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An Article From Ipoh Echo – Remembering Leong Ming Sen
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Subject :An Article from Ipoh Echo – Remembering Leong Ming Sen
Published By : Ipoh Echo
Location : Ipoh
Estimated Year : 2008
Media Type : Article
Source : Ipoh Echo Issue 56
Remark : This article is a tribute to Leong Ming Sen from Capt Ho Weng Toh to an 80 year old-friendship. Leong Ming Sen was born in Ipoh on September 15, 1920 to an affluent family of seven children. He and MS first became friends as eight year-old pupils at St Michael’s Institution. MS loved to play games. He had all the time to spin tops and fly kites, play table tennis, hockey, football and badminton. He excelled in any field he entered. He played for Perak in both hockey and football. However, his intense love of sports landed him in trouble when they were 17. MS and another friend just could not stay away from the padang in school and one day they entered without getting permission. They were expelled. No compromises. However MS took it in his usual quiet, unflappable way. He moved on and finished at the Anglo-Chinese School.
After the schooling days, Ho Weng Toh went to Hong Kong and managed to also convince MS to join him. He enrolled in economics. They were only 21 when the pacific war broke out and they escaped to “Free China”. MS reached Chengtu and resumed his studies. Around this time he became troubled by the heightened need for medical personnel. He thought he should be a doctor and for more than two years studied to be one. However, fate would intervene, the more urgent demands for pilots during the last stages of the war decreed that MS should also be one. He was to excel in this field. As a start he went on flying missions over the “hump”, averaging 120 hours a month. The DC-3 flights would take off from Kunming, loaded with tin ingots for an airstrip in the Assam Valley (for transshipment to America). They would return to China loaded with aviation gasoline. Sometimes they would carry food supplies which they dropped to Nationalist Forces fighting in the plains and valleys taking up a new post at the China National Aviation Corporation (CNAC) main base in Shanghai where he remained even after the Japanese surrender.
He married his first wife, Ann, in Shanghai. In 1947 MS was made captain. He returned to Malaya with his wife in 1949 during the Nationalist retreat. He joined the fledging Malayan Airways and was the first Asian to be signed up as co-pilot. Limited promotional opportunities at Malayan Airways made him move to Singapore Standard newspaper company in 1952. That was also the year of his divorce. From the Standard he transferred over to a Chinese daily, doing the same job for a brief spell before leaving to study for his Airline Transport Pilot’s Licence in Southampton. However before he could finish the course there, he returned to Malaya to take up a lucrative offer with Federation Air Service (FAS).
MS stayed with the group until it was taken over by Malayan Airways in 1958 when he was transferred to Singapore and in 1962 he was appointed acting Captain of a DC-3. At the time of his retirement from Singapore Airlines in 1980, MS had 23,600 flying hours to his credit. He was a leading light in the SIA pilot training programme. He was F27, DC-3 and B737 Training Captain. MS died in June 2008. He is survived by his second wife Diana, three grown children and three grandchildren. Ho Weng Toh and MS had been friends for 80 years. Through youths uncertainties, adult involvements, marriages, fatherhood and grandfatherhood, bereavement and health concerns, he and MS always reached each other.
To read more about Malayan Airways, click here.
To read more about Captain Leong Ming Sen, click here.
To read a summary of a news cutting about Captain Leong Ming Sen, click here.
To read about the history of Anderson School, click here.
To read more about St Michael's Institution, click here.
After the schooling days, Ho Weng Toh went to Hong Kong and managed to also convince MS to join him. He enrolled in economics. They were only 21 when the pacific war broke out and they escaped to “Free China”. MS reached Chengtu and resumed his studies. Around this time he became troubled by the heightened need for medical personnel. He thought he should be a doctor and for more than two years studied to be one. However, fate would intervene, the more urgent demands for pilots during the last stages of the war decreed that MS should also be one. He was to excel in this field. As a start he went on flying missions over the “hump”, averaging 120 hours a month. The DC-3 flights would take off from Kunming, loaded with tin ingots for an airstrip in the Assam Valley (for transshipment to America). They would return to China loaded with aviation gasoline. Sometimes they would carry food supplies which they dropped to Nationalist Forces fighting in the plains and valleys taking up a new post at the China National Aviation Corporation (CNAC) main base in Shanghai where he remained even after the Japanese surrender.
He married his first wife, Ann, in Shanghai. In 1947 MS was made captain. He returned to Malaya with his wife in 1949 during the Nationalist retreat. He joined the fledging Malayan Airways and was the first Asian to be signed up as co-pilot. Limited promotional opportunities at Malayan Airways made him move to Singapore Standard newspaper company in 1952. That was also the year of his divorce. From the Standard he transferred over to a Chinese daily, doing the same job for a brief spell before leaving to study for his Airline Transport Pilot’s Licence in Southampton. However before he could finish the course there, he returned to Malaya to take up a lucrative offer with Federation Air Service (FAS).
MS stayed with the group until it was taken over by Malayan Airways in 1958 when he was transferred to Singapore and in 1962 he was appointed acting Captain of a DC-3. At the time of his retirement from Singapore Airlines in 1980, MS had 23,600 flying hours to his credit. He was a leading light in the SIA pilot training programme. He was F27, DC-3 and B737 Training Captain. MS died in June 2008. He is survived by his second wife Diana, three grown children and three grandchildren. Ho Weng Toh and MS had been friends for 80 years. Through youths uncertainties, adult involvements, marriages, fatherhood and grandfatherhood, bereavement and health concerns, he and MS always reached each other.
To read more about Malayan Airways, click here.
To read more about Captain Leong Ming Sen, click here.
To read a summary of a news cutting about Captain Leong Ming Sen, click here.
To read about the history of Anderson School, click here.
To read more about St Michael's Institution, click here.
Filename : 20100708-007