Andrew Carswell, AFC, CD (May 29, 1923 — July 25, 2021)

‍Squadron Leader Andrew “Andy” Carswell, AFC, CD, passed away peacefully in his sleep on July 25th, 2021 at Sunnybrook Veterans Centre in Toronto. Andy was born in Bishop, California to Morrison and Dorothea (Fosdick) Carswell as his father, an electrical engineer, was working on the Hoover Dam. Andy was a lifetime cottager at Kahshe Lake. His mother’s family, the Fosdicks, spent their vacations at John Benzinger’s farm and later built their own cottage near the Benzinger farmhouse. Andy returned to Balmy Beach in Toronto with his family in the 1930s. 

His mother’s aunt, Ally Close, had bought the Benzinger farm in 1932 so he came to Kahshe Lake as a young child. His father bought the farm in the 1940s and it has been in the Carswell family ever since. Andy joined the RCAF during WW2 in 1941 on his 18th birthday and became a Lancaster bomber pilot. He was shot down in 1943 and was a POW in Germany, escaping twice and once making it to Stettin on the Baltic before he was recaptured. He wrote a book Over the Wire about his wartime experiences which was published by Wiley in 2012. 

After his liberation in 1945, he spent the summer with his brother Jim, a wartime Artillery Officer, at the family farm on Kahshe Lake. He married Dot McCreadie in 1947 and rejoined the RCAF as a pilot soon afterward. He was awarded an Air Force Cross by Queen Elizabeth in 1958 for his flying skill and bravery during several rescues in British Columbia. He retired from the RCAF in 1970 and became a Transport Canada aviation safety officer until his second retirement in 1988. He bought his mother’s cottage in 1965 and cottaged at Kahshe Lake until a few years ago. He is survived by his wife Dorothy and his children Anne, Jim, John, and Tim. His daughter Marg passed away in 2018.