Pennfield Parish Military Historical Society

Ventura Lost

2012-01-27T04:24:00.000-08:00

On the last day of August 1943, after completing the final four-month advanced flying training course at No.8 Service Flying Training School (SFTS) at Moncton, New Brunswick, I graduated with new RCAF pilot’s wings. I was very nearly posted to the RCAF Central Flying School at Trenton, Ontario to become an instructor, but before that could happen, through a happier combination of events I was posted with three other Pilot Officer classmates, to No.34 RAF Operational Training Unit (OTU) at Pennfield Ridge, New Brunswick. 34 OTU was one of the few wartime Royal Air Force stations in Canada, and though I did not know it at the time, it was actually a unit of 2 Group of the RAF 2^nd Tactical Air Force. Complete crews were trained at Pennfield on the Lockheed, or Vega Ventura, which was then in use by the RAF in England as a daylight tactical bomber by medium bomber squadrons of 2 Group.

Pennfield was situated on the north shore of the Bay of Fundy near Black’s Harbour, roughly 40 miles west of Saint John on the highway to St. Stephen. 34 OTU was a solid little British enclave staffed almost entirely by RAF personnel, right down to the batmen.

The four of us got off the bus from St. John at the gate to Royal Air Force Pennfield Ridge, as proclaimed by a rather humble sign. After surveying the bleak landscape, someone said, “I wonder why they built an airport so close to that huge hill?” After a moment of thought, one of the others replied: “It probably helps pilots find the airport in bad weather.”

It is astonishing to think that most of us were barely 21, anyone a year or two older was called an “uncle.” At Pennfield, I was checked out in the Ventura with its two 2,000 hp engines and a takeoff gross weight of 32,000 pounds after six short instructional flights totaling four hours and 45 minutes, which contrasted sharply with the brand of training we had just completed flying the Anson II for four months at the SFTS. It is a miracle there were not more Venturas lying about the airfield at the end of each day.

At Pennfield Ridge, for the first time in our airforce careers we were thrown together with other aircrew trades, Observers, who were trained in the dual skills of Navigator and Bomb Aimer, and instead of a winged ‘N’ or a ‘B’ over their left pocket, they wore a gold-winged ‘O’ known as “the flying arsehole.” They were also Wireless Air Gunners, who were trained both as wireless operators and airgunners, and ‘straight’ airgunners, who specialized solely as airgunners. The normal four-men Ventura crew in the RAF used one of each.

Compared with the Mark II Anson with its 300 horsepower Jacobs engines, the Ventura seemed a big heavy machine, not a bit too small for its 2,000 horsepower engines. To hold it on the ground during takeoff until the airspeed indicator showed 110 mph convinced us we were in a completely different league.

After converting to the Ventura as a crew, events moved along a steady pace and, after what seemed a very short time we began to feel like old hands, throwing the Vent around with newly acquired confidence and respect.

At least 70 percent of the flying instructors at Pennfield were RAF, “Lymies,” which enriched the whole experience – we got along extremely well. The majority of the other instructors were Canadian. Most had flown daylight and night bomber operations on RAF squadrons in 2 Group, and many were decorated. All had survived one or two tours of operations, mostly in Europe, and a few twitchy ones had done three. Where flying was concerned, they all seemed to have a fine appreciation of the things that mattered. Unlike SFTS, there was no spoonfeeding and, in the pilot checkout phase, once one’s instructor had covered the main items at least once, and he felt you had a feel for the important aspects of flying a Ventura he was gone, and off you went to train yourself with a hapless WAG along to handle the radios.

The weather at Pennfield Ridge was anything but predictable and, if the powers that were had not pressed us into every possible flying opportunity, we would never have finished the course on time. We didn’t appreciate it at the time, but we were being well initiated into the sort of weather waiting for us in England.

One of our SFTS classmates, “Young” Lively, never got a chance to fly the Ventura. The first time he got into one with an instructor, it was immediately clear that, like Abraham Lincoln, although his leg did fit properly between him and the ground, they were just not long enough to fit between him and the rudder pedals of the Ventura – and at the same time allow him the luxury of a view through the windshield. After a few days Lively was posted to Bagotville, Quebec, to do operational training on Hurricanes – poor Lively. From then on we tried coming down the stairs with both feet together, and any other things we thought might shorten our legs, all to no avail. Fighters would have to wait.

Lively was replaced on our course by a poised, good-looking pilot who one of the first of our course to be sent off alone in a Ventura, and he quickly gained the reputation of being a very skilled pilot. One afternoon in the middle of the course, after my assigned flight had been cancelled due to a mechanical problem, I asked if I might go along with this new pilot and his crew to play with the mid-upper gun turret.

It was a new experience to be concerned about the members of one crew’s and the aircraft we expected to operate when we finally went overseas. Every flight I had made in the Ventura had been from the left hand pilot’s seat, and after some hair-raising fighter affiliation flying against a pair of ‘attacking’ Hurricanes, I had been looking for an opportunity to go on a flight with another crew to operate the mid-upper electro-hydraulic gun turret to get some idea of the problems the Gunners had to cope with in order to defend us against enemy fighters.

The weather was sunny but cold, and my pilot friend and his crew were signed out to practice take-offs and landings until the arrival of a snow storm which was forecast to close Pennfield down by late afternoon. A few other Venturas were also signed out to so air work within sight of the airport until the snow arrived. The Ventura in which we were to fly had only one radio transceiver for tower communication, and the course needle of the magnetic compass was stuck at 254 degrees which rendered it useless. As a result, until these snags could be rectified this aeroplane was restricted to takeoffs and landings at Pennfield.

Sometimes we can embark on what seems a perfectly innocuous event without any suspicion that we are walking into an experience we will be able to recall in stark detail for the rest of our lives. Prior to this flight, if I had the slightest idea of what was ahead, I’m sure I would have run in the opposite direction without a backward glance.

Although it was prohibited, the mid-upper turret was an exciting place to be sitting while the aircraft was doing takeoffs and landings, and I had a fine time swinging the very responsive hydraulically-operated turret around, bringing the reflector sight to bear on anything I chose as a target. I had evicted the crew’s air gunner, who wouldn’t have much to do while I was playing with his turret. He assured me before takeoff that he was quite at home between the guns, and said he would enjoy having a chance to look at the countryside around Pennfield.

On the third or fourth takeoff, we could clearly see a solid wall of snow bearing down on Pennfield from the northwest. As I watched, I could see it was moving so rapidly it was doubtful we would be able to get in any more circuits before the aerodrome would be shut down. Our pilot had been doing very nice three-point landings, which was the prescribed RAF technique for daylight landings, and I could see why he had impressed those who had flown with him.

After landing, the pilot turned around and taxied back down the runway to its south end. I expected him to return to the parking area, but on the intercom I heard him say he thought he might just squeeze in one more takeoff and landing, and asked the WAG to call the control tower for permissions to do “…one more quick circuit.” With no hesitation the control tower granted his request.

At the south end of the runway we turned around and roared off on a last takeoff. As we lifted into the air I remember thinking that this pilot was obviously a solid press on type. The snow was close enough that if I was honest, I’m sure I would have called it a day – particularly with an unserviceable compass. After retracting the landing gear, before we had gone much more than a mile or so we were into the snow. I heard the pilot coolly said that he was, “…going to do a 180 to the left to parallel the runway back to the airport.”

After a few minutes we emerged from the snow into the sunlight. Pennfield was at our ten o’clock on the left, and we were in a good position to complete the downwind leg and do another 180 to the left to the final approach heading.

I heard the pilot finish the landing check list, and as he rolled out of the turn to line up with the runway, the view ahead was a little daunting. The grey wall of snow had almost reached the opposite end of the 6000-foot runway, and we still had a good three or four miles to fly just to reach the airfield boundary. We were in a race with the snow which was fast approaching from the other end, to see which of us got to the runway first. At 120 mph I remember thinking that we should be able to reach the approach end of the runway before the snow could work its way toward us from the other end. We were flying faster than the speed at which weather typically moves, but we were flying upwind and the snow was moving toward us – downwind. As we approached in the sunlight with the runway slowly coming closer, with nothing from the tower, we watched as it and the airport were swallowed up by the oncoming snow just before we too were enfolded in its embrace.

In the snow we could see nothing, but for some moments we seemed to continue the approach. Engine power was finally increased and as the landing gear and flaps were retracting, we climbed away from where Pennfield aerodrome had been moments earlier. Not knowing what plan the pilot might have, I stayed where I was. There would be plenty of time to leave the turret before we landed. After a while, the power was reduced and I was fairly sure we were flying level. Then on the intercom I heard some conversation develop about the compass – the one with the stuck needle.

With a little interest but not much thought, I got out of the turret and went forward. I stood at the rear of the radio/nav compartment which was just behind the pilot’s seats, and plugged my headset into a jackbox to listen to the intercom and radio talk.

A conference was in session concerning the arithmetic required to reset the gyro compass to our actual heading. The pilot, employing a common practice had set it to zero, when he lined up with the runway before each takeoff to facilitate the rectangular orientation of his takeoff and landing patterns. As a result, the gyro indication differed from our magnetic heading at least by the difference between zero degrees and the magnetic heading of the runway we had been using. A directional gyro is a very nice steady directional reference for turning or for accurately steering a course, but it knows nothing about direction until a pilot sets it to the heading indicated by a magnetic compass. The magnetic compass on the other hand knows everything about direction but is unwieldy to steer by due to number of effects which cause its needle to wander about if the aircraft is disturbed by turbulence or normal pilot handling.

With the useless magnetic compass, different suggestions were being made as to what setting should be put on the directional gyro, bearing in mind that it had previously set to zero on the runway before our last takeoff. They wrestled with the problem for a minute or two until someone made the mistake of saying, “Isn’t that right Bob?” The simplest solution I could suggest was to turn the aircraft until the directional gyro indicated zero degrees, which was where it had been set on the runway just before out last take-off, and then manually reset it to the known magnetic heading of that runway – which did not require any arithmetic.

After the gyro was reset everyone looked happier, but we were still surrounded by an extensive area of snow with no idea as to how much of New Brunswick it covered. Significant fuel had been used during the circuits, and the afternoon was beginning to fade.

A voice on the intercom suggested going to the Blissville radio range 30-odd miles northwest of St. John, and doing a range approach to the small airport there. So we headed for Blissville. We had learned some radio range procedures in the Link Trainer at Pennfield, but because no such radio facilities would be available when we got to England, only one or two beacon or range approaches were ever practiced in the air.

We began the approach to Blissville and, during the letdown, someone said, “Look at that!” Through the snow we saw the grey top of a hill go by on the right, altogether too close for comfort. We turned away from the hill, and at the same time lost touch with the approach procedure. It was sensibly decided that the weather was too thick for a range approach, and engine power was increased as a climb was set up to a “safe” altitude.

Someone tentatively suggested to the WAG that he call Pennfield and ask if they could suggest an alternative destination where the weather was better. He tried this and said he didn’t think the radio was working properly, but Pennfield came back on the tower frequency to tell us that they were closed in, but the weather was better less than a 150 miles to the northwest at Caribou, Maine. When we heard this the observer, who was sitting with a map on his lap in the co-pilot seat beside the pilot, worked out a northwesterly course to Caribou and gave it to the pilot. The observer had been doing his best to keep track of fuel and time, and he also tried to monitor the course we were steering.

One of two weeks previously, I had flown with an instructor on a shopping expedition to the US airbase at Presque Isle, Maine. Presque Isle was south of Caribou, and neither were very far west of the Maine/New Brunswick border.

We flew on in the snow, but the windshield and windows stayed white and the weather showed no sign of changing. After almost an hour on instruments, the pilot began looking ahead through the windshield, and downward from his side windshield, and downward from his side window – possibly in the hope of making visual contact with the ground. His preoccupation with looking outside was affecting the accuracy of his course flying. He was holding altitude quite well but the heading deviations increased to the extent that for periods of time we were well off the course that had been given to him by his observer who occasionally pointed to the directional gyro in a tactful effort to restore his attention to it.

I didn’t envy the pilot. Our training to wings standard had not emphasized the fact that one must not lose visual contact with the ground without a clear understanding of the means by which it could be safely re-established. More to the point, as pilots, we had acquired no wisdom which told us what to do if w did lose visual contact with the ground in an aircraft which was not equipped with appropriate radios and a dependable magnetic compass, an admittedly rare possibility.

One other crew member had slipped into the radio/nav compartment, and quiet conversations erupted from time to time. One opinion expressed was that “…at least we have parachutes, we could always bail out.” I remember mumbling something to the effect that with street shoes, a battle dress blouse over a shirt and tie, and a wedge cap in my inside pocket, I was not fitted out very well to wander about the New Brunswick bush in early winter, and added that I for one would never leave the aircraft until the fuel gauges showed empty.

Our concerns grew as to where we were, and where we were going. We had not been able to tune the radio beacons at Caribou or Presque Isle. I had been watching the directional gyro from a distance, and it was difficult to estimate our average heading. With a useless magnetic compass, I had a feeling in the pit of my stomach that the directional gyro just might have a high drift rate which, in the time since it had been reset, could cause us to be flying in almost any direction. At our SFTS, it wasn’t unusual during cross-country flights, where we were expected to regularly check the directional gyro against the magnetic compass, to discover that the gyro had drifted a good number of degrees in a fairly short period of time. The gyros were not quickly replaced due to high drift rates to impresss in student pilots with the need to regularly check and reset them to the magnetic compass which was the basic directional reference.

I didn’t envy our pilot. He looked tired and was becoming a bit edgy. Neither of us had likely ever flown on continuous instruments for more than an hour – or two at most. Every one of us in the aircraft was a rank amateur, and nothing in our training had prepared us for the ridiculous situation in which we found ourselves. Snow down to the ground. A useless magnetic compass. Radio equipment that would only raise the Pennfield tower – if we were close enough. At the SFTS we had only flown aircraft equipped with radios once or twice, and we had very little familiarity with the available inflight meteorological facilities.

Our particular Ventura had been signed out only for the purpose of doing six or eight takeoffs and landings. The crew had not been given a detailed briefing of the weather outlook other than a warning that an extensive area of snow would be moving into the Pennfield area. I was at the advanced age of 21. Our pilot might have been one or two years older, but no more. There were no old hands on board with experience to draw upon.

Rather abruptly, the pilot turned around, and after motioning me forward, he said he was getting tired and asked me to change places with him. With his crew clustered around, this seemed awkward. I didn’t want to be injected into a situation where I was flying an aeroplane with a crew that was not mine. I told him he was doing fine and to hang on while we tried to get a line on something.

After a few more minutes, the pilot unsnapped his seat harness and parachute, and when his observer asked what he was doing, he said he had to “…go back for a leak.” The observer gave me a wide-eyed look. We both knew there was a relief tube under the pilot’s seat, but it didn’t seem the proper time to mention it.

The observer held the wheel awkwardly while the pilot climbed out of the left seat, and I slipped into it was an eagerness that surprised me. His parachute cushion was quite warm, and as I clipped on the parachute and seat harness I felt a relief I hadn’t expected, but I well remember thinking, “What the hell do I do now?”

Once strapped in, I asked the observer what he thought was the average course we had been steering since we climbed away from Blissville. Palms up, he rolled his eyes toward heaven and said he “…didn’t have a clue.”

At first, the only thing I could think of was to return to the northwesterly course on the gyro compass that the observer had given the pilot for Caribou, Maine, almost two hours earlier. That done, I wondered where that gyro, heading might actually take us, particularly since the gyro had not been reset for so long. How long should we hold this course? The only things we knew for sure was that we didn’t have much fuel or daylight left.

We were fairly high, so I came down to 6,000 feet which was the highest spot-height listed on the observer’s map. With less than 300 hours of flying experience it was the only thing I could think of, and it seemed to be at least a start. I asked the observer how long the remaining fuel would last. He came back with the gallonage, and said that at the existing cruise power it should last “…more than an hour?”

My thoughts told me that we couldn’t bail out, but we couldn’t just fly around until we ran out of fuel. The only thing we could try to do was to get the ground in sight and, with no navigational or approach radio aids, that could be more then a little dangerous.

Before I did anything else I sent the air-gunner back to ask the pilot if he would like to come up front and resume flying. A moment later the gunner came back and told me the pilot had said for me to stay where I was.

I asked the observer if he was sure that we were at the highest terrain height listed on his map. He confirmed that it was. I said that I was going to descend a thousand feet, and I set up a slow rate of descent. I knew that groping for the ground with no idea of where we were was sure way to kill oneself; but with no compass, and faulty radios, I couldn’t think of anything else. I looked at the observer, and the other faces for an idea, and all I got were raised eyebrows and a few shrugs. I wondered if any of them fully appreciated the predicament we were in.

I reduced the airspeed to have a little more time to react if we encountered anything in front of us that required a quick pull-up. I put down a small flap angle, and increased propeller rpm so that I could apply higher power if I had to pull up suddenly. Because I was flying solidly on instruments, I asked the observer and the others to call out if they saw the ground or any obstacle.

After we had descended to our first target altitude without seeing anything, I asked the observer for the next lowest altitude tint on the map. After he gave it to me, I again did a slow letdown to that altitude. I remember that our barometric altimeter setting was now probably inappropriate, but there was nothing we could do about that. Time and fuel were running out, and I had no better idea than to leave altimeter setting where it was. The fact that nobody had any objection to what I proposed gave me a small dose of unjustified confidence.

As we descended through the next thousand feet, though we couldn’t see anything, we noticed the light outside was becoming noticeably darker, particularly below us. I thought it might result from us being closer to the ground, or was it due to the waning daylight? As I slowed the rate of descent for the last few hundred feet, I was more than a little tense but tried to be a convincing fraud and appear calm. For the observer it must have been more difficult. He was working with a pilot about whom he knew nothing, and at the time he was knowledgeable as to what our apparent altitude meant relative to the altitude tints and contours on his map.

After a few more nerve-wracking letdowns, I felt we had run out of altitude for any further descent, and I was certainly not as relaxed as when I had bravely begun the first thousand-foot letdowns. Still alive, and not hit anything, it seemed best to hold our height in the hope of seeing something of ground. If it could be believed, the altimeter told us we were getting about as close as one could to sea level over New Brunswick without scrapping the ground or getting wet. For all we knew we might have been letting down over one of the many bodies of water in, or adjacent to New Brunswick.

The observer and I were making a few speculations about our height above the ground when everyone yelled at once! I looked up from the instruments as we flew across a small opening in the cloud, and through the snow for several second I could see the fuzzy tops of trees not more than what looked at best, a few hundred feet below. I called out our altitude and gyro heading to the observer and asked him to alert me if I got below that height if another opportunity came to sneak a glance outside. It stuck me then that I had become increasingly absorbed with catching any glimpse I could of the ground. After a few more breaks we again lost sight of the ground, and I decided then to treat our indicated altitude as ground level for the time being. At least we were over terra firma!

After we had lost contact with the ground, a few more flickering breaks occurred and I decided to do a slow 360 while maintaining the altitude we had stopped at, in the hope of coming back over the breaks.

Maintaining a shallow bank angle I commenced a turn to the left and held out altitude as accurately as I could. During the turn we had few fleeting glimpses of the ground, but we held out height, and before we had turned through the complete 360 degrees, we flew across a good-sized hole where we could see the ground. This hole seemed larger, and as I straightened out on the original heading, I could again see treetops. I tried losing a few feet, and for a short time I could keep the trees in sight while we flew level just above them. I had persistent thoughts of hills and power lines.

We stayed on the original course for a number of minutes while we flew through almost solid cloud and snow. For a short periods of time we could fly one or two hundred feet higher and still get occasional snapshots views of the ground, there was simply no rule to apply, but we looked to be dammed low. At best, forward visibility of the ground for these meager periods could not have been more than a few hundred yards. We were sure the altimeter setting was in error as it showed us to be higher than we obviously were, but we had no idea as to how much the ground below us was above sea level. We had more fleeting glimpses of small clearings and open areas, but the visibility and lack of detail gave no opportunity to map read.

