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.

Memorial service upcoming

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

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)

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

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.