Services remember history, fallen

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

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

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

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.

Airfield Kindles Memories

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.

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July 23rd, 2011: "Walking The Ridge"

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

Brother says farewell to long-lost airman

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.

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

Living history: a wartime training air crash draws visitor

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.