I began to have thoughts that if I could find a large clearing or a road I might be able to put the Vent down on its belly. I kept this to myself. Almost as though the thought gave birth to fact, we angled across a narrow road, and just as suddenly it was gone. I did a low turn to recapture it. We crossed it again at a smaller angle, and with a quick turn I was able to stay parallel with it on my left. The consensus in the cockpit was that, “A road should lead somewhere, after all that’s what roads are for.”

The road became slightly wider and we could occasionally see wheel tracks in the snow that mostly covered it. We cross a smaller road, but decided we could stay on our “original” road which seemed more prominent. After crossing two more small roads, we glimpsed fields on both sides, which looked so good I again did a large 360 to have another look. There were no houses, but the clearings looked woefully small for a Ventura, so on we flew. In a matter of minutes, we came upon a few good-sized fields. I was about to begin another turn for a better look when we flew off the shore of what at first we thought to be a lake, but we quickly saw that is was a river. Now this was something!

Again I commenced a turn to the left, and after a few moments someone in the cabin said they had seen some lights on our right. Sitting on the left side of the aircraft, I had missed seeing them. My best view of the ground was from the left side, with the result that I usually did turns to the left. I continued the turn, and after a few moments, the fellows again said they could see some lights. I reversed the turn, and in moments the snow I could see a number of lights against the snow-covered ground, and adjusted the turn to bring us more directly over them.

As we came over the lights, I was surprised to see that we had found what looked to be a large town on the bank of the wide river where it made a big 90 degree bend. The town even had a race-track! Railway tracks went through the place which made it seem of some size. We speculated that it might even be a city. In the ‘come and go’ visibility in the snow, the best we could see was intermittent fuzzy views of streets and houses on the ground in front of us.

The observer said, “Caribou, Maine, is on a river.”

It would be the most amazing luck if this was Caribou.

After a or two I said, “That river has mudbanks, which would normally be caused by a tide.” After a little thought, the Observer agreed. “That’s right,” he said “but Caribou is nowhere near a seacoast.”

There are not many large centers of population in New Brunswick, and we had a mind-set that we had flown far to the northwest. We were stumped to find anything on the map in that direction that made any sense. I speculated that if we ignored the fences we might be able to get down in one piece on the racetrack, which I immediately regretted – but it seemed to give us a lift.

While I was wheeling around the tops of the houses trying to hold altitude accurately, in the middle of the town I noticed what looked like one or two wooden RCAF hangars surrounded by wet pavement. All wartime RCAF hangers were the same, and I knew that these were the standard variety. At least we were over Canada, but what would hangars be doing in the middle of a town? It very slowly began to sink in. The only place I remembered where there were hangars in towns was where they were used as drill halls or gymnasia! The last place in living memory where I had seen any RCAF hangars in the middle of a large town, was the place where I had trained for four months before I went to Pennfield – and that place was Moncton! We were looking at the RAF Personnel Reception Centre in the centre on Moncton!

I turned to the observer: “I know this place,” I said. “It’s Moncton!”

He looked at me with a grimace and echoed, “Moncton?”

He was now sure that this stand-in pilot has gone bonkers, and I can’t say I blamed him.

“How could this be Moncton that’s only a short distance east of Pennfield?”

I said that was true, and gently observed that we had no idea where we had been flying for the last three hours or so.

I then said that I was going to look for my cousin Fred Ward’s house which I had visited several times during my four-month stay in Moncton. In less than half of another circuit of the town I located the house and saw Fred’s back yard disappear beneath us. I now had no doubt as to where we were, at the same time, my mind rebelled at the thought that after the hours of flying we had done, of all places we had reached Moncton? We could have flown to Moncton several times in the past few hours.

I said this to the observer, who looked back at me forlornly and said, “There is a big bend in the river at Moncton, but…”

I said, “I’m going to fly east from the town along that main road, and if we don’t see an airport in less than five minutes, I’ll bring you back and we’ll land on the racetrack.” I had no stomach for belly landing on that racetrack.

With a helpless shrug, and meager enthusiasm, he stayed at his map and said, “OK.”

I finished the turn to line up with the Lakeburn Road. As Moncton disappeared behind, we were again following a road, but this one had cars on it. The familiar bus ride from town was covered in minutes, and when the airport materialized, there was great hooting from the area behind the cockpit. We flew across the Moncton Airport and No.5 SFTS, both of which were behind us before I had a chance to say anything.

I wanted to get back to the airport on a heading that lined us up with a runway, so I turned left to fly back past the airport parallel to the main runway which I had seen when we flew across the airfield. After I was sure we had passed the airport coming back, I started a left turn back to it, and hoped the resulting racetrack pattern would bring us back over the airfield on the original heading. It did, but the gyro heading made no sense, and we went too close in to do anything.

I couldn’t get lined up with a runway, but after a small turn to the right to parallel the longest runway, I reset the gyro to zero to simplify our orientation to the runway.

We were still forced to stay very low, and we regularly lost sight of the ground. I concentrated on an accurate but shallow 180 degree turn to the left. Flying very low in such poor visibility meant that extended turns had to be done carefully.

Again when the clock told me we had passed the airport on the return leg, before entering the final left turn, we performed the landing check, lowered the landing gear and approach flap. After straightening out on the approach heading, I slowed to the approach speed and waited for the airport to appear. The runway came up well to my left but we were too close and too low to do any aggressive turning to get lined up. Reluctantly I increased power and we flew on past for another circuit. I looked at the fuel gauges and decided that at this stage if I had to do a dozen approach patterns, I wasn’t going to lose the airport or try a risky landing from a bad approach.

As we passed over my old alma mater, I had a fleeting glimpse of people standing in the snow out in front of the RCAF control tower building. They were not waving at us. On the previous pass I noticed we were attracting the same kind of attention on the civilian side of the airport, and I remembered seeing people stopped on the sidewalks in Moncton who seemed to be looking up at something. I had a gnawing feeling that when this was all over I would probably be court-martialled.

When I turned onto the approach heading, I didn’t like to think about how we would go about re-finding the airport if it didn’t come into sight within the number of minutes I had allotted to the approach leg. I hadn’t adjusted the return leg and final approach headings enough, as this time we were to the left of the runway, and too close in when it came into view. It was just not possible to get safely positioned for a landing. With an Anson, maybe – with a Ventura, never.

When I increased the power for another overshoot, I glanced at the fuel gauges to get an idea of how long this could go on. At least the needles were still moving. The observer noticed and said: “We are getting low on daylight too.”

On the next try, suspecting the wind might be behind us on the final approach, when I punched the clock I added a little more time to the return leg to give us more distance for a sensible final approach.

The timing and headings of the circuit procedure were also adjusted in the hope of splitting the difference between the previous two approaches. On this our fourth approach – or was it the fifth? – hoping to have a bit more time for a close-in course adjustment. I reduced power, and after slowly pushing the propeller pitch levers all the way forward, I put the undercarriage and approach flap down earlier, and slowed to the approach airspeed well before the runway came into view.

It worked. We were a little to the right, but there was enough time to select full flap and make a small jink to the left.

At the threshold I eased the throttles back to idle. As we crossed the edge of the runway the airspeed was correct, but we seemed fast. This was the lowest weight at which I had ever landed a Ventura, and with the flaps still creeping down to the ‘full’ position, we floated. Were we landing downwind? I didn’t much care.

The feel of the wheels on the snow-covered pavement was wonderful. While we were using up runway I noticed a few men running to the right side where some others were standing. I had landed on a runway under repair – and downwind! Using the brakes gingerly the Vent finally came to a halt just before reaching the last few yards of the runway. The combination of a slippery snow surface, a large aircraft, and a tailwind, made a runway that for four months I had thought was quite long for an Anson II, seem very short. But we were stopped.

The end of the runway was just visible over the nose, and turning around looked a bit tight unless we could let the right main-wheel go off the edge. Somebody said the ground should be frozen, which was not comforting. With the left wheel held stationary with brake, (bad handling), I did a sharp turn to the left, and it was quickly clear that we could turn around without any trouble.

With all of 260-odd hours total flying time, including 16 hours on J3 Cubs, I was back at my old SFTS, and all I now had to do was successfully taxi the Vent to the RCAF tower building. The pavement was slippery, and I went so slowly the crew thought we never make it.

We parked on the apron in front of the tower beside a huge Curtiss C-46 Commando. We could almost park under its wing. For all its size, the Commando had only two engines, and I remember thinking that they were the Pratt and Whitney R-2800 engines we had in the Ventura. After we were waved into position beside the Commando, a number of people congregated around us. I thought they were probably waiting to grab me. Things looked black.

The last time I had been on this pavement I was LAC Fowler, R.H., R-175475. It would be an understatement to say that I enjoyed parking the Ventura.

When I got the signal to shut down, I took a last look at the fuel gauges. With the tail on the ground, there wasn’t enough fuel to move the needles. Somebody asked how many more approaches we could have completed before the tanks went dry. I didn’t even want to think about that. The only thing I was sure about that we were actually on the ground. It seemed to have taken a hell of a long time to get to Moncton – of all places!

All was quiet after the propellers stopped turning. I didn’t want to miss anything on the shutdown check, and by the time I had unbuckled the parachute and seat harness, everyone had left the aircraft. A few heads were shoved through the rear fuselage door, and one of them with a very mature voices said, “The OC Flying would like to talk to the captain of this aircraft.”

I walked aft and jumped to the pavement, almost into the arms of the Squadron Leader who owned the voice and introduced himself as the OC Flying.

He asked, “Are you the captain of this aircraft.” I replied that, no, I was not the captain.

He said that I had taxied it in, and I said that was true.

He asked if I had landed it, and I said that was also true.

He then said he would like to have a ‘chat’ with me in his office as he had to fill in the Air Traffic Control people on the details of our flight.

While we walked in, I told him I had received my wings at Moncton in August. For a moment he became almost friendly and said, “Well, we must have done something right.: Only supreme self control prevented me from observing that we had encountered a few things they had not covered.

During our chat, I learned that Pennfield had put out an alert to watch for three Venturas that had been unable to land due to a snowstorm. Two hours after the alert was transmitted, two of the Venturas, both flown by Dutch Navy crews had landed near Montreal, but we were unreported for two more hours after that, and Pennfield had become very worried.

The S/L asked why we had not been able to fly to Montreal where the weather was better. When I told him we had radios that were not working properly, and an unserviceable magnetic compass, he said: “They didn’t mention any of that in the alert.”

He asked me why I was flying the aircraft. I told him the other pilot had to relieve himself, and while I was doing the flying we had found Moncton – which was true. He asked how long I had been doing the flying? I said I didn’t know – which was also true. He then asked how we had found Moncton, and in as few words as possible, I told him. His were the second set of eyes to be rolled to the ceiling that afternoon. He then wagged his head a few times in the no sense before giving me a funny stare and left it at that. His parting remark was, “In case you are interested, Trans-Canada Air Lines did not get in here this afternoon. You caused one hell of a stir in Moncton, and also with a lot of people who watched you trying to land here. I will say one thing – you have great patience.”

That night there was an unexpected reunion in the officer’s mess, with instructors I had known when I was a pupil, and a few others I had trained with before I attended the SFTS at Moncton, but were now instructing there. I had gone through No.4 Elementary Flying School at Windsor Mills, Quebec with David Lewis, a good friend from Pittsburgh. I had known Don Douglas from Peterborough, Ontario, as No.3 Initial Training School in Victoriaville, Quebec; Steve Forhota and I had learned to march together at Manning Depot in Toronto – and others.

The snow continued until the next morning, and after it finally stopped, a Ventura arrived from Pennfield bringing a pair of instructors and technical crew to prepare and ferry our aircraft back to Pennfield. I went back in the Vent that had just arrived, and the others returned later in the day in the other aircraft after it had been fueled and a new magnetic compass had been installed and swung. By then I had lost all interest in the gun turret.

On arrival at Pennfield again I was taken in tow at the door of the aircraft by a Squadron Leader, this time C.R. Skinner RAF, DFC and Bar, the Chief Flying Instructor of 34 OTU, and another senior instructor I had seen many times but did not know. We went straight into Skinner’s office where he treated me to a very detailed chat. I learned that he had been talking to the people at No.8 SFTS in Moncton and was aware of most of the details of our flight. His last question was, “What do you think might have happened if you had not been in the aircraft?”

I guessed that the pilot might have burst his bladder.

Skinner spun around in his chair with his back to me, and for several seconds his shoulders jiggled and he made funny little noises until he took a deep breath, cleared his throat, and without turning around said, “Thank you, Fowler, you may go.” – and I went. No mention of our flight was ever made again while I was at Pennfield, and I was never court martialed.

Over the years, I have often thought of that flight with the stuck compass.

From a more mature perspective, I have always wondered if my presence might have caused the other pilot to have been less relaxed than he might have been if I had not been in the aircraft. He might not have bothered to attempt the extra circuit, and even if he had, he might have had no problem getting into Pennfield, Blissville, Montreal, or – Moncton, even if his bladder had burst. I will never know, I have never felt entirely at ease with the thought of what might have happened had our positions been reversed.

I don’t know how he spent the rest of his war, but I do know that to get away with such a grope for the ground without even having to figure out the name of the town we found, was a one-in-a-million piece of the greatest of good luck.

During my training in Canada, and later in England, before and after I became involved in daylight tactical operations, like many other wartime aircrew I witnessed a number of flying accidents in which all or most of the aircraft occupants lost their lives. In a few of these instances, we were assembled for a briefing in which we were informed in great detail, of the circumstances which led to the accident and with particular emphasis on the error, invariably assigned to the pilot, which led to the accident. We were sometimes treated to heavy preaching on the course of action which should, or might have been taken which of course would have prevented the accident. Accidents which took the young lives of pilots who only a year or two previously had been ridding bicycles – before they had any real experience, or had been in action, always seemed a sad waste.

I still wonder just where we went during the hours it took to make the 30-minute flight to Moncton.

SOURCE: The Journal of the Canadian Aviation Historical Society - Spring 1999 (Vol.37, No.1)

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE(S):

1) Copy of the magazine was presented to "Pennfield Parish Military Historical Historical" by Robert H. Fowler, 16 December 2007; and

2) In regards to the caption written on the above photograph Bob remarked: "I forgot to refer to the picture on the title page of the Ventura article, of the intrepid-looking pilot leaning on a Vent' with his head encased in a leather helmet and goggles. We had been issued with a comfortable headset of earphones which we used routinely, but some RAF mind felt that when we got to the UK, and would be flying on ops, we would be wearing an RAF leather helmet with earphones etc, to which an oxygen mask and goggles would be attached which would likely be encased in a leather-covered steel flak helmet, and thus we should 'now' be wearing the basic leather helmet etc. Feeling intensely operational, and not knowing what the future held, a number of us took silly pictures of one another for future 'historical' purposes." (29 December 2007)

Growing Collection of Reference Material

2011-12-22T10:50:00.001-08:00

Since 2007 I've read numerous books about the Bomber Command, British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP), Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), etc. as I continue my research on the former Pennfield Ridge Air Station. However among my most treasured possessions are those book written by (or about) former airmen who passed through "the Ridge". Below are two such books I recently acquired.

The first one, "Samuel Charles Stanley (The RAF Years)", was researched, compiled and written by Chis Stanley's son--in-law, E.F. Cox. "Eddie" had ten copies printed for Chis' family, including his six children, and I was very fortunate to obtain a copy.

The second book, "It's All Pensionable Time (25 Years in the Royal Canadian Air Force)", was a gift from the author himself, George Sweanor. As George remarked to me 10 October 2011: "From Pennfield Ridge I went on the fly Wellington and Halifaxes with 419 Squadron, marry an English girl who has now put up with me for 69 years, get shot down on my 17th operation to spend 800 days as a POW much of it in the North (Great Escape) Compound of Stalag Luft III which became my Alma Mater. After the war I remained in the RCAF with NORAD here in Colorado Springs my last transfer before reaching the then compulsory retirement age of 47 in 1966."

Inscription on inside cover: "To Christian with thanks for all your help." Edward F Cox 4-11-11

Excerpt from the book: "Chis' train got into Saint John Railway station around 6:00 am. on the 15th of January. He then took a forty mile bus journey and arrived at No.34 O.T.U. Pennfield Ridge for his three month operational training course. This included instruction and training of the numerous bombing techniques.

However, it soon transpired that the start of Chis' course was going to be delayed by a couple of weeks, and that he would be given some leave whilst preceding courses were completed. Chis was given RAF permission to visit New York (about eighteen hours away) and after some delay sorting out the neccessary paperwork (for customs), he finally got to New York. Chis eentually started his Pennfield Ridge course (No.30), on the 31st January 1944."

Inscription on inside cover: "To Christian Larsen with thanks for keeping alive the memory of all those who served at Pennfield Ridge." George Sweanor Dec. 2011

Excerpt from the book: "Our ANS training was a concentrated 4-week course on astronomical navigation, and I spent 36 hours in the air, mostly at night, navigating solely by celestial means. At first, my errors were immense - like 60 miles or more. Sticking one's head out of the Anson's top hatch into a bittery-cold March slip-stream was not conducive to the steady concentration required for accurate sextant work. Our freezing fingers turned dials to rotate a mirror to superimpose the image of a chosen star onto a bubble which we tried to manipulate into the centre of the view-piece in order to line up the sextant with the horizon. This air bubble would bounce about, subject to all the accelerations of a vibrating aircraft and a shivering navigator. The first week, astro navigation seemed an impossible dream, but slowly our accuracy increased. It was worrisome that errors of 20 miles persisted because we were beginning to realize that accounts of precision navigation and precision bombing had little validity. If we had to bomb Germany at night under adverse conditions of weather and enemy action, how would we ever find precise targets, let alone hit them?"

We will remember them!

Lost Airmen of Buchenwald

2011-12-03T05:41:00.000-08:00

Lost Airmen of Buchenwald is a documentary that chronicles the little-known story of Allied airmen imprisoned at the Buchenwald Concentration Camp in the waning months of World War II.

In the summer of 1944, 168 airmen from the US, England, Canada and other Allied countries were captured in Paris by the German Gestapo and sent to the infamous "Koncentration Lager Buchenwald" in Germany. Falsely accused of being "terrorists and saboteurs," the airmen faced a terrifying fight for survival and a race against time to escape their execution.

A controversial moment in history that their home countries tried to hush-up, Lost Airmen of Buchenwald tells this harrowing story through interviews with seven surviving members of the group, including their heroic commanding officer. The film follows them from their days hiding with the French Resistance to the darkest corners of the Holocaust, where they struggled to survive as Germany collapsed under the weight of the advancing Russian and Allied armies.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES: The seven airmen interviewed for the documentary were: Joe Moser, E.C. Freeman, Ed Carter-Edwards, Chasten Bowen, James Stewart, Don Shearer and Phil Lamason.

A copy of the DVD was presented to Pennfield Parish Military Historical Society 30 November 2011 by F/L James A. Stewart, DFC, ONB, one of the seven airmen interviewed.

For more information: http://www.lostairmen.com/

Rayne Shultz 1922-2011: Canadian war ace shot down three German bombers in one night in 1943

2011-11-21T02:32:00.000-08:00

G/C R.D. Shultz (1922-2011)

Flying Officer Rayne “Joe” Schultz began the night that would define his war at a poker game — winning money for a change.

It made him reluctant to climb into his de Havilland Mosquito to launch another night patrol over the North Sea. But the moon was full on Dec. 10, 1943, which usually meant the Luftwaffe would be active: German bombers liked to take advantage of the added visibility.

Within minutes of taking to the air, Schultz and his navigator, Vern Williams, were directed toward a stream of bombers. Schultz shot down the first he encountered, then quickly came upon another. He fired at close range, exploding the plane’s bomb load, the fallout from which almost took out Schultz’s plane.

