Airport. Please fasten your seatbelts."

I don't know about you, but to me that sounds good. Congratulations, Abaco Central District Council!

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