Heritage Fair Project by Jay Torrey and Kyle Thorne

 

Photographs from a Heritage Fair Project that was held 02 April 2012 at Fundy High School in St. George. This project by Jay Torrey and Kyle Thorne.

Kyle Thorne and Jay Torrey - 08 September 2012
Pennfield Ridge War Memorial Service
The Royal Canadian Legion (Branch #40), St. George

Queen unveils WW II Bomber Command memorial

Queen Elizabeth unveils the Bomber Command Memorial in Green Park, London, on Thursday as Prince Philip and Prince Charles (right) watch.

Queen Elizabeth has unveiled a new memorial to honour the 55,573 men of the RAF's Bomber Command who died in the Second World War.

The memorial features a 2.7-metre high bronze statue depicting seven aircrew.

The roof of the £6-million ($9.8-million Cdn) memorial, which is in London's Green Park, is made from aluminum recovered from a Handley Page Halifax III bomber that was shot down over Belgium in May 1944, the BBC reported.

Held up by controversy

The large number of civilian deaths in the campaign remains controversial, and is one reason there has been no memorial until now.

The German city of Dresden — where 25,000 civilians died in bombing raids — initially objected to the memorial. But the objections were eased by the placing an inscription commemorating all the lives lost in the bombings of 1939-45.

The service Thursday was followed by a flypast of the Royal Air Force's last flying Lancaster Bomber.

The vintage plane dropped poppies over the park as a message of remembrance for those who died.

A group of 42 Canadian Bomber Command veterans are in London this week for the unveiling of the memorial, joined by veterans from Australia, New Zealand and other Commonwealth countries.

Veterans Affairs Minister Steven Blaney led the Canadian delegation in London.

"The memorial will serve as a permanent reminder of the many sacrifices made by these brave men and women," Blaney said in a statement.

"After proudly serving our country, our veterans deserve our recognition and respect. Our government will continue to ensure that their sacrifices and contributions will be remembered for future generations."

Earlier this week, Canada unveiled a new military honour to pay tribute to Canadian veterans who served in Bomber Command. The honour is a bar to be worn with the Canadian Volunteer Service Medal.

The government says the new bar is meant to honour all Canadians who fought in Bomber Command during the Second World War, but in particular the more than 10,000 Canadians who died in service.

SOURCE: CBC News website - 28 June 2012.

TRANSCRIBER NOTES: So many of "the boys" from Pennfield Ridge Air Station, especially those from No.34 Operational Training Unit, served in Bomber Command.

Ottawa creates new honour for Bomber Command vets

A Lancaster Bomber banks over Dover in south eastern England in 2009.

The federal government is creating a new military honour to pay tribute to Canadian veterans who served in Bomber Command during the Second World War. Defence Minister Peter MacKay and Veterans Affairs Minister Stephen Blaney made the announcement today in Ottawa.

A special bar is being created which veterans who served in Bomber Command will wear on the ribbon of the Canadian Volunteer Service Medal. The medal was granted to personnel who volunteered for service in the Canada’s land, naval and air forces and who served 18 months or more between Sept. 3, 1939 and March 1, 1947.

The government says the new bar is meant to honour all Canadians who fought in Bomber Command during the Second World War, but in particular the more than 10,000 Canadians who died in service. More than 55,000 Allied air crew members were killed carrying out raids over Germany.

Blaney said the bar is being designed and will be ready by the end of the year. Surviving veterans can apply for it, as can the families of any of the 50,000 Canadians who served in the campaign.

The new honour comes 67 years after the end of the war. MacKay today acknowledged this tribute is "long overdue."

"It is unfortunate it has taken this long," MacKay said. "[Creating the honour] is complex and there is certainly, as is always the case, politics involved in that."

The story of Bomber Command remains a contentious issue among historians. Allied air raids killed more than 600,000 Germans. The morality of mass bombing raids has been debated since the war’s end.

'A bit late'

John Bower-Binns flew 37 missions with Bomber Command and was on hand for today's announcement.

"I think it's a bit late," he said.

"Bomber Command took a very active role in the war. And for a long time, we weren't very well recognized. They thought we were a bunch of criminals for bombing cities."