Williams then identified a third bomber, and Schultz began a 12,000-foot, descending battle. His instrument panel and port engine were destroyed by German gunners, but Schultz pressed the attack. Williams would describe its final moments to a Canadian Press reporter days later: “Rayne’s last burst of ammunition, the last we had, ganged him into the sea, and we pulled up just in time to miss going in ourselves.”

Schultz had destroyed three Luftwaffe planes in less than 15 minutes, a feat that earned him the Distinguished Flying Cross. He would destroy eight German planes during his night-fighting career, and gain a Bar for his DFC. He ended the war as one of Canada’s top-rated aces.

Schultz, who served 37 years in the Royal Canadian Air Force and retired as a Group Captain, died on Remembrance Day from what his daughter called “systems failure.” He was 88.

“Flying was his life,” said Schultz’s longtime friend, Maj.-Gen. (Ret.) Wilson Leach, former surgeon general of the Canadian Forces.

Leach said Schultz was famously headstrong: “He wasn’t shy about coming forward: he expressed his views to anybody and everybody, regardless of rank.”

Rayne Dennis Schultz was born on Dec. 17, 1922, in Bashaw, Alberta. His father, Albert, a German immigrant, worked for the railroad.

Young Rayne, however, had eyes only for airplanes.

Schultz enlisted in the RCAF at 17. Encouraged to be a navigator, he insisted on becoming a pilot. He earned his wings in April, 1942 and was sent overseas one month later.

His wing commander decided to make him a bomber pilot, but Schultz balked: he wanted a fighter. Although taken aback at the junior officer’s temerity, the commander agreed and Schultz was assigned to 410 Cougar Squadron.

The night fighter squadron’s job was to comb the skies over the North Sea for German bombers and to intercept them before they could inflict more damage on Britain’s cities. On-board radar was then in its infancy so pilots had to find and identify the planes before engaging them.

Schultz would point to a mission in which he made a near-fatal mistake as his “most interesting” of the war.

On Feb. 14, 1944, Schultz and Williams spotted a German bomber streaking home in the night sky. Schultz pursued it and set it on fire with his guns. Then, at Williams’ request, he flew in for a better look so they could identify the bomber’s exact model.

“It was the stupidest thing I ever did in my life,” Schultz once told an interviewer. “The airplane was completely in flames, but the mid-upper gunner was still in his turret.”

The turret swung towards Schultz, who broke hard to his left. It was too late: 13-mm rounds ripped into his plane from wingtip to wingtip.

Several bullets punctured the cockpit, one between the pilot and navigator. The engines were so badly damaged that the men prepared to bail out, but a ground controller told them the sea was too rough for them to be retrieved.

So Schultz nursed the ailing plane back to England. The engine quit as he reduced power; he had no brakes when he crash landed. Although it would never fly again, the Mosquito — the Canadian-built planes were made largely from wood — somehow held together.

After the war, Schultz continued to fly with the RCAF. It was while stationed at CFB Trenton that he met his wife, Mary.

Mary Butler was justice of the peace in nearby Belleville when Schultz and another airman were hauled in front of her for having open liquor in their car. Schultz was so taken with the justice that he asked her out, and when she refused, he sought her out twice more to restate his case.

“To her credit, she finally said, ‘yes,’” said Kathleen Boettger, the couple’s only daughter, who was born in 1950, two years after her parents married.

Kathleen grew up on airbases across Canada and around the world.

Schultz would fly every plane ever bought by the Canadian Forces, including the CF-101 Voodoo and CF-18. He piloted more than 40 airplanes in his career, which included many senior postings. Among other things, he was pilot representative on the Avro Arrow project and chief operations officer at RCAF Station Baden-Soellingen in Germany.

Schultz spent 10 years as the RCAF’s director of flight safety, and in 1978, he was awarded the prestigious Trans-Canada McKee Trophy for his work.

Lt.-Gen. (Ret.) Bill Carr, former leader of Air Command, said Schultz helped ensure that the Canadian Forces had one of the lowest accident rates in the world. “He knew airplanes and he knew aircrew,” Carr said. “He was a modest and incredible human being. He was a member of that breed that doesn’t much exist anymore."

Schultz was one of only 218 RCAF airmen to received a DFC and bar in the Second World War.

It was shortly after attending the funeral of his wartime navigator, Vern Williams, last year that Schultz fell and broke his leg. The injury triggered a decline from which he never recovered.

“He was a true officer and a gentleman,” said Boettger, a retired defence department policy analyst.

“He was a genuine person whom you could always rely on. He was a true inspiration."

F/O R.D. Schultz and F/O V.A. Williams

SOURCE: Ottawa Citizen (Ottawa, ON) - November 20, 2011.

TRANSCRIBER NOTES: G/C R.D. Shultz's navigator, F/O V.A. (Vern) Williams, was part of Air Observers Course No.29B at No.2 Air Navigation School, Pennfield Ridge.

A horse, hope and humanity

2011-11-12T05:20:00.001-08:00

Remembering: Adopted mascot returned to N.B. with 8th Hussars Regiment

Two Members of the 8th Hussars Regiment with Princess
Louise after helping to rescue the wounded filly in Italy
during the Second World War.

SUSSEX - Princess Louise - the horse, not Queen Victoria's daughter - is buried beside a war memorial in a pretty little park outside the community centre in Hampton.

Rescued in 1944 from a battlefield in Italy by a battalion full of New Brunswick farm boys, Princess Louise was as sweet-tempered as a sugar cube and able to count out her age with her hoof. Adopted as a mascot by the 8th Hussars Regiment and named after the fourth daughter of Queen Victoria, she was secreted around Europe by soldiers as they fought the Germans, and smuggled into Canada following the Second World War.

Gordon and Mary Bickerton, who took
care of the Hussars' mascot horse Princess
Louise, stand in front of a mural on the side
of a building in Sussex.

"She loved the troops and the troops loved her," says Gordon Bickerton, 91, sitting at his kitchen table in Sussex, a rural town east of Saint John where an equestrian centre and sports park carries the horse's name, and a mural of her is painted on the side of a building just off its main thoroughfare. "She was very kind and easy to look after."

Assigned to take care of Princess Louise after she was brought to Sussex to be reunited with the 8th Princess Louise's Hussars, Bickerton drove her to military parades across the Maritimes, where she marched at the front and was saluted by soldiers.

"Sometimes, during the parades, she fell asleep," says Bickerton, who joined the Royal Canadian Army Service Corps in 1941 and in 1948 joined the Hussars as a tank and truck mechanic, a position he held for 25 years. "Eventually, I'd have to tug on her ear and say, 'Princess Louise, wake up!'?

On a day for remembering fallen soldiers, aged veterans will gather around the cenotaph in Hampton today and think of their comrades and, undoubtedly, Princess Louise. They have never forgotten the horse who brought a touch of humanity to the killing fields of Europe.

Amidst all that bloodshed and chaos and agony, she reminded them of New Brunswick's rolling countryside and the things they cherished back home.

"At the time, we were soldiers doing a difficult job and mostly thankful that we were still alive," Frank Gaunce, 99, says as he sits beside his hospital bed in Sussex, where he is recovering from a broken hip. A member of the 8th Hussars Regiment, he was on the battlefield on the sweltering night of Sept. 16, 1944, when Princess Louise was discovered, months old and crying with a belly wound and walking circles around her dead mother. "Having that horse around helped raise our morale."

A battle unit based in Sussex with ties to Canada's oldest cavalry regiment, the Hussars retrieved Princess Louise from the front lines with artillery above their heads. They then took her to a company medic, who treated her wounds, and after that they took turns changing her bandages to prevent infection.

As the war ground on, they concealed her in a truck in which they had built her a stall and took her everywhere they went, through Italy, France and Holland.

When they war ended, they placed her in a pasture in Holland and, against orders, arranged for her to be shipped to New York aboard a Dutch liner.

A few months later after crossing the ocean, Princess Louise was met by one of the Hussars in New York, and then placed aboard a train and taken to Saint John, where she arrived on March 27, 1946 and was greeted by a military honour guard, the city's mayor and thunderous cheers.

The following day, children were let out of school to watch as she was paraded through the streets of neighbouring Rothesay, and then was taken to the courthouse steps in Hampton where she was given a bale of hay, bag of oats and a shovel, and made a naturalized citizen of Canada, a free woman of Kings County and a full-fledged member of the local Branch of the Royal Canadian Legion.

Her last pair of horseshoes are displayed at the Legion hall in Hampton, a short distance from where she lays at rest beside the cenotaph along with her daughter, Princess Louise II. Princess Louise was 29 when she died in 1973, and Princess Louise II, who assumed the role of the Hussars' mascot after her mother, died at age 27 in 1981.

Princess Louise and her daughter Princess Louise II, both of
whim served as mascots for the 8th Hussars Regiment are
buried together near the cenotaph in Hampton

A piece of history, the beloved filly was written about in a children's book by Ana Dearborn-Watts and chronicled by the Reader's Digest. A hit everywhere she went, in parades she was dressed in Hussars' regalia and, occasionally, she misbehaved.

Once, she ate a bouquet of flowers intended for the guest of honour at a ceremonial parade, another time she left a deposit at the legislature. Often, when she was supposed to be standing at attention, she was digging through the pockets of Bickerton's wife, Mary, searching for sugar cubes.

Always, she ate like a horse, favouring equine staples, as well as tobacco, whiskey and beer.`

"She ate just about anything," says Mary Bickerton, 85, who on Nov. 20 will celebrate her 68th wedding anniversary with Gordon. "The only thing she didn't eat was cheese."

On Princess Louise's 25th birthday, a party was thrown in Sussex, the home of the Hussars. The chef at a local military base baked her a cake out of oatmeal and cigarettes and layered it with icing and raw carrots.

Gordon Bickerton presented it to Princess Louise, who eyeballed it for a second.

"Then she drove her nose into the middle of it, nearly up to her eyes," he says. "She nearly knocked me down. She split the cake in two."

A native of England who moved to New Brunswick as a baby, Bickerton enlisted in the Second World War. He was in London, walking in Trafalgar Sqaure, when he and an Army buddy met Mary and a friend.

In no time the boys were chatting them up and the couples paired off. Later that night, they thought better of their choices, and switched - and now the Bickertons have been together seven decades, have three children, six grandchildren and six great-great grandkids.

A native of London, Mary moved to rural New Brunswick following the war, to Millstream, near Sussex.

"I knew there was no water in the house and I knew there was an outhouse way out back with catalogues that weren't there for reading, but hearing about it is one thing and living it is something else," she says.

Now, of course, that seems long ago, and it is. But they share a lifetime of memories, and a love for a horse that was rescued from a battlefield in Italy.

One time, while trying to apply for a military medal for Princess Louise, the Bickertons chased her around a field in Sussex trying to get her to step on an ink pad because the form required her signature.

"She looked at us like we were crazy," Mary says.

A former member of the Canadian Women's Army Corps, she helped her husband in the keeping of Princess Louise.

"The children used to call me 'the horse's mother'," she says. "They could have called me something worse."

SOURCE: The New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal (Saint John, NB) - November 11, 2011.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES: Princess Louise made numerous appearances at Camp Utopia during the 1950's.

Services remember history, fallen

2011-11-07T07:34:00.000-08:00

Column: Fourth of a four-part series of columns remembering those who served at Pennfield Ridge Air Station.

Since 2009, the Pennfield Parish Military Historical Society has been hosting the Pennfield Ridge War Memorial Service. The overall purpose of the service is to "Honour the seventy-eight (78) service personnel killed at these two Charlotte County bases; remember those who have since gone on to join their comrades in the sky and listen to the stories from those we still have with us."

To aid us in hosting these services, we have spent countless hours pouring through microfilms, acquiring aircraft accident reports, scouring old newspapers looking for news accounts, etc. Recording the numerous “prangs” however was just the first step and once completed we began the arduous task to seek out the families of those killed at the base.

This past July we hosted our third memorial service and held a banquet dinner at the St. George Legion to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Pennfield Ridge Air Station. Next year we will celebrate the 70th anniversary of A-30 Canadian Infantry Training Centre (Camp Utopia) and the 80th anniversary of the landing of Capt. James Mollison.

On 2 December 2010, as we continued our on-going research for locating families members and preparations for the pending memorial service, we received a phone call from Frank V Burnham from Sidmouth, England. We had previously contacted Frank’s cousin Michael Burnham who had visited here in September 2008. With the encouragement of his cousin Michael and with an invitation from our society to attend the upcoming memorial service, Frank made plans to make his first trip to Canada.

On Friday 22 July Frank flew into the Greater Moncton International Airport where a welcoming committee of four met him. Shortly before his arrival Everett McQuinn, a Second World War Veteran and a member of the Turnbull Chapter (CAHS), turned to me and asked me if I knew what Mr. Burnham looked like. I told him I did not and with the words still lingering in the air I said: “Here he comes now” which received a puzzled look from McQuinn. Although I did not know what he looked like, I had seen 2 photographs of his brother Hugh, and coming down the ramp was an older gentleman who bore a strong striking resemblance to Hugh.

Brenda Ferguson, Mayor George LeBlanc, Frank Burnham,
Christian Larsen & Everett McQuinn

Moncton Mayor George LeBlanc, who officially welcomed Mr. Burnham to the city, soon joined us and presented Mr. Burnham with a gift from Mayor and council. From the airport we ventured off to Elmwood Cemetery where Mr. Burnham knelt before the grave of his long-lost brother, whispered a final prayer and said farewell 68 years later. He also paid his final respects to P/O P.L. Edmond (RAAF) who is buried next to Hugh. The third crewmember, Sgt. J.E. Hogan, lies buried at St. Bernard’s Roman Catholic Cemetery, our last stop before leaving Moncton.

Frank Burnham visits the grave of his brother for the first time.

We then headed off to St. Andrews where he spent the weekend at a lovely bed and breakfast within the historic seaside resort community. F/L James A. (Jim) Stewart, DFC, ONB (Ret.) was gracious enough to provide Mr. Burnham a tour of the area on Saturday and brought him to the memorial service on Sunday.

Jim Stewart has been accommodating enough to lay the RAF wreath every year since we began hosting these services. Although never stationed at Pennfield Ridge. he did receive a portion of his training in Canada at No. 39 Flying Service Training School, Swift Current, SK in 1942. The closest he came to Pennfield Ridge, during the Second World War, was when the train he was aboard rolled through Moncton on the way to No.1 “Y” Depot in Halifax, NS.

At the conclusion of the banquet dinner, where both Frank and Jim were guest of honour, we took Frank on a brief tour of the base to see where Hugh spent some of his final days and then back to St. Andrews for the night.

The following day we returned Frank to Moncton so he could begin the journey back to England. Upon his return home Frank wrote, in part, “I did appreciate the memorial service and all that you are doing to keep alive the need to remember those who gave their lives in the doing of their duty to the security of our country.”

We look forward to the next memorial service and hopefully being joined by yet more family members. The memories of long ago are still very much present in all those who remember the base – Veterans, family members who have heard the stories or the older members of our community who were a part of the greatest generation.

The purpose of these columns is to awaken the general public interest and in addition, to bring forth more of the unrecorded history of this “Forgotten Base”.

The base had a major economic impact on the communities surrounding it from St. Stephen to Saint John and all points in between. However, 70 years later, there is nothing to suggest the significant role those blueberry fields played in the allies winning the war. Recording this history (still on-going) makes us realize that one should not be able to drive by this base without knowing its existence. Provincial Historic Designation is currently being sought so this location can be properly marked and perhaps a place created where people can read some of the stories and see photographs of what took place here. We need to remember all those who served and make sure the forgotten heroes, those who died in the preparation of war before their finest hour such as Sgt. H.J. (Hugh) Burnham, are honoured.

Per Ardua Ad Astra.

SOURCE: The Saint Croix Courier (St. Stephen, NB) - November 8, 2011.

Remembering Sgt. Hubert John Burnham

2011-11-04T08:38:00.000-07:00

Column: Third of a four-part series of columns remembering those who served at Pennfield Ridge Air Station.

As mentioned in Tuesday's column, one of the 1943 crashes was that of Ventura AJ211 near Richibucto on 8 February 1943 claiming Sgt. Hubert John (Hugh) Burnham (RAAF) (Pilot) and two others.

Hugh was born 5 September 1923 in Worthing, Sussex, England to Albert George and Doris May Burnham. At the age of 15 he traveled to Australia under the Big Brother Movement that was organized by the Boy Scouts. The idea of the program was to provide young men an opportunity to start a new life in an exciting developing country. It was here that Hugh worked as a Farm and Station Hand at “Innesfail” in Gurley, NSW, Australia.

On 1 March 1941 Hugh submitted an “Application for Air Crew” but being only 17 years of age he was not accepted. With his ultimate goal of returning back to England he was not put off and 9 September 1941 he enrolled himself in the reserves. On 11 October 1941 he enlisted himself in the permanent forces of the Royal Australian Air Forces.

At once he was sent to No.2 Initial Training School in Lindfield to begin his training, and by December was to begin his pilot training. On 22 May 1942 he was attached to the Royal Canadian Air Force and embarked Melborne the following day aboard the Argentina to continue his training in Canada. He arrived in San Francisco harbour 20 June 1942.

Upon his arrival he began a journey across Canada, via train, with his first stop three days later at No.33 Service Flying Training School in Carberry, Manitoba. It was here, upon graduation, that he was awarded his Flying Badge and promoted to the rank of Sergeant 23 October 1942. He was then granted a 14-day leave and, upon completion of the leave, was to report to No.34 Operational Training Unit at Pennfield Ridge.

Hugh arrived at No.34 OTU 7 November 1943 to be part of Course No.6 (Pilots) that began 9 November 1943. The cold winter weather of the Maritimes was not kind to Hugh and he spent, in total, 11 days in the station hospital in December during two separate visits.

On 16 January 1943 Course No.6 was detached to No.34 OTU Detachment in Yarmouth, NS for their armament-training portion of the course. As the Station ORB recounts: “A shuttle service of aircraft was arranged, but the weather closed in at Yarmouth with the result that only two Ansons and one Ventura were able to land there, the remaining aircraft being recalled to Base.”

The Ventura that landed was Ventura AE926 containing five airmen from Course No.6 as passengers, one of them being Burnham. Upon landing the starboard undercarriage collapsed but none of those aboard where injured.

Two days short of returning back to Pennfield Ridge for graduation, Sgt. H.J. Burnham and crew of two climbed into Ventura AJ211 and took off from Yarmouth at 5:50am. on a cross-country navigation exercise.

From Yarmouth they flew to Bridgewater and then onto West Point, PEI where they turned West and began to head towards Blissville (near Fredericton). The last contact from the aircraft was received at 6:27am and what transpired over the next 48 minutes remains unknown. What is known is that at 7:15am. Ventura AJ211 crashed 4 miles from Richibucto, and exploded on impact killing the entire crew.

The crew were brought back to Moncton and laid to rest with full military honour at Elmwood Cemetery 11 February 1943. The mourning, bearer and firing parties were made up of airmen from No.31 RAF Depot and No.8 SFTS, both from Moncton.

There would be two crashes in 1944 that claimed, in total, four airmen and another two crashes in 1945 that claimed 8 airmen.

Since January 2007 Pennfield Parish Military Historical Society (PPMHS) has been working hard to record the history of the Pennfield Ridge Air Station and A-30 Canadian Infantry Training Centre, CA (Camp Utopia). Our primary focus is honouring and remembering the 78 service personnel, along with the 7 civilians, killed at the Air Station and Camp Utopia.

On Tuesday: Services remember history, fallen

SOURCE: The Saint Croix Courier (St. Stephen, NB) - November 4, 2011.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The above noted story as originally written vs the shortened one that appeared in the newspaper.

