Walter Kinnaird McKinnell was born in 1914 to Robert Walker McKinnell and Margaret McFarlane McKinnell (Reid). Robert McKinnell was a real estate agent in Edmonton before moving to Hardisty, Alberta in 1917 to open a pharmacy.

Walter McKinnell graduated from the University of Alberta in 1940 and enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force. He became a navigator on an Avro Lancaster bomber crew, Squadron #431, and successfully completed many sorties over Axis targets in France and Germany during the Second World War. After the war, he returned to Alberta and eventually earned his pharmacist certificate in 1965. He died in a car accident near Hardisty in 1970.

The series consists of records directly related to McKinnell’s war-time service in the Royal Canadian Air Force. These records include Ground School Training material including course work, notebooks, and text books on various subjects (e.g. navigation, aerodynamics, mapping); flight navigation charts including training charts for Canada and the United Kingdom and bombing mission charts for France and Germany; completed mission reports for multiple sorties over France and Germany; service records including leave passes, discharge papers, and other personnel records; photographs of McKinnell, fellow servicemen, air bases, Lancasters and other airplanes, and sites around the United Kingdom; war-time correspondence with friends and family in Canada; newspaper clippings related to important events during the war (e.g. D-Day landings, V-E Day, etc.); McKinnell’s dog tag; a silk map of escape routes from France in the event of a crash landing in enemy territory; a charred silk escape map from an actual crash landing; and post-war issues of the RCAF Observer.

The records not related to the Second World War are few in comparison and consist of family photographs; a First World War tribute to King Albert of Belgium from 1916; and documents related to McKinnell’s pharmacy career, including his pharmacist certificate.