Posts with the RCAF tag

Barris Beat

Flag Day dreaming

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Feb. 15, 1965 – Red Maple Leaf flag unveiled for the first time. Radio Canada International photo.

It was a crisp, cold winter day. The sunshine was minimal. But the group of spectators on Parliament Hill was unexpectedly large. People in Ottawa sensed if they didn’t attend they’d miss some history. Next to a flagpole specially erected outside Parliament, then prime minister Lester Pearson arrived. Indeed, he did make history. The Red Ensign, Canada’s flag for a century was lowered for the last time. And Canada’s new flag was raised in its place.

Fifty-six years ago, last Monday, the Red Maple Leaf flag flew nationally for the first time. As noted in his book I Stand For Canada: The Story of the Maple Leaf Flag, Rick Archbold quoted Globe and Mail columnist George Bain who witnessed the flag-raising that day.

“And the feelings that a flag is a flag is a flag,” Bain wrote, “were dispelled, because it looked bold and clean, and distinctively our own.” (more…)

Barris Beat

A tradition of helping the hungry

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Joe English (centre) and his Lancaster crew volunteered for the Dutch Food Drops in April 1945.

He didn’t have to do it. Still in an RCAF uniform and duty-bound to King and Country in April 1945, nevertheless Joe English stepped up. He and his entire Lancaster crew had completed the requisite 30 operations, a full tour, over occupied Europe. They all had done their bit in the war, but Joe and his entire crew volunteered for one more flight.

Operation Manna delivered 10,000 tons of food to starving Dutch civilians.

“The Germans say they’ll permit bombers to fly in low over the big Dutch cities – Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht, the Hague,” their RAF commanders told them. “People are starving there. They need us to drop tons of food.”

“As far as I was concerned,” Joe said, “it was about improving people’s lives.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Luck is 33 eggs

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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…)

Barris Beat

As plain as the culvert under your street

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It’s a hole in the ground for a culvert, but could be much more.

A few days ago, my daughter – who’s recently joined me on my morning walks – posed a provocative question:

“How come we haven’t got a bridge in Uxbridge?” she asked.

I didn’t have an answer. But it occurred to both of us that we have an opportunity to change that. Since construction crews have ripped open most of the main thoroughfare through the downtown to make way for the renovation of the underground flow of the Uxbridge Brook, here might be an ideal chance.

Why not, we thought, somewhere along that now gaping throughway for storm and other water passageways, make an effort to include some sort of bridgeworks that might reflect our name? (more…)

Barris Beat

Canadians and a Dame

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Handshake with a Dame. London, 1995.

The occasion was our 20th wedding anniversary. As a gift to my wife Jayne and me, that spring of 1995, my parents had bestowed airfare to the U.K. We’d barely unpacked in London, when we saw on the news that one of our planned tourist destinations – Winston Churchill’s underground Cabinet War Rooms – was the to be visited by Dame Vera Lynn the next morning.

At a press conference, she’d be launching a fundraiser to assist needy veterans. Jayne and I decided to try to “accidentally” arrive there about the same time. I think we were first in line to tour the site the next morning.

“We understand that Dame Vera will be here,” I shared with the commissionaire at the ticket wicket.

“Oh, really?” the commissionaire kidded. “And who might you be?”

“Just a couple of curious Canadians,” I offered.

“Well, how appropriate. Today, Canadians get in free,” and he directed us – stunned but delighted – directly in. (more…)

Barris Beat

Armed service shaping youth

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Admired for his service in WWII, remembered by 151 Squadron in Oshawa, W/C Lloyd Chadburn lives on in modern cadets.

Not since the Second World War has this country required that young people complete service in the military. The Canadian Forces have relied solely on volunteers since 1945. Consequently, this week, while attending a student awards night at Centennial College, I was surprised to meet a young scholarship recipient who’d previously completed military service. His name was Yonghwan Seok.

“Before I came to Canada in 2018,” he told me, “I dropped out of (school) and went straight into two-year, mandatory military service.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Bill Paton – warrior on the mound

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Canadian all-star baseball team inside a WWII POW camp in 1943, featured pitcher Bill Paton (back row, third from left).

It wasn’t quite the fall classic, but it did happen in the fall … the fall of 1943. Sometime into the fourth of fifth inning of this baseball game, the umpire behind the plate threw up his hands and marched to the mound. A man in ordinary pants and shirt, and a pair of well-worn Air Force boots stood where the mound should’ve been (were this an official baseball park, but it wasn’t) and waited to hear what the umpire had to say.

“Bill, the Americans haven’t managed to hit the ball out of the infield,” Larry Wray said to pitcher Bill Paton. “Let’s make this game a little more competitive.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Seated with respect

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Head stones vandalized at a cemetery in Israel. Times of Israel photo.

The images penetrated right to my core. I felt angry and hopeless both at the same time. Last week, a dear friend forwarded digital photographs she’d received from overseas. The pictures showed tombstones of fallen First and Second World War soldiers pushed over and spray-painted with swastikas.

A poignant quotation accompanied the images from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) cemetery in Israel.

“Why would someone want to cause pain in a place like this?” the caretaker of the cemetery said to the Times of Israel reporter. (more…)

Barris Beat

The turns of war

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Roger Parliament swears oath of allegiance at RCAF recruiting office, in front of his father, Garnott Parliament

When he turned 18, in 1941, Roger Parliament travelled to a recruiting office in downtown Toronto to join up for wartime service. He’d prepared all his enlistment papers and anticipated vision and hearing tests.

Then, LAC Parliament officially signed up.

But perhaps the most critical part of his decision to enlist in the armed services occurred when he came before the second-in-command at the recruiting office on Bay Street.

“I’ve decided to join the Air Force,” he told the pilot officer he faced.

Across the table from him was Pilot Officer Garnott Parliament, Roger’s father. (more…)

Barris Beat

Steve Oancia’s last flight

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Bernie Wyatt nearly fit perfectly into his cousin Stefan Oancia’s WWII RCAF tunic.

He took one last look. The transaction had transferred ownership of the property. The farm legally belonged to him now. But the old farmhouse had fallen into disrepair and would have to be demolished. So, Clarence Oancia made one last circuit around the house to see if there was anything worth salvaging. Then, Clarence remembered the attic, a loft in the top of the house, and thought he’d better check it too. He climbed the stairs, opened a closet door. And there it was.

“A World War II uniform jacket,” explained Bernie Wyatt, Clarence’s nephew. “[It was] in excellent condition.” (more…)