A dangerous time

2011-11-01T14:26:00.000-07:00

Column: Second of a four-part series of columns remembering those who served at Pennfield Ridge Air Station.

After No.2 ANS closed it became No.34 Operational Training Unit (OTU), an RAF base, on 1 June 1942 flying the Lockheed Vega-Ventura. The Ventura was a twin-engine medium bomber designed to train crews destined for a Medium Bomber Squadron overseas.

It was during the tenure of No.34 OTU that close to 81% of the fatalities took place, almost 62% of those occurring in 1943 alone, with 12 fatal crashes and 5 additional aircraft being listed as “missing”.

In 1997 F/L John Park (Ret.) of Bass Hill, Australia remarked: "Such 'prangs' were quite common with 'circuits and bumps' as this was the last stop before Europe and the real thing."

Ventura AE950 would disappear over the Bay of Fundy 23 July 1942 with a crew of two; Ventura AE932 would crash 4 miles NE of Caledonia, NS and Ventura AE868 would crash on the aerodrome at “the Ridge”.

In regards to the latter crash it was witnessed by many airmen and has been recounted numerous times in print, video and verbal narratives. Anyone who witnessed the horrific crash has never forgot it no matter how hard they have tried to eradicate its memories from the pages of their mind.

The devastation of 1943 began 23 January 1943 when Ventura AE872 crashed at Hills Mountain (near Waweig) and did not let up until 10 August 1943. During this period at least one aircraft a month would crash – January and February would see 2 whereas June would see 3. To close out the year, on 19 December 1943, the Angel of Death would claim four more airmen when Ventura FD697 struck the 30’ water level indicator atop an 80’ water tower in the marshalling yards at McAdam Junction.

It was one of these crashes in 1943 that would claim the life of Sgt. H.J. (Hugh) Burnham and his crew on a cold February morning.

One of the more tragic tales is the crash of Ventura FN973 10 August 1943. On that day, the crew of Ventura FN973 was detailed to fly a cross-country mission lasting approx. 3 hrs. At 1855 they completed their task and upon return, radioed the control tower asking for permission to bomb the Utopia Range. The aircraft never made it to the range and at 1900 hours it was spotted heading out to sea. The following day Ozra Newman and his son Lawrence, of Wilson’s Beach, and another fishing vessel from Grand Manan came upon wreckage from Ventura FN973 about two hundred yards north of White Horse Island. One of the objects recovered was a life raft partially filled with water. Tangled within the ropes was the body of the Navigator, P/O R.A. Ledingham (RCAF) who survived the initial crash and later succumbed to his injuries and exposure. The other three-crew members were never found and the cause of the crash remains “obscure”.

Sometime between 1943 and 1959 an airman from the base, who was at the crash site at Hills Mountain, wrote: “We kept losing aircraft after aircraft and no one knew the reason. So many people were killed that we had to have practically a permanent funeral party. All the fatalities were among the student crews and never with the instructors. Naturally morale was rather low. It wasn’t until about mid 1943 that we found the answer.”

The answer the airman was referring to came from the investigation into Ventura AE678 that “forced” landed near the Burns Road in Digdeguash 29 May 1943. The crash killed the Pilot and injured the WAG but the aircraft itself, although it struck a tree, did not burn and was not extensively damaged. Upon examination of the wreckage it was discovered the Stromberg carburetors were full of air.

The practice of switching over to a full tank was to switch the cocks to the tanks required, then put the booster pumps on. However if the booster pumps were switched on first then it would pump air from the nearly empty tank into the carburetor stopping the engine dead. To correct this problem the carburetors were installed with a bleed pipe back to the main tank. No more aircraft were lost in this way again.

Since January 2007 Pennfield Parish Military Historical Society (PPMHS) has been working hard to record the history of the Pennfield Ridge Air Station and A-30 Canadian Infantry Training Centre, CA (Camp Utopia). Our primary focus is honouring and remembering the 78 service personnel, along with the 7 civilians, killed at the Air Station and Camp Utopia.

On Friday: Remembering Sgt. Hubert John Burnham

SOURCE: The Saint Croix Courier (St. Stephen, NB) - November 1, 2011.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The above noted story as originally written vs the shortened one that appeared in the newspaper.

Would-be rescuers mark first station fatalities

2011-10-30T05:15:00.000-07:00

Column: first of a four-part series of columns remembering those who served at Pennfield Ridge Air Station.

A lot of changes have occurred at the former Pennfield Ridge Air Station since it closed towards the end of 1945.

This column, along with the next three to follow, is intended to focus on the 170 accidents and/or mishaps (“prangs”) at the Pennfield Ridge Air Station and ultimately honour Sgt. Hubert John (Hugh) Burnham, RAAF (Pilot). Burnham, a 19 year old from Worthing, Sussex, England serving in the Royal Australian Air Force, was chosen to represent all those killed at Pennfield Ridge due to a recent visit by his younger brother Frank V Burnham this past July. Frank, now age 86, made the journey from his native England to Canada to say his final goodbye to his beloved Hugh 68 years later. Frank represents, for many of the Commonwealth airmen killed at “the Ridge”, what numerous families have not been able to do – bid farewell to those brave airmen lost so long ago.

The former base holds a special place in the hearts and minds of those who served there. For many airmen it would be the last place in Canada they would spend their time before being posted overseas. It was here friendships would be forged that would be life long, especially those who “crewed” up and later served together in battle squadrons overseas. We have discovered that once a Veteran begins to talk about Pennfield Ridge it is hard for him to share any other memories. Family members, the next generation, have often heard the stories about Pennfield Ridge or have come across the name when they begin their own research. This is why we have heard from 24 Veterans and over 120 family members since 2007, many of whom we still maintain fairly regular contact.

There were fourteen fatal crashes in various parts of New Brunswick (9), Nova Scotia (4) and Rhode Island (1) that account for the loss of 40 airmen. Another seven aircraft crashed into various bodies of water accounting for 21/22 airmen and 1 seaman (passenger) being listed as “missing”. Families struggling with the sudden loss of loved ones were further compounded with the waiting for additional word. Long after all the searches were abandoned and all hopes for a positive outcome were exhausted; “presumption” of death was finally issued. The remaining seven airmen died from natural causes.

The base officially opened 21 July 1941 as No.2 Air Navigation School (ANS), an RCAF base, operating the Avro Anson, the mainstay of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP). Sixteen days after the base opened the first minor mishap transpired when an Anson “…overran the runway into a ditch”, and then nineteen days later the first fatal crash befell the base involving two aircraft and nine airmen.

The first aircraft, Anson 6649, was out on a night navigation exercise with a crew of five when it became lost near Liverpool, NS. Dropping flares and flooding the shore with a landing light, the crew was unable to find a suitable place to land. The pilot, F/O John Barneson, a native of San Francisco serving in the RCAF, climbed to 6,000 feet and ordered the crew to bail out around 3:30 a.m. The entire crew, save Sgt. J.H. McKay who fractured his arm when he struck the tail of the plane while bailing out, escaped unharmed.

Before the crew of Anson 6649 was reported safe, a search party from Pennfield Ridge was organized.

One of the searching aircraft was Anson 6644 with a crew of four, including the pilot F/L Walter Samuel “Leslie” Smallman (RAF) who had been residing in St. George with his wife Mollie and young son since July 1941. Spotting a bonfire around 7:00 a.m. Smallman put the aircraft into a steep diving turn toward the East and as it banked, possibly with the pilot’s vision being aggravated by glare from the rising sun, the port wing struck a tree and disintegrated killing the entire crew.

This was to be the only fatal crash at No.2 ANS which existed for just over 10 months and the final line of the Station ORB reflects the mood of the station that day: "A very 'blue' Monday."

Since January 2007 Pennfield Parish Military Historical Society (PPMHS) has been working hard to record the history of the Pennfield Ridge Air Station and A-30 Canadian Infantry Training Centre, CA (Camp Utopia). Our primary focus is honouring and remembering the 78 service personnel, along with the 7 civilians, killed at the Air Station and Camp Utopia.

On Tuesday: A dangerous time

SOURCE: The Saint Croix Courier (St. Stephen, NB) - October 25, 2011.

Reflections, Pennfield Ridge Air Station

2011-10-10T13:11:00.002-07:00

A lot of changes have occurred at the former Pennfield Ridge Air Station since it closed towards the end of 1945. So much unwritten history is located on this hallow piece of ground and yet many of those unrecorded voices have been silenced by the cold hand of death. Priceless memories continually slip through the hourglass of time to be forever lost in the continuum of life. It's now a race against father time and he, as always, has the advantage on his side. Also, so many unfilled dreams of a brighter tomorrow ended before they really had a chance to begin. The youthful exuberance of the innocent and an uncertainty of a tomorrow often exacted a high toll on those who answered the call of duty.

Since January 2007 Pennfield Parish Military Historical Society (PPMHS) has been working hard to record the history of the Pennfield Ridge Air Station and A-30 Canadian Infantry Training Centre, CA (Camp Utopia). Our primary focus is honouring and remembering the 78 service personnel, along with the 7 civilians, killed at the Air Station and Camp Utopia.

Our column is intended to focus on Pennfield Ridge Air Station. The former base holds a special place in the hearts and minds of those who served there. For many airmen it would be the last place in Canada they would spend their time before being posted overseas. It was here friendships would be forged that would be life long, especially those who "crewed" up and later served together in battle squadrons overseas. We have discovered that once a Veteran begins to talk about Pennfield Ridge it is hard for him to share any other memories. Family members, the next generation, have often heard the stories about Pennfield Ridge or have come across the name when they begin their own research. This is why we have heard from 23 Veterans and over 120 family members since 2007, many of whom we still maintain fairly regular contact.

There were fourteen fatal crashes in various parts of New Brunswick (9), Nova Scotia (4) and Rhode Island (1) that account for the loss of 40 airmen. Another seven aircraft crashed into various bodies of water accounting for 21/22 airmen and 1 seaman (passenger) being listed as “missing”. Families struggling with the sudden loss of loved ones were further compounded with the waiting for additional word. Long after all the searches were abandoned and all hopes for a positive outcome were exhausted; “presumption” of death was finally issued. The remaining seven airmen died from natural causes.

One of the more tragic tales is the crash of Ventura FN973 10 August 1943. On that day, the crew of Ventura FN973 was detailed to fly a cross-country mission lasting approx. 3 hrs. At 1855 they completed their task and upon return, radioed the control tower asking for permission to bomb the Utopia Range. The aircraft never made it to the range and at 1900 hours it was spotted heading out to sea. The following day Ozra Newman and his son Lawrence, of Wilson’s Beach, and another fishing vessel from Grand Manan came upon wreckage from Ventura FN973 about two hundreds yards north of White Horse Island. One of the objects recovered was a life raft partially filled with water. Tangled within the ropes was the body of the Navigator, P/O R.A. Ledingham (RCAF) who survived the initial crash and later succumbed to his injuries and exposure. The other three-crew members were never found and the cause of the crash remains “obscure”.

A total of 27 members of the Royal Canadian Air Force, save one, were all returned to their native provinces for burial. The other airmen from Commonwealth Countries (9 Royal Air Force, 6 Royal Australian Air Force and 6 Royal New Zealand Air Force), were buried with full military honours near where they were killed or died. Family members were sometimes sent photographs from the military funerals and were always left with more questions than answers. Many of these questions have gone unanswered for 60 plus years now. We have discovered it is now the second generation who have picked up the torch and have begun the search for answers.

Sgt. R.F. (Ron) Brier’s younger sister June (along with her husband) and a niece (daughter of another sister) made the trip from New Zealand to Canada in June 2000. The niece later remarked, “It was a cold, miserable, foggy day and it was a very bleak isolated place but it was wonderful to BE THERE. and to walk were Ron had walked. We only stayed about 1/4 hour and felt that we could understand what the flying conditions would have been like.”

Helping to answer those long held unanswered questions is why we have spent countless hours pouring through microfilms, acquiring aircraft accident reports, scouring old newspapers looking for news accounts, etc. To date we have documented over 170 accidents and/or mishaps that occurred at the former Air Station.

The majority of these accidents and/or mishaps naturally relate to aircraft accidents. In addition to the 70 service personnel killed, another two airmen were “seriously” injured; fifteen airmen were “slightly” injured and another seven airmen bailed out of their respective aircrafts. A couple of the reports pertain to fires at the Quonset huts at the bombing range in Musquash and five relate to various car accidents involving, in total, 16 airmen (1 fatality) and 3 civilian fire fighters stationed at the base.

One these vehicle reports relates to Military Transport Vehicle enroute to Saint John to take volunteer blood donors to the hospital 19 February 1942. An icy road caused the wagon to skid into S.M.T. bus injuring 5 airmen. The regular Blood Donor Clinic in St. George, which some local residents may recall, did not begin until 7 February 1943. Dr. R.D. Smith and Dr. F.V. Maxwell ran the clinic with many local nurses, residents and Boy Scouts assisting in vacuous capacities.

Still many minor mishaps and/or “close” calls went unrecorded and only until Veterans and/or family members steps forward to share their stories, the total number shall remain unknown.

An RAAF airman, F/L Nevin (“The Fox”) Filby (Ret.), provides an example of an unrecorded mishap: “...what now I see as stupid bravado, I flew at a cliff, low level and delayed the pull-up. Dickie, my new WAG, was standing behind me and quite rightly dropped to the floor. The propellers kicked up stones from the cliff top and pitter-pattered against the fuselage. The propellers were nicked and were repaired, quietly, by our very co-operative ground staff and I missed out on being charged. The silliness of youth! The Venturas were slow to react, as I found out quite nervously.”

Filby’s Course No.12 at Pennfield Ridge would experience the loss of three aircraft (8 classmates killed and one seriously injured). For Filby himself it would be the personal loss of Sgt. A.E,E. (“Buck”) Rogers (RAAF). Both Filby and Rogers had trained together at No.15 SFTS, Claresholm, AB before coming to “the Ridge”. Also it would mean the loss of his first WAG, Sgt. L.E. (“Skinny”) Ellis (RAAF) who was seriously injured when the pilot of Ventura AE678 attempted a forced landing in a field near Didgeguash. Filby and his all-Australian crew would eventually fly over 50 Ops. with 98 Squadron.

An RCAF airman, P/O H.W. (“Scoot”) Muir (Ret.), offers personal insight into one of his two close calls at the base: "We were fortunate in being able to practice low-flying legally. I liked flying with F/L Owens as leader. He wasn't satisfied unless his prop-tips were picking up water or disturbing the tops of pine-trees. One afternoon we were over the bay, zero alt. when a flock of gulls decided to take off. I ended up returning to base with a gull in the oil rad. of the port engine, one in the radial engine itself and one hit the air-screen in front of me which got my attention. The engine started to run hot which made it necessary to return to base. All turned out well.”

The purpose of this column is to awaken the general public interest and in addition, to bring forth more of the unrecorded history of this “Forgotten Base”. The base had a major economic impact on the communities surrounding it from St. Stephen to Saint John and all points in between. However 70 years later, there is nothing to suggest the significant role those blueberry fields played in the allies winning the war. Recording this history (still on-going) makes us realize that one should not be able to drive by this base without knowing its existence. Provincial Historic Designation is currently being sought so this location can be properly marked and perhaps a place created where people can read some of the stories and see photographs of what took place here. We need to remember all those who served and make sure the forgotten heroes, those who died in the preparation of war before their finest hour, are honoured.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story was submitted to our local newspaper for a possible column. However the editor rejected it saying: "I felt the column was a bit long – but we didn’t suggest targets. Otherwise, there was some interesting data there.

What I think I’d like to see is something along the lines of three or four entries in advance of Nov. 11, which I think would be a timely lead-in to Remembrance Day. The article you submitted earlier could become two columns if the idea of one column to highlight one past veteran were considered."

Personally speaking I think you lose many of the personnel anecdotes that breath life into the piece by focusing on just one Veteran. While it is true that each accident ultimately produced the same result, the tragic and sudden lost of a family member, they also have their own unique testimony and most, if not all, have stories wrapped up within stories. Also I feel that you, in the final edit, cut out the humanity by limiting the scope and focus to just one Veteran and ultimately highlighting that particular crash verses the others.

Walking The Ridge with Donald C.F. Moors

2011-09-15T04:31:00.001-07:00

Christian Larsen and Veteran Donald Moors
Pennfield Ridge Air Station, 14 September 2011

Veteran Donald C.F. (Don) Moors of Nova Scotia heard a news report about the 1942 Connors murder approximately four months ago. This sparked his interest because he had been stationed at RCAF Station, Yarmouth, NS (about 2 hrs. away as the crow flies) during this time period. However he never heard any details of the crime until recently which is surprising since it received national coverage at the time.

Sgt. T.R.R. Hutchings, the accused murder, had been stationed at No.34 Operational Training Unit, Yarmouth, NS between April and May 1942. Then No.34 OTU moved to Pennfield Ridge in June 1942 and Hutchinson came here. A few months after the murder No.34 OTU, due to a shortage of buildings at "the Ridge", would establish No.34 OTU Detachment, Yarmouth between August 1942 and June 1943.

Not long after hearing the documentary, Moors contacted his son Don here in New Brunswick to see if he might be able to find additional for him. Don began by searching the internet for any information and this is when he stumbled onto my website. He then began printing off any material he thought might be of interest to his father and then would send the material, via snail mail, to his father.

The material, as with anyone who reads it, left Moors with many more questions and he then asked his son if it would be possible to travel to Pennfield Ridge. He wanted to see the base, or what remained of it, for several reasons. With the connection between No.34 OTU, Pennfield and RCAF Station, Yarmouth Moors knew a couple airmen who passed through here. More importantly he also wanted to learn more about the Connors murder and share his memories and reflections from long ago.

Moors identified, in some respects, with the accused murder since in 1942 both were Sergeants and both were married with young children, Hutchings with a young daughter back in England and Moors with twin daughters and a son who would be born shortly after Hutchinson met his maker.

So after a few phone calls and numerous e-mails a date of 15 September at 10:30 am. was set for the tour. The weather was questionable with a ground fog and cool dampness in the air but luckily no rain. However the weather was almost ideal as many of the airmen at the base would experience just such conditions.

I meet with Mr. Moors and his son Don at the Pennfield Ridge Irving. From there we traveled out to the base and began our tour. We chatted for awhile and looked over photographs that detailed the storied history of the former base. We then walked out to the one remaining structure still visible from the highway, the 25 Yd. Range.

Time may have slowed his step but memories of long ago, firmly pressed between the pages of his mind, remain ever present and very clear. We stopped near the 25 Yd. Range and took a couple photographs before heading out onto the runways. We drove around on all three of the runways which are still in remarkable condition all these years later.

After leaving the base we headed into Blacks Harbour for a small tour. It was here in the harbour that several airmen were attending a dance at the local community centre that fateful night in June 1942. Before leaving the village we drove down Deadman's Harbour Road close to the spot where Bernice Connors was eventually discovered after failing to return home from the dance the previous night.

Next stop was Comeau's Resturant for Fish'n'Chips (and a side order of scallops that father and son always share). Good food and pleasant conversation quickly pass the morning into mid-day. After recharging the batteries and discovering sunshine as we stepped outside, we head off to the St. George Rural Cemetery where 10 airmen from the base are buried.

Christian Larsen, Veteran Donald C.F. Moors and Don Moors
St. George Rural Cemetery, 14 September 2011

We spent time at the Cemetery talking about some of the crashes at the base and Moors shared his memories of the Venturas along with other aircraft that were at RCAF Station, Yarmouth. We were joined at the cemetery by my wife Sheri who presented Mr. Moors with a postcard of her painting "In Training at Pennfield Ridge".

Last stop on the tour was a trip to St. Andrews. Here we stopped at the St. Andrews Rural Cemetery to visit the unmarked grave of Hutchings. Then we stopped at the St. Andrews Courthouse where the trial was held and concluded the day by visiting the Old Goal, now home to the Charlotte County Archives. Longtime St. Andrews resident Kate Akagi was on-duty and provided us with a tour of Hutchinson cell, additional information on his time at the Old Goal and showed us a photograph of Hutchinson with jailer George Goodeill.

