fl ight. Incensed, Yates’s father wrote then Canadian prime minister Robert Borden to intercede on his son’s behalf and ensure he received the recognition he deserved. With Borden’s support, Yates Sr. took the case to the Canadian High Commissioner in London. In the words of Guy Simser, author of the defi nitive account of Harry’s aviation exploits, “Testy letters were ex- changed,” however, “a year and a half after, Yates Sr. pled the case, the two pilots were presented with the AFC.”3 This did little to lessen young Harry’s bitterness about his treatment in fl ying for the British. Earlier, in 1918, he had written home, “In the next war, there is one service I certainly will not be with and that’s the RAF.”4 The career of Dr. Harry Yates, DC, the chiropractic professional, remains to be documented. Simser used Yates’s diaries and the letters he wrote home to flesh out his account. These documents are in The National Archives of Canada, in Ottawa. Records associated with Yates’s tenure as a CMCC board member are preserved in the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic Col- lege Archives. I would be more than happy to guide interested researchers through the records associated with CMCC’s early years, where documents associated with Yates are likely to be found. You can also access records in the CMCC governing board, 1946. Dr. Harry Yates is seated in the foreground; Dr. Joshua Haldeman is the tall fi gure standing to his right. Dr. Ken Goldie of Lumsden, Saskatch- ewan, noted that the tall figure standing behind Yates in the 1946 CMCC board photo was Dr. Joshua N. Haldeman, an- other adventurer and aviation enthusiast. Serving on the governing board with Yates, Haldeman was also an avid flyer and, in 1954, flew 30,000 miles in a single-engine plane across Africa, Asia and then to Australia, perhaps the only private pilot to accomplish the feat.2 A RELATIVE UNKNOWN Dr. Joel Weisberg of Toronto writes: “Given the magnitude of Yates’s achievement it is sur- prising he is not better known – why?” Part of the reason is that the mission Haldeman spent years in search of the mythical “Lost City of the Ka- lahari” and was killed in an unrelated plane crash in South Africa in 1974. The quality of its first board members speaks volumes about the commit- ment and importance the chiropractic community put on its newly minted national school. 28 • CANADIAN CHIROPRACTOR | SEPTEMBER 2009 was secret at the time, but largely it was because of the dismissive attitude of the British establishment concerning the ac- complishments of colonials. British ser- vicemen routinely received advancement and honours ahead of their colonial coun- terparts for equal or lesser accomplish- ments. RAF Major A.S.C. MacLaren, an Englishman who set the original London- Cairo record, had been awarded an Air Force Cross (AFC) and bar for his achieve- ment. Yates, who slashed Maclaren’s re- cord by at least two-thirds, and did so with minimal ground support, sailed for home in 1919 without offi cial recognition for his CMCC archives remotely by searching our new archives database via the web. Go to www.cmcc.ca>> Health Sciences Library >>Resources>>Archives Database. Select the “Search entire database” link. Do a key word search and click on the attached document. This will bring up a complete listing of the records and photographs as- sociated with your search. Our new archives database is the first and only public archival database solely devoted to chiropractic. We are, I think justifi ably, proud of it. • REFERENCES 1. 2. 3. 4. Pope LS. Another incredible jour- ney. Sentinel, October 1968; re- printed in the Journal of the Cana- dian Chiropractic Association 1970 (July);14(2):33. Keating, Joseph Jr. Flying Chiros, Part II of II. http://drnikel.com/Fly- ingChirosPartIIofII.aspx Simser, Guy. A daring young man in his fl ying machine. The Beaver, 2000 (June/July), 80(30): 15. Ibid, 11. www.canadianchiropractor.ca
Chiropractic + Naturopathic Doctor September 2009: Page 28
