Cedric Mah was a child of three in Prince Rupert, British Columbia when he found what he would do for the rest of his life. He said, “One day there I heard this funny noise in the skies, so I went racing outside and I looked up and I seen this object in the sky. And I waved at it and I'll be darned if a hand with a white glove didn't come out and wave back. So I said someday I want to be in a thing like that up there.”
When the Second World War broke out, Cedric ran to join the military and fight. But—because of prejudices at the time—he was not allowed to join the Canadian Air Force because he was of Chinese descent. He could have walked away, being bitter and angry. But he chose to be different. He didn’t let his dream die.
Instead, Mah traveled to the United States to become a flight instructor. He and his brother flew during the war with the China National Aviation Corporation. Their job was to fly supplies from Burma to China, braving the dangerous Himalayan Mountains with over 300 flights! The pair broke a record for the number of hours they flew over the Himalayas. In 1997 Cedric was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, the highest American air award. After the war, Cedric continued to pursue his passion for flight as a bush pilot, flying both in the Arctic and on the coast of British Columbia. After retiring, Cedric settled in Edmonton and for the past decade has been a committed volunteer at the Aviation Museum entertaining the many visitors with his animated story telling.
He very recently passed away, and as such, there have been no formal memorials in his honour. In an interview he was asked, “Would you make the same choices if you could live your life all over again?
He answered, “Yes, I would, because who in their wildest dreams would imagine that they could do what they wanted to do and to do it their entire life until sixty-five? My life's philosophy? Think what you want to do and do it.”
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