Pennfield Parish Military Historical Society Membership

2011-08-27T05:53:00.000-07:00

Interested in becoming a non-voting member of PPMHS? Only requirement is as follows: 1) Veteran who served at Pennfield Ridge Air Station or A-30 Canadian Infantry Training Centre (Camp Utopia) or 2) Family member of a Veteran who served at one of these two bases.

Membership is currently free of charge but donations are always appreciated to assist us in continuing forward the annual "Pennfield Ridge War Memorial Services", military research, etc. PPMHS is a registered charity.

Send an e-mail to G Christian Larsen at pennfieldparish@yahoo.com for membership.

Donations are currently being accepted for "Pennfield Ridge War Memorial Project".

Airfield Kindles Memories

2011-07-31T13:34:00.000-07:00

They came from across the continent, and across the seas to see a place that will forever have a role in their lives.

In the early 1940's, Pennfield Ridge was home to a bustling air force base, over the weekend a number of veterans and family members returned to the base for a weekend of remembering.

Maureen Bearpark made her first trip to Canada to see where her father Frank Ablett spent two years working as an accounting clerk between 1942 and 1944.

Ablett was with the RAF and had been stationed in Pennfield from Hull, England.

On Saturday evening she paused to look into a stand of alders at the place where the administrative building once stood.

Bearpark was accompanied on her journey from Withernsea, England by her husband Terry, and daughter Janet to see this spot that her father talked so much about.

The family brought a number of photos of Ablett, and Janet brought her grandfather's engagement ring, which she wore to the memorial service on Sunday.

Ablett always told his wife, Lilly, that when he retired he was going to take her to Canada. Sadly they never made the trip.

"Because of ill health they never made it, and now I have lost them both," said Bearpark.

The family spent time touring the area and seeking to meet some of the people that her father may have met.

Among those people were Doris Noddin and Lydia Hanselpacker who danced with the young RAF pilot in training.

For Peter Manning, the trip to Pennfield was coming home.

Manning's father, George Edward (Jim) Manning came from England to train at the base and met Randi Silvertsen from Blacks Harbour.

The Silvertsen family had come from Norway to work at Connors Bros. On April 8, 1944 Silvertsen and Manning were married at St. Mark's church rectory in St. George.

This was not Manning's first trip to the airfield. He had flown out of Pennfield with his father as pilot.

"It was my beginning here," said Manning.

Two years ago he returned to the area to bury his mother.

Manning made the trip with his daughter Charlotte, who was in Charlotte County for her first time.

After her husband died in England, Randi came to live with her son and his family in B.C. so Charlotte grew up listening to stories from her grandmother.

"My Norwegian grandma was a very big part of my life," said Charlotte.

Charlotte related that her grandmother always talked fondly of the area and her early life in Blacks Harbour.

John Charters has personal memories of the airbase.

It was here in 1945 that he was on a Ventura bomber that crashed on the highway by the airfield. Although all three crew walked away, the plane was a total loss.`

The next day Charters found the plane on the base where it had been taken. He climbed up on the wing, and removed a section of one of the Plexiglas windows.

From that, he fashioned a heart approximately seven centimetres high. He mailed the heart to his girlfriend, Barbara, back in Quebec, to remember him by.

In 1947, the couple married and over the years they continued on with life. They had a son and two daughters. Along came four grandchildren and five great grandchildren.

A few years ago he found the heart, and had it set into a gold frame and hung from a gold chain. Barbara wore the pendant to the dinner on Sunday.

Dave Poissant came to the event from Mississauga, Ont. Poissant serves as the chair of the second Tactical Air Force Medium Bombers Association. He was at the memorial because his father Cyrille (Cy) Poissant trained at the base.

"I was here last year for the ceremony, and this year I am laying a wreath," said Poissant.

Poissant has always had a fascination with all things military because of his father's service.

Another visitor from away was Frank Burnham.

Burnham flew into Moncton from England and went in search of his brother's grave.

Pilot Sgt. Hubert Burnham was one of the three Royal Australian Air Force airmen who were killed when the Ventura bomber they were in went down near Richibucto on Feb. 8, 1943.

Frank was met at the airport by the mayor of Moncton and was taken to the Elmwood Cemetery where his brother was buried alongside wireless air gunner Sgt. John E. Hogan. Navigator Sgt. Phillip Llewellyn Edmond was buried at St. Bernard's Roman Catholic Cemetery - also in Moncton.

Frank is a quiet soft spoken man who said he was touched by the kindness shown to him as he visited the area.

As he looked out over the assembled crowd of veterans, and those who felt an attachment to them, at a dinner held Sunday there was a hint of mischief in his voice.

"I wonder how many tall tales are being told right now?", he mused.

And at every table there were stories being told.

SOURCE: The Saint Croix Courier (St. Stephen, NB) - July 26, 2011.

July 23rd, 2011: "Walking The Ridge"

July 24th, 2011: Conclusion of "Pennfield Ridge War Memorial Service"

Brother says farewell to long-lost airman

2011-07-26T10:53:00.000-07:00

Pilot Sgt. Hubert Burnham was one of two RAAF and one RNZAF airmen killed in a plane crash near Richibucto on Feb. 8, 1943.

Frank Burnham visits the grave of his brother for the first time yesterday at Elmwood Cemetery.

Frank Burnham knelt before the grave of his long-lost brother last night, whispering a final prayer and saying farewell 68 years after a plane crash near Moncton that killed his brother and two other members, a Royal Australian Air Force airmen and a Royal New Zealand Air Force airmen.

"I feel mixed feelings," Frank Burnham, 86, said after a private visit to his brother's grave in Moncton's Elmwood Cemetery last night. "There is a sense that I could weep. But there's another sense that I feel very proud that he gave his life like so many others. You see the stupidity of war and can't understand how politicians can talk and talk and say we're going to settle it."

Frank's brother, Pilot Sgt. Hubert Burnham, was only 19 years old when he died. He was the pilot of a Ventura bomber flying on a training mission on the morning of Feb. 8, 1943. They were flying out of Yarmouth, N.S., when the plane went down in an explosive crash in a boggy area approximately four miles northeast of Richibucto.

Also killed were navigator Sgt. Philip Llewellyn Edmond, 27, of Adamstown, New South Wales, Australia; and wireless air gunner Sgt. John E. Hogan, 22, of Ruatoria, Gisborne, New Zealand. Burnham and Hogan were buried at Moncton's Elmwood Cemetery. Edmond was buried at St. Bernard's Roman Catholic Cemetery on Pleasant Street.

Frank said his family lived in Sussex, England, and his big brother decided for some reason that he wanted to go to Australia to work on a sheep farm. He hadn't been there very long when war broke out. And as soon as he was old enough, Hubert went to Sydney and signed up with the RAAF. He had completed his pilot training in Australia and came to Canada for advanced bomber training. He was only a few days shy of graduation when he was killed in the crash.

Frank says he was 17 in 1943, working as an air raid patrolman, and vividly remembers the night the knock came on the door with the delivery of the bad news. He was in bed, his father went to the door and then upstairs. Then he heard his mother scream in anguish.

But in Sussex, England in 1943, the news of war was all around. England had been pounded by air raids and ships were being sunk by submarines.

"The neighbours were getting similar news from the army, the navy, the air force, so it was all around us," he said.

"War is a different kettle of fish. As civilians, you are just as vulnerable as a soldier or a sailor and you have to accept it, put up with it. Everyone was under pressure."

Frank says he thought about his brother for a long time and felt he should make a trip to Canada to say goodbye. But it wasn't until his cousin Michael came to Moncton, saw the grave and urged him to make the trip that he relented. He was met at the Greater Moncton Airport last night by Moncton Mayor George LeBlanc and G. Christian Larsen, president of the Pennfield Parish Military Historical Society. Hubert Burnham was actually stationed with the Pennfield Ridge Air Station, but was detached to No.34 Detachment in Yarmouth shortly before his fateful flight.

This weekend, Frank Burnham will be the guest of honour at a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the Pennfield Ridge Air Station near Saint John.

Larsen says the ceremony will honour the 70 airmen and six civilians killed at the base during training operations during the Second World War.

Moncton was also home to training bases of the Commonwealth Air Training Plan, and at least 11 fatal crashes occurred around the Moncton region.

SOURCE: Times & Transcript (Moncton, NB) - July 23rd, 2011.

Brenda Ferguson, Mayor George LeBlanc, Frank Burnham, Christian Larsen & Everett McQuinn

Living history: a wartime training air crash draws visitor

2011-06-25T03:01:00.000-07:00

We often talk about people coming to Moncton to go shopping, take in a hockey game or a concert, but how often do people come here from the other side of the world to solve a historical mystery and perhaps find some closure to a family tragedy nearly 70 years after the fact?

Next month, an elderly gentleman from England is coming to Moncton to visit the grave of his long-lost brother, who was killed in a plane crash in 1943.

It's the kind of story you'd expect to see on one of those History Channel documentaries, where people from Canada make a pilgrimage to England or France or Germany to find the graves of their relatives lost in wartime, so it seems a bit strange that someone would come to Moncton.

But some war casualties occurred far away from the actual battlefields and sometimes interesting historical mysteries are right under our noses.

I first stumbled across the story of Pilot Sgt. Hubert John Burnham; Navigator Sgt. Philip Llewellyn Edmond, 27, of Adamstown, New South Wales, Australia; and Wireless Air Gunner, Sgt. John Edward Hogan, 22, of Ruatoria, East Coast Region, New Zealand a few years ago.

As it happened, I was getting my car serviced at Can-Am Chrysler on Morton Avenue and had couple of hours to kill, so I found myself wandering around the nearby Elmwood Cemetery.

Why wander through a cemetery? Well, I've always found it a bit fascinating to look at the names and the dates. Historians and genealogists will tell you these sombre places are gold mines of information.

In the midst of the cemetery, under a maple leaf flag fluttering in the breeze, were a couple of graves with the R.A.A.F. (Royal Australian Air Force) insignia. I figured they must have been casualties of the British Commonwealth Air Training Program, during which thousands of pilots and other air crew recruits from around the world came to Moncton for training during the early years of the Second World War.

It struck me as terribly sad that these young men from Australia would come all the way around the world to a little place like New Brunswick, only to be killed in a training crash far away from any of the actual theatres of operation. They weren't the only ones. As pilots and aircrew trained in New Brunswick and other bases across Canada, there were many accidents and crashes. Researchers tell me there could still be a few wrecked planes in the woods and waters around New Brunswick.

With only the names and the date of Feb. 8, 1943, I started doing a bit of research on these young fellows. As it turned out, they were actually attached to No.34 Operational Training Unit in Pennfield Ridge near Saint John when they crashed a Lockheed Ventura bomber aircraft that cold morning in 1943. Sgt. Hubert John Burnham was only 19, far away from home, at the controls of a big bomber aircraft flying through the freezing cold and snow of a New Brunswick winter morning.

Mr. Burnham, the pilot, was born in Worthing, England, on Sept. 5, 1923. He enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force in Sydney on Oct. 11, 1941, a month after his 18th birthday. With him in the Ventura were Navigator Sgt. Philip Llewellyn Edmond, 27, of Adamstown, New South Wales, Australia; and Wireless Air Gunner, Sgt. John E. Hogan, 22, of Ruatoria, East Coast Region, New Zealand.

They were flying a cross-country training run with other bombers out of No.34 Operational Training Unit Detachment at Yarmouth, NS that morning. At approximately 7:15 a.m., men fishing smelt along the Richibucto River looked on in horror as the Ventura bomber came out of the sky at a high rate of speed and then crashed into a boggy area approximately four miles northeast of Richibucto, just a quarter mile from the shoreline.

The plane exploded into a huge ball of flame, lighting up the pre-dawn sky. An RCMP search party found the plane within half an hour. It was destroyed. The crew had been thrown clear and killed instantly.

A crash investigation was launched from Moncton and the three young men were laid to rest far away from home - Mr. Burnham and Mr. Edmond were buried in the Elmwood Cemetery in Moncton, Mr. Hogan was buried in St. Bernard's Roman Catholic Cemetery on Pleasant Street - killed in a training crash before they graduated and could be posted to a squadron overseas.

Subsequent investigations indicated that some better weather-proofing of the Ventura bombers was needed when they were used in extreme cold and snowy conditions.

I first wrote about the crash in November of 2007 as a Remembrance Day feature. Since then, I've been in contact with G. Christian Larsen, president of the Pennfield Parish Military Historical Society, who has shared more information about the crash and others associated with the Pennfield Ridge training base during the war.

I've also been in contact with another historical researcher who has tried to find the exact site of the 1943 crash, but apparently the ground is so boggy that it is nearly impossible to walk through. Some photos exist of the site at the time, and there are also some stories of local people from Richibucto going there to carry away parts of the plane before the air force recovery team arrived.

Mr. Larsen now informs me that his group will host a memorial service on Sunday, July 24 at the Pennfield Ridge War Memorial. The day will mark the 70th anniversary of the Pennfield Ridge Air Station. Their guest of honour will be Mr. Burnham, who has decided to travel to Canada to visit the grave of his big brother, who never came home from the war.

Mr. Burnham is scheduled to arrive at the Greater Moncton International Airport on July 22, visit the cemetery and then proceed to Pennfield Ridge.

This is just one example of Moncton's multi-layered history and how researchers are always looking for information to solve the puzzles that are right under our noses - and that after all these years, families will go to great lengths to touch the past.

SOURCE: Times & Transcript (Moncton, NB) - June 21, 2011.

Memorial service upcoming

2011-06-11T09:27:00.000-07:00

PENNFIELD – The Pennfield Parish Military Historical Society will host a memorial service in July to remember all those who served and/or worked at two major military bases in the area during the Second World War - the Pennfield Ridge Air Station and A-30 Canadian Infantry Training Center (Camp Utopia). At the conclusion of the memorial service a banquet dinner will be held to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the former Pennfield Ridge Air Station which officially opened 21 July 1941.

The service is being dedicated to those Veterans we've lost since last year's service, namely namely Ken Harrison (RCAF), Russ Hunter (RCAF), Dr. Lionel E. (Hank) Hastings (RCAF), Rev. Father Richard P.A. Sims (RCAF), Ivan H Wright (RNZAF) and to all the others who have put their lives on the line to keep our country free, and to all the others who have put their lives on the line to keep our country free.

Please join with us in honouring the seventy-seven (77) service personnel and six (6) civilians killed at these two Charlotte County bases; remember those who have since gone on to join their comrades in the sky and listen to the stories from those we still have with us.

The memorial service will take place Sunday, July 24th at the Provincial Park, Pennfield Ridge (across Route 1 from the Pennfield Ridge Post Office) at 2 pm. The banquet dinner will follow at The Royal Canadian Legion (Branch #40), St. George afterwards from 3:00 until 5 p.m. In case of inclement weather, the entire service will be moved to The Royal Canadian Legion (Branch #40), St. George.

Past and current members of the military have been invited to attend the ceremony as well as representatives from the local, provincial and federal governments. Also family members of those killed at these two Charlotte County bases have been invited to attend the service as well.

Tickets for the banquet dinner are $20.00 per person with ticket sales being limited to 150. Tickets are available until July 1st so any interested in attending is asked to please call (506) 456-3494 to purchase tickets.

SOURCE: The Saint Croix Courier (St. Stephen, NB) - June 7, 2011.

"In Training Pennfield Ridge" Painting

2011-04-29T15:01:00.000-07:00

The below painting was donated to "Pennfield Parish Military Historical Society" in 2009 to raise funds for "Pennfield Ridge War Memorial Service".

Original Piece of Art Work by Sheri L. (Burhoe) Larsen measuring 11" x 14" (Oil and Acrylic on canvas).

Tickets are $2.00 each or 3 for $5.00 with all proceeds going to "Pennfield Ridge War Memorial Service". The winning ticket will be drawn at this year's memorial service.

For more information please see:

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nbpennfi/penn8b1PPMHS_ArtRaffle.htm

P/O Harold Otho Male (1919-1942)

2011-03-30T13:52:00.000-07:00

Sgt. H.O. Male (GB657604) was part of Course No.1 (Pilots) at No.34 Operational Training Unit, Pennfield Ridge, NB. Upon graduation from this course 11 September 1942 Sgt. H.O. Male was “screened and retained at this Unit [No.34 O.T.U.] to fill staff vacancies.”

On 19 November 1942 Male was granted a commission rank which did not appear in "The London Gazette” until 19 January 1945.

On 20 November 1942, while employed as a staff pilot at No.34 OTU Detachment in Yarmouth, he was killed when his aircraft (Ventura AE932) crashed 4 miles N.E. of Caledonia, Queens, Co., NS. He was buried with full military honours 23 November 1942 at Mountain View Cemetery in Yarmouth, NS.

In December 2008 Sheri & I headed off to Nova Scotia in an attempt to photograph the various military markers for Pennfield Ridge training casualties scattered throughout the province. On 14 December 2008 we visited Mountain View Cemetery where Male and three other airmen from No.34 OTU are laid to rest. Male's military marker, as we discovered, reflects his old rank "Sgt. Pilot" and his non-commissioned service number.

On 14 March 2011 I sent a letter to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in Ottawa, along the supporting documentation to see if this marker could be replaced. Yesterday Sheri received a call from a representative of the CWGC saying that the marker would be replaced this coming summer.

The phone call was followed up by an e-mail on 15 April 2011 saying: "Thank you for bringing to our attention the discrepancy between the information listed in the CWGC database and that inscribed on the headstone of Pilot Officer Harold O. MALE. As I mentioned to your wife, we will arrange to have the existing headstone replaced this year with a new one. The enclosed sketch depicts the layout of the new headstone. Thank you again for your interest in this matter."

Mountain View Cemetery - Yarmouth, NS (14 December 2008)

Relatives of veteran planning to visit next year

2011-01-05T15:48:00.000-08:00

Frank Robert Ablett

PENNFIELD - Relatives of a man from Yorkshire, England who served at the Pennfield Ridge Air Station during the Second World War are planning a visit to the area and hoping to find someone who might remember him.

Christian Larsen, who continues to do research on the former air base, said he has been contacted by Terry Bearpark, a photo-journalist and sub-editor from the U.K., whose father-in-law Leading Aircraftman Frank Robert Ablett worked in the accounts section at the base from September 1942 until around June 1944.

Bearpark and his wife Maureen are planning to visit the area, possibly this year, to see where Ablett was stationed. They also hope to find the house where he lodged and possibly some members of that family.

If anyone remembers Ablett, they are asked to contact Larsen at 456-3494 or by e-mail at pennfieldparish@yahoo.com.

The annual Pennfield Ridge was memorial service is planned for July 24, 2011, said Larsen, with a banquet to follow. This will tie in with the 70th anniversary of the base opening (21 July 1941) and he is hoping the couple will be able to visit the area during this period.

Larsen has also provided Bearpark with information about Gordon Henderson of Leeds, England, who visited this area a couple of years ago to find out more information about his great uncle Stan Collins who also served in the accounts section at the same time as Ablett. Collins, who recently celebrated his 97th birthday, is the oldest known living airmen from the base and is living in a seniors' home in Newcastle.

In 1939 Pennfield Ridge had a population of around 188 people and by 1943 it had risen to more then 5,000. The area was not able to cope with such a large influx of people and as a result people from St. Andrews to Saint John took airmen in.

SOURCE: The Saint Croix Courier (St. Stephen, NB) - January 4, 2010.

70th Anniversary Pennfield Ridge Air Station Anniversary Celebration

2010-11-14T10:17:00.000-08:00

"The Historica-Dominion Institute says the average age of Canada's 125,000 remaining Second World War veterans is 88 years. They are passing away at a rate of 400 to 500 a week, meaning that in another five years or so, all but the hardiest of Canada's 1.1 million Second World War vets will be gone."
SOURCE: The Canadian Press - November 11, 2010.

