Carman’s Bob Diemert, who passed away recently on Jan. 11 at the age of 85, was a pioneer in the aviation community for his longtime work and restorations of old planes.
Diemert was born in Morden on Oct. 4, 1938, and first lived on a farm near Manitou. He moved with his father to Winkler at around age eight and he quickly became an avid reader and excelled in school, especially math and science. His love of planes and engineering started at a young age. At 14, he built a three-wheeled car called a trike. This was stored under the stage of the Winkler Theatre, which his family owned at the time.
Diemert also worked at a cannery in Winkler and helped the owner by figuring out that the temperatures on the machines were set too high causing the cans to explode when cooling down. This discovery helped the plant save money after the discovery.
At age 17, Diemert solved the problem of high-altitude flying for the U.S. Air Force. In school, he invented a new type of jet engine for planes.
“He actually wrote to the Pentagon and told them about this engine,” said Diemert’s daughter, Dianne Sauvlet. “He was invited to Washington D.C. to present his idea, which eventually the United States used for their planes.”
In his early 20s, Diemert moved with his dad to Carman, and they purchased some land south of town. He had a roller rink in one of the hangers and then later expanded it to what became Friendship Field Airport. He even built a house close to the airport.
Along with his father, they purchased the Carman Theatre until selling it in the mid 1970s. He then married Elaine Roberts of Miami in 1970 and they had three daughters together (Dianne, Tracie, Cindy).
Diemert first started rebuilding warplanes in the 1960s and went to the South Pacific to salvage parts from Japanese fighter planes used in the Second World War. Once restored, the planes were then sold to museums, including a Mitsubishi A6M, better known as the Japanese Zero that is on display at the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum in Hawaii.
He also restored a Hawker Hurricane, which he ended up going to England for, and was a stunt pilot in the 1969 movie Battle of Britain. He also designed a low-flying fighter plane called the Defender, which the Canadian National Film Board did a documentary about in the mid-1980s that revolves around his quest to not only build an aircraft, but to mass produce a cheaper alternative for the Canadian military.
Diemert built this aircraft, like many of his other restoration projects, out of the hangars at Friendship Field Airport, with some of its design plans even sketched out on the floor.
“The U.S. Air Force then contacted my dad to design a top-secret radar/aerial made of wood and fibreglass,” said Sauvlet. “It was to be attached to the outside of a jet without the use of metal. He was also asked to design a large wood and fibreglass door for the side of an aircraft that would allow a laser gun to be fired through it. The plane had to look like a regular aircraft. The force of air pressure at high altitude is very great, and Dad was able to create the door to withstand this great amount of pressure.”
Diemert was very proud to be honoured with the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal in November of 2022 for his accomplishments in Canadian Aviation. It meant a lot that his longtime friend Wes Vanstone of Miami had nominated him for the award.
Bob Diemert was a brilliant and kind man. He always had time for friends and his family. If you stopped by the airport for a visit, even if he didn’t know you, he would welcome you in and have plenty of stories to tell. He was well-known in the aviation community worldwide, and what’s amazing is that all of his success was self-taught.
“I can speak on behalf of my sisters and say that he was a great father,” said Sauvlet. “We learned how to work hard at whatever we did. He was always there when we needed him, and we saw many different countries on family trips. We all miss him dearly.”
