[Bill Walker]

Apologies again for going off topic...

What the RCAF requested/expected at various times during the war is a fascinating story in its own right, and would deserve a book some day. Besides Vengeances, the list includes Stirlings, Maurauders, Mustangs and Lightnings, plus helicopters and blimps for the RCNAS. The Liberators and Fortresses they did received were the result of long, convoluted negotiations, and they were never received in the numbers requested.

Many of these requests resulted mostly from desperation, and don't mean the aircraft involved was considered superb in any way. The Vengeances would have replaced float equipped Blackburn Shark biplanes, so they would have been seen as a step up. In early 1942 the entire Canadian fighter presence on the east coast was also biplanes, so the RCAF regularly requested anything with wings.

RCAF history and Canadian history could have been much less pleasant if the Home War Establishment had been severely tested, beyond the U-boat wars on both coasts and the minor Japanese raids into Alaska.