Pennfield Parish Military Historical Society has been acting as a steward for the "Pennfield Parish War Memorial Service" for two years now. After another successful service our society has decided to step into the role of permanent host. This will allow us the freedom and control to tailor the event to a true memorial service.

Pennfield Ridge Air Station and A-30 Canadian Infantry Training Centre (Camp Utopia) will celebrate their 70th anniversaries on Thursday, 21 July 2011 and Wednesday, 1 August 2012 respectively. To tie into these historical events, we have decided to move the "Pennfield Ridge War Memorial Service" from its usual fourth Sunday in September event to Sunday, 24 July 2011 and Sunday, 5 August 2012. At the conclusion of each respective memorial service a formal banquet will be held at The Royal Canadian Legion (Branch No.40), St. George. This dinner will provide a great opportunity to catch up with old friends and to make new ones.

Pennfield Ridge War Memorial Service (2010)

2010-10-05T16:04:00.000-07:00

PENNFIELD - A memorial service for those who served and/or worked at the two military bases in the area during the Second World War was held Sunday at the Pennfield Ridge war memorial.

More than 100 people attended the service, which has hosted by the Pennfield Parish Military Historical Society, to remember those who served at the Pennfield Ridge Air Station and A-30 Canadian Infantry Training Centre (Camp Utopia).

The service was dedicated to the veterans who have died since last year's service - Elmer Bulman (RCAF), John Crammond (RCAF), Nevin Filby (RAAF), Raymond Kelly (RAAF), John Norton (RCAF), Cyrille Poissant (RCAF), Samuel Shapton (RCAF), Arthur Stainforth (RAFVR), John Spear (RCA), Herbert Swazey (RCA), Clifton Thorne (RCA) and Clifford Warner (RCA) and all the others who lost their lives.

Master of ceremonies was Lt. Bernard Cormier, the invocation was read by Rev. Grant Alcorn and Cpl. Colin Fleiger read the additional names to add to the roll of honour.

Cpl. Colin Fleiger reading the additional names into the "Roll of Honour"

The memorial was dedicated Sept 24, 2006 and a service has been held there each September since. Among those in attendance were George Richardson and Jessie Nason who served at the Pennfield Ridge Air Station, and Fleiger and Alfred Barker who served at Camp Utopia.

Air crews from Canada, Britain, New Zealand and Australia trained at Pennfield as part of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan and 69 airmen, one British seaman (a passenger on board a Ventura aircraft which crashed) and six civilian workers died during the history of the base.

Following the service there was a reception held at the Legion hall in St. George where Blacks Harbour Mayor Terry James brought greetings from the village.

Lt. General Louis Cuppens (Ret.) said he was born in the Netherlands during the Second World War and people there will never forget what the Canadians and the Allies did for them.

"Canada stands out in their minds as the country that gave them back their freedom," he said but the cost was more than 7,000 lives and about 3,000 of them are interred just outside Nijmegen where he was born.

He said there are no weeds in this cemetery and the stones are erect and clean. School children, said Cuppens, are given custody of a Canadian grave and they maintain it for three years - washing the stone, trimming the edges and bringing flowers.

"The children over there cannot help but remember what was accomplished in the many wars that have taken place there. They have to walk by these cemeteries. They know what wars are all about."

"It is our job to make sure the next generation after this continues to understand the great sacrifices the Allies have made so that people can live free."

He spoke about the war in Afghanistan which has been going on now for 10 years with more than 150 Canadian casualties and those who have been injured numbering in the thousands.

Cuppens said the people there have so little it reminded him of post-war Europe but much rebuilding has taken place, hospitals have opened, girls are now allowed to go to school and they are taught by female teachers. The Taliban, he said, have almost been driven out of the country but they have found a safe haven in Pakistan.

"We Canadians have so much and they have so little. I urge all of you - pass the torch, pass the message of remembrance on."

SOURCE: The Saint Croix Courier (St. Stephen, NB) - September 28, 2010.

Pennfield Ridge War Memorial Service planned for Sept. 26

2010-08-07T05:15:00.000-07:00

PENNFIELD – The Pennfield Parish Military Historical Society will host a memorial service in September to remember all those who served and/or worked at two major military bases in the area during the Second World War - the Pennfield Ridge Air Station and A-30 Canadian Infantry Training Center (Camp Utopia).

The two bases were an important part of the Canadian war effort. Aircrews from Canada, Britain, New Zealand and Australia trained at Pennfield Ridge as part of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP). Sixty-nine airmen, one British seaman (passenger aboard a Ventura aircraft when it crashed) and six civilian workers died during the history of the base.

Numerous young aircrew students, like those at Pennfield Ridge, were killed in training crashes across Canada during World War II. They all died in the service of their country while preparing for war and yet they remain forgotten heroes. They remain so simply because they died before their finest hour. However as G/C A. Leach, Officer Commanding Pennfield Ridge, once remarked to a mother of one of the airmen killed: “He has died…in the course of duty and on active service, and has given his life for his country, just as much as if he had been killed in actual combat against the enemy; and, as I hope you will do, you are undoubtedly entitled to treasure and take pride in his memory accordingly.”

Assault troops trained at nearby Camp Utopia that, at the time, was one of the best-equipped and most effective Army training centers in all of Canada. This was borne out by the gallant actions of the Carleton & York Regiment in Sicily and Italy and the North Shore Battalion and N.B. Rangers in France, Belgium, Holland and Germany, all of whom were principally made up of personnel receiving their advanced training at Utopia. The base official closed 30 April 1946, but continued to operate mainly as a summer camp until 1957. Six army personnel died at the base between 1943 and 1952. A seventh name of an army personnel killed in 1954 will be read into the “Roll of Honour” at this year’s service.

It is said over 300 officers and 12,000 rank and file had passed through Camp Utopia by its official closing on April 30, 1946. W Garnett Eldridge, resident of Caithness, was one of the six known army personnel trained at Camp Utopia who later was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for bravery. Some of the Charlotte County natives who received training at Camp Utopia but were subsequently killed in over-seas action were: Cpl. Thomas A. Beckerton (St. Andrews), Pte. Philip G. Corning (Milltown), Gunner Rufus M Hooper (Back Bay), Pte. Lawson H Searles (Campobello) and Pte. Maurice Thorne (St. George).

The service is being dedicated to those Veterans we've lost since last year's service, namely Elmer Bulman, MiD (RCAF), John C. Crammond (RCAF), Nevin Fliby (RAAF), Albert Norton, MiD (RCAF), Cyrille Poissant (RCAF), Arthur Stainforth (RAFVR), John Spear (RCA), Herbert Swazey (RCA), Clifton Thorne (RCA) and Clifford Warner (RCA), and to all the others who have put their lives on the line to keep our country free.

Please join with us in honouring the seventy-seven (77) service personnel and six (6) civilians killed at these two Charlotte County bases; remember those who have since gone on to join their comrades in the sky and listen to the stories from those we still have with us.

The memorial service will take place Sunday, 26 September 2010 at the Provincial Park, Pennfield Ridge (across Route 1 from the Pennfield Ridge Post Office) at 2 pm. A reception service will follow at The Royal Canadian Legion (Branch #40), St. George after-wards from 3 until 5 p.m. In case of inclement weather, the entire service will be moved to The Royal Canadian Legion (Branch #40), St. George.

Past and current members of the military have been invited to attend the ceremony as well as representatives from the local, provincial and federal governments. Also family members of those killed at these two Charlotte County bases have been invited to attend the service as well.

Registration, due to seating limitations at the reception service and to assist with food preparation , is being asked. To reserve your seat to the reception service please call (506) 456-3494.

SORENSEN, Colin Frank (1922-2010) - Great Escape Survivor

2010-05-20T16:44:00.000-07:00

SORENSEN, Colin Frank - (DDS) - World War II Veteran, RCAF - June 15, 1922 - February 5, 2010 - It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our father Frank Sorensen in his 87th year. Frank was born in Hjorring, Denmark and immigrated to Canada with his family when he was 17. He enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force at age 18 and was eventually sent to Wales where he was trained on Spitfires to become a fighter pilot. He was wounded over Dieppe, but was able to ferry his Spitfire to home base where he survived the crash landing. Frank's Squadron was sent to North Africa to fight against Hitler's top General, Rommel, the Desert Fox. During a mission in April 1943, Frank failed to return to base. He had been shot down in Tunisia and crash landed behind enemy lines where he was taken prisoner and shipped off to a German POW camp called Stalag Luft III. He spent two years in the camp and took part in the Great Escape in March 1944. He was number 81, however number 76 was in the tunnel when the German guards discovered the escape. Of the 76 who escaped, only 3 reached freedom. Of the 73 captured, 50 were shot by the direct order of Hitler. In January 1945, the 10,000 Allied Officers of Stalag Luft III, being used as human shields against the advancing Russian Army were ordered to evacuate camp. The long march started in Sagan Germany, now part of Poland and ended with a much diminished company of prisoners eventually reaching an area east of Hamburg where they were intercepted by Allied Forces in May 1945. During the forced march, the men suffered through the coldest winter Europe had experienced in decades. They had only the clothes on their backs and had to forage for food once their supplies were exhausted. The German guards shot any who fell by the wayside, and had the POWs carry German flags to elicit friendly fire from the Allied forces. Once the prisoners were met by Allied tanks, the German guards readily surrendered. One guard gave Frank his Luger as his sign of surrender. Frank spent weeks recuperating in a hospital in Bouremouth, England and was repatriated to Canada in July 1945 at the age of 23. Frank met Betty Bodley on the tennis courts at Queen's University, Kingston and they were married in December 1946. Frank entered Dental College at the University of Toronto and graduated in 1951. He practiced dentistry for 38 years, starting his first practice in Leamington, Ontario, eventually settling in Kingston in 1954. Frank was an active member of the Kingston Barbershop Chorus for many years. He retired to Duncan, British Columbia in 1989 with his wife Betty, both returning to Kingston in 2007. Frank is survived by his wife, Betty and their three children Glenn, Stephen and Vicki. He will also be missed by his grandchildren Larissa, Erik, Nikita and Erika, and his brothers Ben and Wilfred and sister Eileen. A celebration of Frank's life will be held with friends and family at a later date.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES, Part 1: F/L Gordon Arthur KIDDER (1914-1944) from St. Catherines, Ontario was one of the 50 shot and killed. F/L Kidder was part of Air Observers Course No.33 at No.2 Air Navigation School (ANS), Pennfield Ridge, New Brunswick. It's nice to know more about one of the survivors, such as Mr. Sorensen.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES, Part 2: Jack Harrison, a Scottish Great Escape survivor, died shortly after Mr. Sorensen. Mr Harrison, who was number 98 on the escape list, was in hut 104 waiting to go down the tunnel when the escape was noticed. He quickly burned his forged documentation in the stove and changed his clothing from a Siemens engineer back to a POW. Mr Harrison spent his last years at Erskine veterans' home in Renfrewshire along with his friend and fellow former Stalag Luft III prisoner Alex Lees, who died last year aged 97. Mr. Lees was a gardener at the camp who was responsible for getting rid of the soil from the tunnels.

John Babcock, Canada's last First World War vet dies at 109 years old

2010-02-19T14:19:00.000-08:00

OTTAWA - He was an unlikely and reluctant figurehead for a generation of heroes, a self-described "tin soldier" whose teenaged zeal for combat conspired to keep him out of the very war that would one day cast him as its sole Canadian survivor.

John Babcock was destined to play a starring role in the First World War. It just came nearly a century later than he might have expected.

Babcock, the last known veteran of Canada's First World War army, died Thursday at the age of 109.

John Babcock (July 10, 2007)

He went in search of military glory at the age of 16, when he tried to sneak his way on to the front lines in France. His ruse was discovered, however, and he never made it to the battlefield.

"I wanted to go to France because I was just a tin soldier," Babcock said in an interview with The Canadian Press in July 2007 at his home in Spokane, Wash.

He was born July 23, 1900 on a farm in Ontario and emigrated to the U.S. in the 1920s.

"I volunteered (for the front lines), but they found out I was underage. If the war had lasted another year I would have fought."

Still, more than 80 years of hindsight had helped to temper that young man's regret over not having faced enemy fire in the trenches of France unlike many of his friends, who never returned.

"I might have got killed," he said matter-of-factly.

Babcock died at his home in his own bed on Thursday afternoon, said his wife Dorothy.

"He wished for this and not (to) go back to the hospital or nursing home," she said in an email to The Canadian Press. "He was a great man with a great sense of humor and loved life. We will all miss him very much. "

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in a statement Thursday announcing Babcock's death, said: "As a nation, we honour his service and mourn his passing."

"The passing of Mr. Babcock marks the end of an era. His family mourns the passing of a great man. Canada mourns the passing of the generation that asserted our independence on the world stage and established our international reputation as an unwavering champion of freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law."

Gov. Gen Michaelle Jean said Babcock always gave the best of himself.

"You know how dear the members of the Canadian Forces and our veterans are to my heart. And while I am deeply moved and saddened, I am also very honoured to be the Commander-in-Chief and Governor General to pay final tribute to Mr. Babcock."

"On behalf of all Canadians, we extend our deepest sympathies to his family and many friends who mourn his passing. May his accomplishments and his example inspire many future generations to serve their nation."

Ten per cent of the roughly 600,000 Canadians who enlisted to fight in the First World War died on the battlefields of Europe 170,000 more were wounded.

The war would ultimately claim 15 million civilian and military lives on both sides of the conflict.

"(Babcock) was both an individual and a symbol," said Rudyard Griffiths, of the Historica-Dominion Institute, an organization dedicated to promoting Canadian history. "We should honour his contribution to Canada."

In the days to come, there will no doubt be tributes and ceremonies to mark Babcock's passing. It's hard to say how he would react to the fanfare. Because he never saw action in the war, he was always a little uncomfortable being known as the last surviving First World War veteran.

"I really didn't accomplish very much," Babcock said. "I went there and I did what the people above told me to do."

He said he had heard rumours about the government holding a state funeral for him, but wasn't sure that's an honour he deserves.

"I think it should be for the fellows who spent time in the front lines and were actually in the fighting."

Babcock wanted badly to be right there with them. "I wasn't smart enough to be scared," he explained.

"While he didn't serve, he was emblematic of that generation and of a certain kind of fiestiness," said Griffiths. "I know he felt quite proud of the Canadian period of his life."

Duncan Graham, a Korean War veteran whose father served in the First World War, said Babcock was the last living member of a generation that he and other veterans looked up to.

"I've got great respect for them. The war they fought was completely different from the war I fought, where we had the luxury of tanks and armoured vehicles," he said. "What they went through during the war in the trenches... we didn't have to see what they had to see."

As an underage volunteer, Babcock was stuck digging ditches and doing endless military drills rather than fighting enemy soldiers. But he said he had vivid memories of the war, and the day an army sergeant inspired him to enlist.

"He came and told us about the charge of the light brigade," he said, referring to the recklessly brave British cavalry attack of the Crimean War, immortalized in a famous poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson. "I was really impressed by that."

Frustrated that he had been relegated to loading freight onto army trucks in Halifax, Babcock lied about his age when he answered the call for volunteers to join a "peacetime regiment."

"When they asked me how old I was, I said 18. Well, when we got to England you had to be 19 to go to France," recalled Babcock.

"I was waiting to be 19 and my service record came through, and they found out I was 16, so they put me in the young soldiers' battalion."

Babcock joined 1,300 other underaged soldiers and was drilled eight hours a day, always with an eye on reaching the front. By October 1918, the then 18-year-old Babcock was awaiting training that would send him to the battlefields of France.

That same month, some Canadian soldiers were kicked out of a dance hall in Wales by British Army veterans. Babcock and other members of his battalion decided "to go up there and clean them."

The ensuing brawl, in which one Canadian soldier was bayoneted in the thigh by a British cadet, saw Babcock handed 14 days of house arrest. Before those two weeks were up, the Armistice had been signed and he was on his way home.

Babcock has said that he worried that Canadians today, children especially, aren't learning enough about the First World War.

"They don't know a lot about it. People are always thinking about what they're doing right now," he said, adding that Canadians should take the time to learn from veterans of the World Wars while they still can.

Griffiths shares that concern. Without "living reminders" like Babcock around anymore, he said, he worries that the history of the First World War will fade into obscurity, much like the War of 1812 has.

"The duty not to forget now falls on a generation who has never known war, who's been separated from the history of the Great War by a period of going on 90 years. I think there is a danger (that people will forget)," he said.

Houchang Hassan-Yari, a professor of international relations at the Royal Military College, said that Canadians need to know about the Great War to understand how the country was born.

"Babcock's generation was important because they witnessed a transition for Canada from a member of the British Dominion to an independent state," he said, explaining that Canada's new-found military presence on the international stage helped the country find its own identity.

Babcock himself, however, emigrated to the United States in the 1920s and served a brief stint in the U.S. military.

"When he came back to Canada he really didn't have a home to come back to; his father was killed when he was six years old," said his wife.

"He had heard that in the United States the (military) was going to train people in a trade, so he and a couple of other buddies decided to come."

Babcock met his first wife, Elsie, while working as an oil burner service man in San Francisco. The couple moved to Spokane in 1932, raised a son and a daughter, and spent every weekend golfing.

Babcock married his second wife, Dorothy, after Elsie died in the late 1970s.

In September 2006, at the age of 106, he managed to get out for a game of golf. While he lacked the balance to putt, he was still able to drive.

When asked what lessons this generation should take from the First World War, Babcock had a simple reply.

"I think it would be nice if all the different people in the world could get along together so we weren't having wars. I don't suppose that'll ever happen, though."

SOURCE: The Canadian Press (Ottawa, ON) - February 19, 2010.

Celebrating Three Years of Military Research

2010-01-08T12:10:00.000-08:00

P/O D.S.Cormack, P/O S.J. James and Sgt. T.M. Hunter disappeared off Point Escuminac into the Gulf of St. Lawrence 26 January 1943. Sixty-four years after the disappearance of their aircraft I began posting material online about the Pennfield Ridge Air Station. These airmen, along with the other 67 service personnel and 6 civilians killed at Pennfield Ridge Air Station, continue to inspire me to push forward with my research. So this coming Tuesday (January 26th) will mark the third anniversary of my first posting of material, not only on air station but Camp Utopia as well.

Besides continuing with our research in the past year alone we've also taken over hosting the Pennfield Ridge War Memorial Service and have recently launched the "Pennfield Ridge War Memorial Project" as well.

Here are some of the new testimonies:

"Thanks for the wonderful work you have done with your site."
Glenn Carson, s/o Cpl. R.M. Pearce, RAF, No.34 OTU, Pennfield Ridge

"I have enjoyed your site. It is interesting to find links to my father's past in the internet."
Alex Norton, s/o Sgt. A.J. Norton, Class No.39 at No.2 ANS, Pennfield Ridge

"May I on behalf of myself & extended family, thank you & congratulate you and your Society on the wonderful, laborious efforts you have achieved in keeping alive the memories of not only 'brother Jacky' but the many others that gave up their young lives to try and stop these power hungry maniacs who just seem to keep appearing at regular intervals, wanting to take over countries and the world."
Patrick (Paddy) Hogan, brother of Sgt. John E. Hogan (1920-1943), causality at No.34 OTU Detachment, Yarmouth, NS

"Once again I would like to express my sincere thanks and appreciation for what you have done in recognizing David's efforts in establishing the "Pennfield Memorial". I'm quite sure it would not have happened had it not been for you."
Joyce C. Stuart, widow of J. David Stuart. Mr. Stuart was the founding member of "Charlotte County War Memorial Committee (2005) and N.C.O. in charge of The Orderly Room (office) at No.2 ANS and No.2 OTU at Pennfield Ridge Air Station (1941-1942).