Questions over Bomber Command led to a controversy at the Canadian War Museum in 2007.

Veterans groups criticized the wording of a display on the history of Bomber Command. They claimed it made Allied air crews appear to be war criminals.

A Senate committee investigated. It found the wording of the display to be factually accurate but urged the museum to change it nonetheless. The museum’s directors relented, putting together a longer, more detailed display that veterans considered more balanced.

A group of 42 Canadian Bomber Command veterans will travel to London, England, this week for the unveiling of a new memorial to Allied air crews. The Queen will officially open the Bomber Command Memorial in Green Park, near Buckingham Palace.

SOURCE: CBC News website - 25 June 2012.

TRANSCRIBER NOTES: So many of "the boys" from Pennfield Ridge Air Station, especially those from No.34 Operational Training Unit, served in Bomber Command.

Film society to show documentary again

There was a full house at Sunday’s showing of “Lost Airmen of Buchenwald” at the W. C. O’Neill Arena Theatre and some people had to be turned away so there will be a second showing Wednesday April 4 at 7:30 p.m.

The documentary is about the 168 Allied airmen who were sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp. One of them was Hawker Typhoon fighter pilot Jim Stewart of Saint Andrews who was in attendance at Sunday night’s showing and received a standing ovation from the audience afterwards when he came forward to answer questions.

An RAF fighter pilot, he was shot down near Rouen, France, May 13, 1944 and managed to evade capture for several months with the help of members of the French resistance movement.

War, said Stewart, is so often a case of ordinary people doing extraordinary things and spoke of his own personal hero from those days in the concentration camp, New Zealander Phil Lamason, the senior officer in the group who is also featured in the documentary. He said he has been back a couple of times and attended the 65th and last liberation of Buchenwald celebration in 2010 but there are not many of them left.

SOURCE: The Saint Croix Courier (St. Stephen, NB) - April 3, 2012.

Behind Barbed Wire

DOCUMENTARY: Film exploring history of Nazi prisoner camp features Saint Andrews veteran.


A documentary about the Allied airmen who were sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp "Lost Airmen of Buchenwald" will be shown at the W.C. O'Neill Arena threatre Apr. 1 at 7:30 p.m.

In the summer of 1944, 168 Allied airmen from the U.S., England, Canada, Australia and New Zealand were sent by the Gestapo from a prison in Paris to the infamous Koncentration Lager Buchenwald in Germany.

Among them was Hawker Typhoon fighter pilot Jim Stewart of Saint Andrews who will attend the free public screening which is its Canadian premiere. Although he has been given his own copy of the documentary and has watched it, he said he is looking forward to seeing it on the big screen.

An R.A.F. fighter pilot, he was shot down near Rousen, France on May 13, 1944, and managed to evade capture for several months with the help of members of the French resistance movement, who he described as the bravest of the brave who asked so much for him.

"I remember well the shock and utter dismay at being apprehended by the Gestapo, through treachery, to be incarcerated in Fresnes on July 8.

The days that followed until that infamous transport of 15 August were a melange of hope and despair: hope of liberation by the advancing Allies ... despair at such inhuman treatment - little or no food, awareness of shootings and tortures around us, three of us eventually crowded into that miserably filthy cell with thousands of fleas for company.

"Imagine the depth of my misery on the morning of our bus trip (well guarded by machine pistols and grenades) across Paris to the Pantin freight station when, crossing across the lower hall were Ginette Rocher and brother Georges Prevot, with their respective husband and girl friend, who had hidden me for four weeks at their apartment on 20 Boulevard Sebastapol; picked up the day before through the treachery of some infamous traitor."

Stewart, who is now 90 but looks a lot younger, and it is impossible to adequately describe the nightmare of that five day trip to Buchenwald and Ravensbruck (the notorious women's concentration camp).

There were 2,100 men and women on that train with 90 crammed in a box-car in the stifling hot August weather. There was room only to sit or stand and the only ventilation was a small window wired off at the end of each truck with one foul-smelling can in the middle of the floor for toilet purposes.

"The memory of men and women lined along the tracks side by side to relieve themselves still haunts me to this day."

