World War II veteran dies in Yellowknife at 99

One of the last veterans of the Second World War living in Yellowknife has died.

Dusty Miller, 99, was an aircraft engineer with the Royal Canadian Air Force. He was well known in Yellowknife and proudly participated in many Remembrance Day ceremonies. 

• FROM 2010 | Remembering Canada's role in WW II

In an interview with Veterans Affairs Canada, Miller said during the war he was posted to a Canadian squadron of Beaufighter airplanes assigned to night fighting in Britain. Their duty was to ward off German bombers as they came over the North Sea; they used the weather to their advantage, he said.

"Like a nice clear night, cloudy night, our airplanes would go up, right in under the cloud and they could have a better view," he said. "And when [Germans] would come in, in waves of maybe three or five or something, our boys would be sitting up right under the cloud and they would have the advantage of seeing them before they got seen."

Miller explained to Veterans Affairs Canada that a regular crew included a pilot, a navigator, and ground or air engineers. He said engineers didn't generally fly in operations unless crews were short.

'Shake the hand that shook the world'

Yellowknife Mayor Mark Heyck recently took to Twitter to share the city's condolences to Miller's friends and family.

"I'll miss seeing Dusty at the Remembrance Day parade. As he was so fond of saying, 'Shake the hand that shook the world!'" he wrote. 

In February 2014, CBC spoke with Miller and his wife Connie Miller at a Valentine's Day lunch at the Baker Community Centre. At the time the couple had been together for 65 years.

Miller told CBC the key to having a long lasting relationship is "just a matter of good judgement."

"Get a good one, don't lose 'em," he said.

The longtime couple raised four children in Yellowknife. They settled there after moving to Inuvik from B.C. 

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