"I saw your excellent website on Pennfield Ridge."
Wayne Sturgeon, s/o Cpl. Clifford W. Sturgeon, No.2 ANS, Pennfield Ridge

Pennfield Ridge War Memorial Project

2009-11-29T14:14:00.000-08:00

"If by chance
I am the one
I pray my God
I will have reached
My finest hour
Before my limbs
Are severed
From my body warm."
P/O Bayden Bala Williams (1917-1943)

Since 27 January 2007 G Christian Larsen has conducted extensive research on the former Pennfield Ridge Air Station. From this research a "Roll of Honour" has been established which identifies seventy (70) service personnel and six (6) civilians who were killed during the history of the former Air Station.

With the "Roll of Honour" now complete the society has decided to continue forward the work of the "Charlotte County War Memorial Committee (2005)". Their remaining goal was erecting a memorial stone listing the names of those killed at the former Air Station along with a three-tier flag pole at the memorial site. The flags to be flown are the Canadian and New Brunswick flags along with the RCAF Roundel.

P/O Williams (author of the above noted poem) was the sixteenth airmen killed at Pennfield Ridge and was among the numerous young aircrew students killed in training crashes across Canada during World War II. They all died in the service of their country while preparing for war and yet they remain forgotten heroes. They remain so simply because they died before their finest hour. We need to remember these forgotten heroes.

So many unfilled dreams of a brighter tomorrow ended before they really had a chance to begin. Sometimes the youthful exuberance of the innocent and an uncertainty of a tomorrow often exacted a high toll on those who answered the call of duty.

We need to remember ALL those who served and/or worked at the Pennfield Ridge Air Station.

The society feels this is an important goal and have been working with Smet Monuments to design a memorial stone.

The purposed monument will be dark black granite (polished on two sides with rough edges) sitting on a grey base. The overall size of the monument is scaled at 48"x8"x72" sitting on a 10" high base.

Proposed Memorial Stone

A committee of two, G. Christian Larsen and Sheri L. Burhoe, has been formed to raise the $12,000 needed to cover the cost of the memorial stone and flag pole. Smet Monuments will include all laser lettering and images as shown above, the concrete foundation work and the installation

Income tax receipts will be issued for donations of $10.00 and over.

To make a donation to this project click here.

Crash Hills Mountain, NB 23 January 1943

2009-10-31T11:01:00.001-07:00

Today I set out to locate the crash site of Ventura AE872 that crashed at Hills Mountain, NB on 23 January 1943 claiming its entire crew. P/O B.B. Williams, RCAF (Pilot) and P/O G.A. Norriss, RNZAF (Observer) were eventually laid to rest on 27 January 1943 at St. George Rural Cemetery in St. George, NB. The third member of the crew, P/O P.W. McCarthy, RCAF (WOP/AG), was returned to Ottawa, ON for burial. My wife Sheri and I have visited the grave sites of all three of these airmen.

Taken from the accident report of the crash is the following: "P/O Williams and a crew of two took off at 0910 hours in Ventura aircraft AE872, authorized to carry out formation flying for one hour and 30 minutes with Sgt. Tovell and crew in Ventura No.658. P/O Williams and Sgt. Tovell were to share the leadership time in the formation, normally splitting the flying time into four portions.

After flying for about one hour in formation and at a time when the aircraft were heading back towards the aerodrome at a height of 2,000 ft. P/O Williams was leading; he gave the visual break-away signal and then broke away in a steep dive turn to port and Sgt. Tovell broke off in a steep climbing turn to starboard. Sgt. Tovell lost sight of Ventura 872 but later saw a fire on the ground. Eye witnesses residing some 9 miles from St. Stephen, N.B. and 37 miles from Pennfield Ridge stated that they saw two Ventura aircraft flying in formation when one broke away to the left and made a large circle, going into a steep bank and crashed into Hills Mountain which is about 300 feet higher then the surrounding country. The aircraft, Ventura 872, burst into flames on impact, exploded and was totally destroyed. All the occupants were killed.

An examination of the wreckage and of the scene of the accident disclosed that the aircraft had flown into the top of the trees in a 45° starboard wing - down, 30° nose-down altitude with considerable speed. The impact was so severe that the aircraft made a hole some four feet deep in the ground, exploded and broke into many pieces."

After traveling for a little while we located the crash site which, even after sixty-six (66) years, was still quite evident from the carter created by the force of the crash. Small pieces of the wreckage could still be found throughout the debris field.

Small fragment of Ventura AE872

After taking some GPS readings, along with some photographs to document the crash site, we stopped back at the St. George Rural Cemetery to once again visit the graves of two of the crew of Ventura AE872, namely P/O B.B. Williams and P/O G.A. Norriss. We left poppies at the foot of each their respective military markers and paused for a moment of reflection.

I'll end this posting with the first verse of a poem P/O Williams' brother "...composed when I visited my brother's grave in 1944 when I had just returned from 4 years overseas with the RAF."

"Comrades lie around me all asleep are they
In dreams of home and loved ones
I know that they will stay
For here beneath this pine strewn ground
Our rest is deep our sleep in sound."

Miramichi veteran honours soldiers who served at two bases

2009-10-10T03:36:00.000-07:00

When our society took over hosting duties of the Fourth Annual Pennfield Ridge War Memorial Service on 26 February 2009, I wanted to put the focus back on what really mattered...the Veterans themselves. Therefore I began a search to find Veterans to represent the four Commonwealth Countries who lost airmen at Pennfield Ridge and for a Veteran who served at A-30 Canadian Infantry Training Centre (Camp Utopia).

For Camp Utopia I choose Colin Fleiger from Miramichi. I had the opportunity to interview Mr. Fleiger at his residence on September 28, 2008 about his time stationed at Camp Utopia so he was a natural choice. Therefore an invitation was sent on March 26th, 2009 asking if he would lay a wreath in memory of those who served at A-30 Canadian Infantry Training Centre (Camp Utopia) which he accepted. On September 3rd his daughter Colleen contacted me saying that her father had attended a meeting at The Royal Canadian Legion (Branch #3) in Miramichi the previous evening. During this meeting her father mentioned that he would be attending the Pennfield Ridge War Memorial Service at the end of the month. The Legion then asked him if he would inquire if it would be possible for him to lay an additional wreath, which they would supply, on their behalf. We accepted their invitation which how Mr. Fleiger came to lay two (2) wreaths at the service.

G Christian Larsen & Colin Fleiger, September 2008

Mr. Fleiger, his wife and family were all in attendance at the memorial service on Sunday, September 27th. Mr. Fleiger was quite honoured to have been invited to attend the service. Once our local paper ran the story about the service on Tuesday, September 29th, I contacted the Miramichi Leader asking if they'd be interested in doing a follow up story with Mr. Fleiger concerning his service to his country and his involvement with Camp Utopia. Not long after contacting the newspaper, Lucas McInnis contacted me saying he interviewed Mr. Fleiger and asked if it would be possible to obtain some photographs for the story. I sent him several photographs from the service, in particular two of Mr. Fleiger himself, and in the end these were the ones that were used for the story . These were the ones which were most fitting and one in particular, "Mr. Fleiger in a moment of reflection", captured the mood of the service. It was about honouring and remembering those who served.

Here is the story that was run in the Miramichi Leader on Friday, October 9th.

MIRAMICHI - When he was 16, Colin Fleiger tried to sign up to go to war.

His first try, he didn't get too far.

"He said to me, ‘you little son-of-a-bitch, I catch you back in here again I'll boot the arse right off ya.' I got scared. So I took off out the door," Fleiger reminisced about his first time trying to sign up.

It wasn't his last try.

He was told, "You got lots of time, the war's not going to be over tomorrow."

On Sept. 27, Fleiger laid down two wreaths at the Fourth Annual Memorial Service.

Colin Fleiger laying a wreath in memory of those who served at Camp Utopia

The service is held in honour of those who served at the former military bases at Charlotte County, the Pennfield Ridge Air Station and A-30 Canadian Infantry Training Centre, known as Camp Utopia.

The weather didn't cooperate that day and the memorial was moved from Pennfield Ridge war memorial to St. George Legion hall, but 150 people still managed to take in the event.

Fleiger laid the wreath on behalf of the six military personnel killed at Camp Utopia.

He laid another wreath for the Royal Canadian Legion Branch No. 3 as well, which is in Chatham.

"What went on there, it was more of a memory affair there," the now 83-year-old Chatham resident said.

Fleiger seems to remember those days well. Sitting on his couch he recalls memories as if they just happened, demonstrating the length of their uniforms and the base he spent time in when he was just a teen.

"I would say there would be about, at one given time, probably 2,000 or more men there," he said, speaking of the A-30 training centre. "At that time it was one of the biggest, if not the biggest, one of the biggest in Canada."

Fleiger was embraced with the idea of laying the wreaths by those holding the event: "I don't know, must have been because I was up from this area. Maybe he was trying to get different people in different areas."

Thinking back to his former camp, Fleiger remembers how different it is today.

Colin Fleiger in a moment of reflection

"There's nothing there anymore. Trees are taking over, and grass, whatever. The building are all torn down. The only thing that's left there now is the magazines where they get the ammunition, things like that."

Camp Utopia was set up like a town, he explained, with streets and buildings set up to train the soldiers for what they were to endure in the battlefield.

"Put it this way, we're all kids. All young kids. Anywhere from probably 16 to probably 25. Now, there were senior people there as well. Officers wouldn't be much more than 25 themselves, possibly thirties," he said. "You could almost picture the fellas that were there ... They're not there anymore and I'm one of the lucky ones to get out of there."

Despite the years that should have been ahead of them, Fleiger said fighting for good was all that mattered to the young soldiers.

"We may survive it, maybe we wouldn't. And there was a lot of us that didn't," he said. "I don't know. War is not a playtoy, that's for sure. It may be a rich man's playtoy but it's not a poorman's. And it's the poor man that goes."

SOURCE: Miramichi Leader (Miramichi, NB) - October 9, 2009.

100th Anniversary of Powered Flight Dinner

2009-10-05T02:58:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday (October 4th) Sheri & I were invited by the 250 RCAF (Saint John) Wing, A.F.A.C. to attend the 100th Anniversary of Powered Flight Dinner. The keynote speaker was Saint John historian Harold Wright.

Here is a story that appeared in the newspaper about the upcoming event:

Aviation anniversary celebration set for Sunday

SUSSEX - A century of aviation achievement will be celebrated during a sold-out event in Sussex on Sunday with the 100th anniversary of powered flight dinner.

The event being held at the legion is being organized by the 250 RCAF (Saint John) Wing of the Air Force Association of Canada.

Wayne Vail, a retired major with the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Canadian Armed Forces, said just over 100 people from all walks of life with a connection to aviation will join in the celebration. He said those who attend will share stories and hear new ones of aviation milestones over the past 100 years from the first flight of the Silver Dart in 1909 to present day Canadian involvement in the NASA Space Program.

There will be a meet and greet before the dinner, at which time aviation artifacts and displays can be viewed.

The roast beef dinner will begin with the piping-in of the head table and introductions with the meal served by Air Cadets and light entertainment provided by members of 250 RCAF (Saint John) Wing.

Following the dinner author Harold Wright of Saint John will deliver his presentation The New Math - Add Another 70 years to this Centennial!

The remainder of the evening will be spent socializing.

"I am sure the contributions of individuals such as Alexander Graham Bell and Robert Wallace Turnbull of Rothesay, Canada's first aeronautical scientist/engineer and many others will be subjects of discussion," Vail said. "Great Canadian aircraft such as the Beaver and Otter of bush flying fame, the Avro jetliner, the CF-100 all weather fighter, the Avro Arrow, the CL-215 water bomber, and many others, and aviation companies such as deHavilland, Avro Canada, Victory Aircraft, Canadair and others will be the focus of discussions."

SOURCE: New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal (Saint John, NB) - October 2, 2009.

Pennfield Parish Military Historical Society President G. Christian Larsen and Saint John historian Harold E. Wright

Pennfield Ridge War Memorial Service (2009)

2009-09-29T10:28:00.000-07:00

On September 27th our society, Pennfield Parish Military Historical Society, hosted the fourth annual Pennfield Ridge War Memorial Service. The motto used for this service was: “This coming September 27th we will honour the seventy-six (76) service personnel killed at the two former Charlotte County military bases; remember those who have since gone on to join their comrades in the sky and listen to the stories from those we still have with us."

After seven months of planning we discovered, two hours before the service was to kick off, that the only thing we had no control over was Mother Nature herself. So due to the uncertainty of the weather it was decided to move the entire service into The Royal Canadian Legion (Branch #40), St. George. This monumental task would have not been accomplished without the assistance of Legion Past President Rolland T. Chater. Mr. Chater sat in his truck at the Pennfield Ridge Memorial Site and re-directed as many people as he could into the St. George Legion. Before too long people began to pour in and soon the 2:00pm. start time had to be delayed. This was due chiefly to the size of the crowd rolling in from “the Ridge”, which was well over one hundred and fifty people by the start of the service.

Looking back on things now it was a good thing that we moved things into the Legion, even with the headaches associated with moving things last minute, because the Memorial Site at Pennfield Ridge would not have easily accommodated such a large crowd. Although as Maj. B.J. Harrison, CD, MLA (Master of Ceremonies) remarked to me at the conclusion of the service “It would have been nice to have held the service outdoors, it adds more ambiance.”

Canadian Aviation Historical Society, Turnbull Chapter
President Jim Sulis laying a wreath at Memorial Service

Wreaths were laid on behalf on the Commonwealth Countries who sustained causalities at the Air Station as follows: RAF - F/L James Stewart, DFC; RCAF - F/O John Crammond; RAAF - Pvt. Terry Hurst and RNZAF - Lila McMillan (a civilian born in NZ). ABST Robert Anderson, RCNVR laid a wreath on behalf of the Royal Navy that lost a seaman (passenger aboard a Ventura aircraft when it crashed). Camp Utopia's six causalities were represented by Cpl. Colin Fleiger. who was stationed there in 1945. Cpl. Jessie Nason, a former Pennfield Ridge Veteran, laid a wreath on behalf of the RCAF (Woman's Division). In total twenty-four (24) wreaths and one bouquet of flowers were laid. The flowers were sent by Paddy Hogan, brother of Pennfield Ridge causality Sgt. John Edward ("Jacky") Hogan, RNZAF.

All in all everyone seemed quite pleased with the service.

A newspaper article, entitled "Veterans who served in Pennfield remembered at memorial service", from "The Saint Croix Courier" is here.

Additional photographs from the service.

69th Anniversary of the Battle of Britain - King's Square, Saint John, NB

2009-09-13T14:09:00.000-07:00

During the summer of 1940, a few hundred fighter pilots stood in the way of Hitler's massive air attack on England. One hundred Canadians were among them and seven of those killed were from New Brunswick.

Dubbed the Battle of Britain, it was the first decisive clash of Second World War and the first battle in history to be fought exclusively in the air. The name derives from a famous speech delivered by Prime Minister Winston Churchill in the House of Commons; "The Battle of France is over. I expect the Battle of Britain is about to begin..."

The 69th Anniversary of the Battle of Britain cenotaph service took place at King's Square in Saint John, NB on 13 September 2009 at 1030 hours. Sheri and I were invited to attend the service by Charles Gabriel, President of 250 RCAF (Saint John) Wing, A.F.A.C.

Maj. Bev J. Harrison, CD, MLA and Rev. Canon E. Lloyd Lake, CD

Maj. Harrison acted as Master of Ceremonies and gave an overview of the Battle of Britain. Rev. Lake gave the Invocation and Benediction. His devotion and service to his country was self evident in the singing of the Royal Anthem. He was a true delight to hear speak at the cenotaph service and later at Trinity Church as well.

Marching around King's Square

Capt. Thomas White, CD leads the parade through King's Square

3rd Field Artillery Regiment Band (The Loyal Company)

The parade contingents were: 3rd Field Artillery Regiment Band (The Loyal Company); 250 RCAF (Saint John) Wing, A.F.A.C.; 403 Helicopter Squadron, CFB Gagetown; H.C.M. Brunswicker; Royal United Services Institute of New Brunswick; Royal Canadian Legion; Korean Veterans and 161 C.K. Beveridge Squadron, Royal Canadian Air Cadets.

Capt. Doug Boyd, CD lays a wreath on behalf of Canadian Air Force

At the conclusion of the service the parade continued to Trinity Church for a service at the New Brunswick Air Force Memorial. After this service a reception service in the Lounge of the Rotary Admiral Beatty Complex.

Among those in attendance at the service was Pennfield Ridge Veteran Jessie G. Nason, RCAF (WD).

It was a very nice service...even the weather was not too bad!

Camp Utopia (Today's Remnants)

2009-09-06T11:24:00.000-07:00

On 6 September Sheri and I explored the remnants of A-30 Canadian Infantry Training Centre, CA (Camp Utopia) once again. I'm continually amazed at how much things have changed over the thirty plus years I've been going out there. The pine trees that were planted in and around the former camp many years ago still stand tall. However time has stripped them of their former glory and other types of trees are starting to spring up here and there. Still the pines remain ever present, almost like a sentry standing post waiting for those who will never return. Even the wind whistling through the trees sounds somehow different to me. It's almost like it carries the forgotten voices from long ago when this was once a thriving training centre.

Hallway Through The Pine Trees

As we walk the former roads of the camp, 4-wheelers and other vehicles pass by us every now and then. I reflect quietly to myself if they know the importance of this hallow piece of ground. Between 1942 and 1946 it was one of the best-equipped and most effective Army training centers in all of Canada. This was borne out by the gallant actions of the Carleton & York Regiment in Sicily and Italy and the North Shore Regiment and N.B. Rangers in France, Belgium, Holland and Germany, all of whom were principally made up of personnel receiving their advanced training at Utopia. At the memorial service coming up on September 27th, a WWII Veteran from the 2nd Battalion of the North Shore Regiment will join us to remember all those who served.

Remnants of a telephone pole

As we were heading back to the car Sheri, with her ever present artistic eye, spotted a red maple leaf on the ground. To me, personally, it was a sign that all the work putting the memorial service together over the past seven months has been worth it. The maple leaf is emblematic of our country and always reminds me of those Canadians who gave so much for the cause of peace and freedom we all enjoy today.

Lest we forget!

Meeting with 250 RCAF (Saint John) Wing

2009-08-24T14:53:00.001-07:00

On May 1st I meet with four (4) members of the 250 RCAF (Saint John) Wing to discuss upcoming plans for the memorial service in September. The 250 Wing have provided the colour party (flag bearers) for the service since its inception back in September of 2006. Therefore I see no reason to change this aspect. I again meet with three (3) members of the 250 Wing on August 23rd to go over the final details, etc. for the service and answer any additional questions they may have.

Terry Robertson, G Christian Larsen and Rob MacAndrew
standing in front of the Mollison monument, Pennfield Ridge, August 23rd

Today (August 24th) marks the sixth month anniversary of when I began preparations for this year's service. It's been a long and winding road but it's been a very rewarding journey none the less. To date I've been able to locate family for sixteen (16) of the sixty-nine (69) airmen killed at "the Ridge" (along with family for all six (6) civilians who died there as well) and family for one (1) of the six (6) military personal killed at Camp Utopia. Also it appears, on paper any ways, that this year's service is going to be the biggest one yet.

Both Pennfield Ridge Air Station and Camp Utopia will have former Veterans in attendance along with many family members. Also representatives from the local, provincial and federal governments have been invited to attend and several have confirmed their attendance. For the most part now everything is over with but the counting down of the days until the Memorial Service arrives on September 27th.

Also I want to thank my wife Sheri for her love and support over the past six (6) months. Putting together an event as large as this would not have been possible without her help.