They were stuck gasping for air in a smoke-filled tunnel after the far end was blocked by sabotage and Stewart recalled the resultant brutality of the guards as they marched the prisoners around to another waiting train.

It is also impossible for Stewart to erase the memory of a young French man who was shot down in cold blood and his body left in the ditch - his only crime was placing his hand on the barbed wire on the window.

He also recalled a complete carload of his comrades stripped naked because of escape attempts and finally the welcome party of SS and digs on the siding of their arrival at Buchenwald August 20, 1944, and said he wants Buchenwald-Dora to "stay condemned for all time."

"I am, indeed, one of "The Lucky Ones." I saw for myself, quoting Reinhold Niebuhr, 'the depth of human moral degradation, the cruelty and sadism, the moral sloth and inhumanity that it is possible for mankind to fall to - a lower level than anyone would have supposed in recent centuries.'"

Usually airmen who were shot down were taken to the main interrogation centre in Frankfurt then to a prisoner-of-war camp. Stewart said they were initially in a French prison and he feels they just happened to be there at the wrong time.

"The Germans decided to fill up a transport. We didn't know where we were going and it was a shock when we got there."

He has kept in touch with some of the airmen who were in the camp with him and just recently spoke to another prisoner, Phil Lamason, who is featured in the documentary and lives in New Zealand.

"He was my hero. He was a squadron leader and he was pretty well the senior officer of the group and, basically, his leadership was incredible. It was a big thrill for me to talk to him. He had been over to one or two of our conventions but there are not too many of us left."

Buchenwald, said Stewart, was purely slave labour. They was one block which was all Jewish people and he said they were given the most menial tasks of all. The airmen, he said, acted as a military group and refused to work.

"When we refused to work, they took Phil out with a whole bunch of fellows with rifles. He said it takes a lot of you to shoot just one fellow - but they didn't shoot him."

The camp was supervised by the SS who had a training camp alongside and there was also a small arms factory next door and a stone quarry where the prisoners worked. He recalled how the Americans bombed the area Sept. 4, 1944 completely demolishing the factory and hitting the SS barracks, killed a number of troops.

"I will never know how we escaped."

Most of the airmen left Buchenwald Oct. 19, 1944, he said, apart from one or two who were sick and probably left in November. The rumour was that they had been due to be executed four or five days later.

Stewart said they were moved to a regular prisoner of war camp and a bunch of them went over the wire May 8, 1945 and managed to make it to the American lines. He was back home in the U.K. by May 13, 1945 - exactly one year from when he was shot down in France.

Stewart and his wife, Jan, emigrated to Canada in 1952 and lived in Blacks Harbour for 35 years when he worked for Connors Bros., Limited, then moved to Saint Andrews in 1979.

Stewart went back to Buchenwald in 2010 at the invitation of the Buchenwald-Dora Committee on the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camp. He was also there for the 50th anniversary in 1995.

Five of the surviving airmen are interviewed in the documentary which was produced and directed by Southern California-based producer/ director Mike Dorsey, whose grandfather, E.C. "Easy" Freeman was one of them. Stewart, Freeman and five other Buchenwald airmen appear in the film including Lamason.

The film's production spanned the globe, from the U.S. to Germany, France, and New Zealand, featuring rare Second World War footage and compelling interviews with the survivors.

A controversial moment in history that many western countries refused to admit ever happened, "Lost Airmen of Buchenwald" tells the harrowing story through interviews with seven surviving members of the group.

The film follows them from their days hiding with the French Resistance to the darkest days of the Holocaust, as they struggled inside Germany's most notorious camps as the country collapsed under the weight of the advancing Russian and Allied armies.

Stewart said the documentary will be shown at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington for its 20th anniversary and it will also be screened during the GI Film Festival in Washington, DC. The festival, which runs from May 9 to 15, is completely dedicated to military veteran's films.

A favourite withe students at Vincent Massey Elementary School, "Grandad Jim" still goes into the school to read to the students on a regular basis and he also reads at Passamaquoddy Lodge every Thursday.

He said he is hoping some of the young people come along to the documentary screening because this story should not be allowed to die.

SOURCE: The Saint Croix Courier (St. Stephen, NB) - March 20, 2012.

