Local Heroes and Stories 

Flying Officer Marian Neilly, an RCAF para rescue nursing sister shown here in May 1955 at RCAF Station Trenton, Ontario. She was a “parabelle”, a term coined for para-rescue nurses from the 1950s in the Canadian Forces.

She took part in operations in what would later become modern day search and rescue (SAR) in Canada.

Marian participated in Operation Pike's Peak at Lowry Airforce Base, Denver Colorado, on 24 March 1955. The Joint USAF/RCAF exercise aided the two services’ rescue units in adopting a system whereby both can participate in rescue missions in either country.

The para-rescue course offered in the 1950s was attended by nurses and doctors, who at the time were the only medical personnel to jump out of airplanes on rescue missions and they did so on a voluntary basis. The course was the foundation of, and at that time the only equivalent to, today’s vigorous and demanding SAR technician training course.

Nursing Officers continue to serve in the present day Canadian Armed Forces Medical Service, many having deployed on tours of duty overseas in the Gulf War, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Rwanda, Somalia and Afghanistan.