Pennfield Ridge War Memorial Service Planned For September 27th

2009-08-09T12:20:00.000-07:00

CFB Gagetown Military Museum

2009-07-21T15:36:00.000-07:00

On July 11th Sheri and I had the pleasure of visiting the CFB Gagetown Military Museum in Ormocto, NB.

A-30 Canadian Infantry Training Centre (Camp Utopia) was the predecessor for CFB Gagetown. However it's surprising at how little information can be found at the museum on Camp Utopia. This material basically amounts to a handful of photographs that are almost hidden from view.

Here is a brief overview of Camp Utopia: Army construction crews arrived in July of 1942 to begin construction of Camp Utopia, the largest military facility in New Brunswick at the time. Ground assault troops began training there in 1943, preparing for the invasions of Italy and northwest Europe. There was a supply depot, commissary (including bake shop), two cook houses of 500 men capacity, drill hall, canteen, auxiliary service hut, barber shop, modern dental clinic, fire station, and a new modern hospital. In the outside training area: 2 rifle ranges, a model village (Ortona), a field firing range, a battle inoculation range, 2 Sten gun ranges (one for classification and one for woods fighting), P.I.A.T. ranges (both for inert and H.E. bombs), a modern grenade range equipped with Hobbe glass, a six pounder range, skeet range, 2 and 3 inch mortar ranges, a cross-country obstacle course, bayonet assault course, mine fields and mines and bobby trap hut with moascar stalks. Over 300 officers and 12,000 rank and file had passed through the unit by its official closing on April 30, 1946.

Our research continues to make sure this important base is not forgotten to the ravages of time. We recently acquired the service personnel files for those military personnel killed at Camp Utopia, and Sheri and I have, over the past year, visited their graves scattered throughout Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Ontario.

S/Sgt. Claude L. Nicholson's grave in Halifax, NS

Lest we forget.

Remembering Those Who Served

2009-06-22T11:37:00.000-07:00

"If by chance
I am the one
I pray my God
I will have reached
My finest hour
Before my limbs
Are severed
From my body warm."
P/O Bayden Bala Williams (1917-1943)

"He (Bayden) never did reach his finest hour but seemed to realize that he was but one of many and that there will always be other young men rising from the earth to bring new life to mankind." (G.P. Williams, 1963)

P/O Williams was the sixteenth airmen killed at Pennfield Ridge and was among the numerous young aircrew students killed in training crashes across Canada during World War II. They all died in the service of their country while preparing for war and yet they remain forgotten heroes. They remain so simply because they died before their finest hour.

Since 8 July 2008 I have been traveling across Canada photographing the various military markers of the seventy-six (76) service personnel killed at the Pennfield Ridge Air Station and Camp Utopia. This is being done to simply honour these forgotten heroes and to continue the message of remembrance.

P/O Williams' military marker

This coming September 27th we will honour these seventy-six (76) service personnel; remember those who have since gone on to join their comrades in the sky and listen to the stories from those we still have with us.

Lest we forget.

Another Milestone Achieved

2009-06-11T10:58:00.000-07:00

Pennfield Parish Military Historical Society is celebrating another milestone in its relative short existence of only 18 months. As of 5 May 2009 our society has now been registered as “Charitable Organization” under paragraph 149(1)(f) of the Income Tax Act.

Our first official event under this new designation will be the Pennfield Ridge War Memorial Service this coming 27 September 2009. The memorial service will be held at the Provincial Park in Pennfield Ridge from 2:00 to 3:00 pm. On-site service will be provided by the Royal Canadian Legion (Branch #40), St. George, with the 250 RCAF (Saint John) Wing providing the colour party. A reception service will held afterward at the Royal Canadian Legion (Branch #40), St. George from 3:00 to 5:00 pm.

The service is coming together quite well and overall feedback has been positive. We have located close to a dozen family members of the seventy airmen killed at Pennfield Ridge. One family member has confirmed their attendance – a first for the service. Others unable to attend have sent material on their loved ones that can be included in the memorial service. A handful of Veterans, including four with connections to Pennfield Ridge and/or Camp Utopia, have been invited to take part – another first for the service.

This coming 1 July 2009 our society will be taking part in the Hampton Canada Day Art Festival in Hampton, NB. We will be selling tickets on an original piece of artwork by Sheri L (Burhoe) Larsen. Money raised will be used towards the upcoming memorial service in September.

Anyone with comments and/or suggestions please feel to contact us. Anyone willing to assist us in our endeavors in ensuring this worthwhile event continues also please feel free to contact us.

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nbpennfi/penn8b1PPMHS_MemorialService2009.htm

Pennfield Ridge Air Station (Today's Remnants)

2009-04-22T03:46:00.000-07:00

A lot of changes have occurred at the former Air Station since it closed towards the end of 1945. So much unwritten history is located on this hallowed piece of ground and yet the cold hand of death has silenced many of those unrecorded voices. Priceless memories continually slip through the hour glass of time to be forever lost in the continuum of life. It's now a race against father time and he, as always, has the advantage on his side. Also so many unfilled dreams of a brighter tomorrow ended before they really had a chance to begin. The youthful exuberance of the innocent and an uncertainty of a tomorrow often exacted a high toll on those who answered the call of duty. So with that said the photographs speak for themselves and help to tell their own personal story.

For more photographs please click here.

Pennfield Ridge War Memorial Service

2009-03-06T07:49:00.000-08:00

The Charlotte Fundy Kin Club has decided not to host this September's memorial service at Pennfield Ridge. Therefore Pennfield Parish Military Historical Society has offered to host this year’s event.

The memorial stone, dedicated to those who served at Pennfield Ridge Air Station and Camp Utopia, was brought to fruition by the hard work and dedication of The Charlotte County War Memorial Committee. The committee members were J. David Stuart, Mark Pedersen, 250 RCAF (Saint John) Wing and Charlotte Fundy Kin Club. Smet Monuments of St. Stephen donated the stone itself with Charlotte Fundy Kin Club covering the cost of the sale taxes.

Phil Connell, DFM and J. David Stuart

The dedication service took place on 24 September 2006 with approximately fifty (50) people in attendance. The Charlotte Fundy Kin Club hosted this service with participation from the 250 RCAF (Saint John) Wing Air Force Association of Canada. The Charlotte Fundy Kin Club also hosted the subsequent memorial services held in 2007 and 2008.

Dedication Service (2006)

On behalf of Pennfield Parish Military Historical Society I would personally like to extend a heart-felt thank you to the Charlotte Fundy Kin Club, especially Morris Harris and Wayne MacQuarrie, for hosting the events over the past three years. It has gone a long way in making sure our veterans are remembered.

The red ink of our freedom on the ledger’s bottom line is written indelibly in blood. Every November 11th we, as Canadians, gather across this land to honor the debt owed to our veterans. However, the debt is so large, that in reality it will never be repaid in its entirety. Still, remembrance of those who served is something we can achieve. That is why I feel strongly that this memorial service should continue to honor those who served at “the Ridge” and Camp Utopia.

Anyone with comments and/or suggestions please feel to contact us. Anyone willing to assist us in our endeavors in ensuring this worthwhile event continues also please feel free to contact us.

Regards,
G. Christian Larsen
President, Pennfield Parish Military Historical Society
309 Mealey Road
Pennfield, NB
E5H 1T5
(506) 456-3494

Celebrating Two Years of Military Research

2009-01-20T07:58:00.000-08:00

This coming Monday (January 26th) will mark the second anniversary of my first posting of material about the Pennfield Air Station and Camp Utopia on the Pennfield Parish website. At the time I started my research into the history of these two bases, there was no one else doing any actual research, and those that were, were simply taking credit for other people’s work. As one family member said: “...my father...had the idea that there should be something in place to recognize the Air base as he thought it played an important part in the war. He somehow or other got in contact with a couple of other gentleman in the area. For three years, they worked toward the creation of memorial that was unveiled in recognition of Pennfield Ridge. The whole affair in the end was quite upsetting for my dad, recognition for the project seemed to be focused elsewhere. It is my opinion, the chain of events is not accurately told.” My goal then and now remains the same: To pay tribute to those ordinary and yet an extraordinary human beings - people who offered some of their life's most vital years in the service of their country, and who sacrificed their ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs. I’ve come a long ways in those two years and have the support of many veterans from the two bases. Here are some of the many testimonies:

"From a passionate conversation about my father evolved the passion we both share on this journey. My father, as so many others, lives because of your tireless efforts."
Brenda McNevan Ferguson, d/o Cpl. A. Malcolm McNevan (Ret.), bomb instructor at No.34 OTU & RCAF Station Pennfield Ridge.

“I have been looking for information and pictures on Camp Utopia, and was very happy to find what you have done here.”
Charrie Worden, d/o Skiffington A. Gibson - ambulance and fire-truck driver at Camp Utopia

“It's good to see that someone is making a strong effort to remember our veterans.”
Tom Tucker, s/o LAC Sylvester G. Tucker (Ret.) - an instrument mechanic at No.34 OTU

“Dad really enjoyed telling his stories and my parents were very happy to have you visit with them.”
Colleen Stewart, d/o Cpl. Colin Flieger (Ret.) - Camp Utopia veteran

“Your concern about veterans dying off is correct. Those of us who are left are running out of energy and time. So take full advantage of those, such as I, who are left before it is too late.”
W/O2 J. David Stuart (Ret.), N.C.O. in charge of the orderly room (office) at No.2 ANS & No.2 OTU

“I'm glad you are doing this because these people deserve all the honors they can get.”
Allene Goforth, d/o Pte. John A. MacPherson (Ret.) - Camp Utopia

“Dave Poissant has sent me a copy of the newspaper article you wrote about the history of the Pennfield Airbase. I thought it was extremely well done, and a credit to the tremendous effort you have out on the subject. Many congratulations!”
F/Lt. S.W. Shapton (Ret.), Course No.10 (Pilots) at No.34 OTU

“Thanks for all your efforts on this; I hope all the locals appreciate your efforts.”
Angus Cross, s/o F/L Fergus Cross (Ret.) - head of the Navigation Department at No.34 OTU

"Chris Larsen's name should go down in History for his recording of 'History', toward the end of all war!"
F/S Cy Poissant (Ret.), Course No.23 (Pilots) at No.34 OTU

Bernice Connors' Murder

2009-01-09T12:02:00.000-08:00

On 26 January 2007 I began researching the history of the Pennfield Ridge Air Station. In those two short years Iʼve made tremendous strides in recording its rich and colorful history. In that time Iʼve been blessed enough to have interview fourteen (14) veterans from the Air Station and even luckier to have personally known over a dozen others who were stationed there and/or worked there as civilians. The latter ones whose stories have been silenced by the cold hand of death remind me (us) to never forget. The living veterans continue to inspire me to push ever forward to make sure the stories are not lost forever to the ravages of time.

Shortly after No.34 Operational Training Unit established itself at Pennfield Ridge, a murder of a young Blackʼs Harbour girl occurred on 5 June 1942. An R.A.F. sergeant from "the Ridge" was arrested for the crime, tried by a jury of his peers and subsequently convicted for the crime. The conviction for the crime brought with it a death sentence, and on 16 December 1942 the R.A.F. sergeant went on to meet his maker. This was to be the last hanging in Charlotte County and the first one in 65 years.

For the past two years now I have chosen not to include any reference to the murder on the Pennfield Parish website. This was simply done because, it seems to most people, that the Air Station and the murder go within the same sentence. While the murder was tragic and senseless, I wanted to separate the two things because they are after all just that...two separate things.

I knew several of Bernice Connorsʼ siblings and her great niece (the grand daughter of her sister Patricia) is a good friend of mine. In fact many of Patʼs children are friends of mine...some of those friendships going back 30+ yrs. Mildred Justason, probably the last person to see Bernice alive that night, I also knew along with her late husband (another Airmen from Pennfield Ridge). Foster Eldridge and Gib Eldridge who "were standing on the same road beyond the range of the streetlight enjoying a ʽbrightenrʼ ", I had many memorable conversations with over the years. Also in the course of my research other Airmen have also spoken about their memories of the murder. One of these Airmen was also an armourer-fitter at the Station at the same time. So now that a complete picture of the Air Station as its own entity has been painted, I am including material on the murder.

G. Christian Larsen
President "Pennfield Parish Military Historical Society

Pennfield Parish Military Historical Society Formed

2009-01-08T11:10:00.000-08:00

In memory of Blanchard Justason, Malcolm McNevan, Floyd Hawkins and the many other Veterans I’ve known over the past 18 years.

I was introduced to Camp Utopia by my late father-in-law, Blanchard Justason, who received all of his advanced training there, and to Pennfield Ridge Air Station by the late Malcolm McNevan who served as a Bombing Instructor. Mac McNevan, as he was commonly known, was born in the tiny central Ontario farming community of Cameron, Ontario and had enlisted in the Air Force to learn how to fly an airplane and eventually go overseas. The Air Force later said “No – in your qualification examinations, you displayed a natural, intuitive ability with mathematics. We are going to train you to be a Bombing Instructor.” It was while stationed in Pennfield that Mac would fall in love with my father-in-law’s cousin, eventually marry and for a period of time, make his home here after the war ended. My father-in-law was in the process of going for his overseas training when VE Day was declared.

Both Blanchard and Mac were very proud of their service to their country. My father-in-law would often take his only child to Camp Utopia during the late 1950’s and early 1960’s before all the buildings were removed. He often explained to her what the various buildings and structures were used for. It was during one of their many visits there that they recovered a few relics she now displays in a shadow box along with her father’s other vestiges from his military service. Mac would eventually move to Lachine, Quebec to pursue work, but would often return to Pennfield to visit family. During these visits he never missed an opportunity, while driving across the ridge, to pause and gaze at the over-grown fields and decaying tarmac strips…just to stare and stare.

Since September of 1989 I have been researching many of the older family lines from in and around Pennfield and during this time I would often run across mentions of the two former military bases. Although my father-in-law and Mac never articulated the words, both would love to have seen more done to preserve the history of these military bases and to make sure the sacrifices of those who served would not be forgotten. It always seemed like a very daunting task to say the least, especially in regards to the Air Station, since it fell under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. This meant pilots and aircrew from across Canada, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand were trained here. I also knew from visits to the St. George Rural Cemetery, during my many years of family research, that there were training causalities from the 10 airmen buried there. I had also heard other stories as well over the years, and knew that some of the airmen, like Mac, had married into the community. Still where was one to begin such research?

Mac would eventually pass away in 1994 and my father-in-law in 1999 and with their passing many of the memories they held left us as well. Mac’s daughter Brenda Ferguson picked up where her father left off and has, over the years, discussed many things with me in regards to her father’s military service. She too believed that more should be done to preserve the history of the Air Station.

In November of 2006 I started hearing and seeing news reports about how we were approaching a "watershed moment for Canada" when the last known Canadian Veteran from World War I would eventually pass away. I started thinking more and more about researching the history of Camp Utopia and Pennfield Ridge Air Station during this time. On 26 January 2007 I formally started researching the history of both Camp Utopia and the Air Station, and quickly realized that there was so much history unrecorded, undocumented and widely scattered. I would continue my conversations with Brenda and soon Greg McDowell was added into the fold as well. Greg’s paternal grandparent’s grew up in the shadow of the Air Station, and were twice expropriated from their land – once when the Air Station was first built on the North side of the road and then for the second time from the South side of the road further expansion of the Air Station occurred.

Conversations with some of the older residents of Pennfield Ridge showed us just how much history this one particular section held and the project soon took on a life of its own.

This past August Ottawa’s standing committee on veterans affairs noted that Canada’s 250,000 remaining Second World War and Korean War veterans are dying at a rate of 2,000 a month. By now the average age of a Second World War veteran is 84 and a Korean veteran is his mid-70s. Something more needed to be done, as time was not on our side.

It was during this time I decided to form the "not-for-profit" society, "Pennfield Parish Military Historical Society Ltd." to help further preserve the rich military history of this area. I asked Brenda, Greg and a third person, Susan Hill, if they would be interested in joining and all agreed. Susan, whose father served as a Peacekeeper for 25 years, recently embarked on her own business venture, "Susan Hill Photography", which is located in her home on Pennfield Ridge. She has been assisting with scanning of the many photographs we have been receiving, photo restoration and overall design and creation for the society’s new website. She also admits, like the rest of us involved in this project, to be a "firm believer that history should be preserved" and has displayed both dedication and devotion to preserving her own family history.

The purpose of this society is to discover, procure, collect, preserve, display and interpret material of historical value associated with the area and to work with other organizations that have similar goals. The Beaver Harbour Community Venture Ltd., located at 18 Quaker Lane in Beaver Harbour, has agreed to provide space in their archives so a display of artifacts, material, etc. can be made available to the public and further raise awareness of the sacrifices of our servicemen and women. We are well on our way to achieving our goal and anyone with any information on local servicemen and women from Pennfield Parish, information on the former Air Station and Camp Utopia, photographs, artifacts or memories to share please feel free to contact G Christian Larsen at 309 Mealey Road/ Pennfield, NB/ E5H 1T5; (506) 456-3494; e-mail pennfieldparish@yahoo.com.

Introduction to the Pennfield Parish Military Historical Society

2009-01-06T15:26:00.000-08:00

Pennfield Parish Military Historical Society (Incorporated: 28 November 2007) is gathering and compiling a detailed history on the Pennfield Ridge Air Station; Camp Utopia and Pennfield Parish veterans. Our archival holdings, which includes artifacts (Air Station, Camp Utopia, WWI and WWII), microfilms, photographs, etc., is continuing to grow. Our "Roll of Honor", based on our own research, lists seventy-six (76) names from Pennfield Ridge Air Station (70 service personal and 6 civilians) and six (6) names from A-30 Canadian Infantry Training Centre (Camp Utopia). The majority of these were killed in various training accidents.

Pennfield Parish Military Historical Society

Anyone willing to share stories, photographs, etc. are asked to please contact me at: pennfieldmilitary@yahoo.com

~Specializing in research since September of 1989~

Pennfield Parish Military Historical Society

Ventura Lost

Growing Collection of Reference Material

Lost Airmen of Buchenwald

Rayne Shultz 1922-2011: Canadian war ace shot down three German bombers in one night in 1943

A horse, hope and humanity

Services remember history, fallen

Remembering Sgt. Hubert John Burnham

A dangerous time

Would-be rescuers mark first station fatalities

Reflections, Pennfield Ridge Air Station

Walking The Ridge with Donald C.F. Moors

Pennfield Parish Military Historical Society Membership

Airfield Kindles Memories

Brother says farewell to long-lost airman

Living history: a wartime training air crash draws visitor

Memorial service upcoming

"In Training Pennfield Ridge" Painting

P/O Harold Otho Male (1919-1942)

Relatives of veteran planning to visit next year

70th Anniversary Pennfield Ridge Air Station Anniversary Celebration

Pennfield Ridge War Memorial Service (2010)

Pennfield Ridge War Memorial Service planned for Sept. 26

SORENSEN, Colin Frank (1922-2010) - Great Escape Survivor

John Babcock, Canada's last First World War vet dies at 109 years old

Celebrating Three Years of Military Research

Pennfield Ridge War Memorial Project

Crash Hills Mountain, NB 23 January 1943

Miramichi veteran honours soldiers who served at two bases

100th Anniversary of Powered Flight Dinner

Pennfield Ridge War Memorial Service (2009)

69th Anniversary of the Battle of Britain - King's Square, Saint John, NB

Camp Utopia (Today's Remnants)

Meeting with 250 RCAF (Saint John) Wing

Pennfield Ridge War Memorial Service Planned For September 27th

CFB Gagetown Military Museum

Remembering Those Who Served

Another Milestone Achieved

Pennfield Ridge Air Station (Today's Remnants)

Pennfield Ridge War Memorial Service

﻿Celebrating Two Years of Military Research

Bernice Connors' Murder

Pennfield Parish Military Historical Society Formed

Introduction to the Pennfield Parish Military Historical Society

Celebrating Two Years of Military Research