Posts with the Danforth Tech tag

Barris Beat

The gift I’ll never forget

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment

I had just completed my final public-speaking event of 2024. I had presented the same talk on my latest book nearly 70 times in three months, and that mid-December day I was looking forward to the holiday break.

The best present, I thought, would be a few days’ rest over Christmas and New Year’s. I was wrong. As I packed up my laptop, one of the aviation enthusiasts in my audience said he had something to give me.

“Come on over to the officers’ mess,” he said. “It’s there.”

After a short, chilly walk across the outdoor parade square at the Canadian Forces College in North York, I caught up with the man who’d invited me. “You might find this of interest,” he said and handed me a cardboard portfolio with red, white and blue lettering on the cover; it read: “RCAF: The War Years … Commemorating 40th Anniversary Battle of Britain.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Luck is 33 eggs

Written by Ted Barris on . 3 Comments
F/O Bob Middleton wearing his navigator’s brevet (graduation wings) 1942.

It was kind of like the last breakfast for a condemned man. Whenever Canadian and other Second World War aircrew got word they were facing a tough bombing mission over enemy territory in Europe, the crews were invited to enjoy the most precious breakfast in all of Britain at that time.

“Bacon and eggs. You got bacon and eggs,” my veteran friend Bob Middleton told me on the weekend, “because you didn’t know if you’d be coming back.”

Those nights when Bomber Command aircrews boarded their Lancaster, Halifax, Whitley or Mosquito aircraft to fly most of the night over Nazi-occupied Europe, seem oh so long ago. (more…)