Lost Airmen of Buchenwald

FREE SCREENING OF DOCUMENTARY FEATURING LOCAL WWII PILOT IMPRISONED AT NAZI CONCENTRATION CAMP

Airman and former Buchenwald prisoner Jim Stewart to attend.

St. Andrews, New Brunswick (February 25, 2012) – In the summer of 1944, 168 Allied Airmen were labelled police prisoners by the German Gestapo and sent to the Buchenwald Concentration Camp to be executed.

One surviving member of the group, St. Andrews-based Hawker Typhoon fighter pilot Jim Stewart, will attend free public screening of a documentary…. its Canadian premiere…. about the ordeal, at the W.C. O'Neill Arena Complex Theater, St. Andrews NB, on Sunday, April 1 at 7:30pm.

The film was produced and directed by Southern California-based producer/director Mike Dorsey, whose grandfather E.C. "Easy" Freeman was in the group of airmen at Buchenwald. Stewart, Freeman, and five other Buchenwald airmen appear in the film, including their commanding officer, New Zealander Phil Lamason.

The film's production spanned the globe, from the US to Germany, France, and New Zealand, featuring rare WWII footage and compelling interviews with the survivors.

SOURCE: Press Release from St. Andrews Film Society.

Family remembers history of plane crashes

Kim Smith reads the June 12, 1975 Courier article that

recounts the death of his father Prescott and his uncle

Seldon. Throughout the years, air tragedy has been

entwined into the Smith family history.

Sixty-nine years ago, Kim Smith’s father and brother witnessed a tragic plane crash. Years later, they had to live through one of their own.

The first happened on Jan 23, 1943. Kim’s father Prescott Smith was on the Murray Farm at Hills Point, which he managed, when he noticed three military training aircraft, a common sight during wartime. They frequently flew out of Pennfield.

“They were flying about tree-top level, close enough that you could see the men in the cockpit,” said Smith, relaying the story told many times in his family. “The other two flew off to one side, away from the centre plane and the centre plane turned away towards the mountain.”

The plane crashed into Hills Mountain, and Smith’s father, along with his uncle, Wayne Smith, sprung into action. They hitched up the horse-drawn wagon and headed to the crash site.

“They gathered up what they could of these men and brought them to the farm,” said Smith. “Then the Mounted Police arrived and guarded the place because they thought there could have been sabotage to the plane.”

No sabotage was ever found, but three servicemen were. Killed in the crash were Pilot Officer Bayden Bala Williams of Calgary, who was flying, Pilot Officer Philip William McCarthy of Ottawa, and Pilot Officer Geoffrey Alexander Norriss of New Zealand. The two Canadians were taken home, while Norriss was buried in St. George.

That ill-fated flight claimed three young men, and a flight many years later, on June 7, 1975, would claim two of Kim Smith’s family members.

It all started earlier, with dinner plans. Smith’s uncle, Seldon Smith, said to Prescott Smith, Kim Smiths father that he was flying his Piper Tripacer PA-22, a small fixed-wing propeller-driven plane, to Grand Manan to have dinner with their mother and that Prescott should join him. So the men set off to the island.

After dinner, Seldon called his son and asked what the weather was like on the mainland. His son said it was foggy and they shouldn’t fly home. But, Kim Smith said they went up to North Head Airport anyways and were greeted by sunny skies.

“My uncle said ‘we’ll go up and see what it looks like and if it’s good we’ll go home and otherwise we’ll come back.’”

They went up, but no one ever saw them come down.

Kim Smith’s mother was unaware that her husband Prescott had even taken to the air. She didn’t know until she called Grand Manan the next day to see when they were leaving, and she found out they had left the day before. The family feared the worst and started planning a funeral.

The body of Prescott Smith was discovered in the water between Grand Manan and the mainland the following Monday. Seldon Smith was never found, and the plane wreckage was not discovered until more than 10 years later.

The history of air tragedy doesn’t dissuade the Smith family from taking to the air, though. Kim Smith’s brother Paul flies helicopters, and Seldon’s son Michael Smith flies airplanes.

SOURCE: The Saint Croix Courier (St. Stephen, NB) - January 31, 2012.