Pacific Coastal Airlines in Vancouver owns a large fleet of G-21s. As far as I know, the planes are currently grounded due to a lack of key components, but the airline is working to get them back in the air. This workhorse of a plane has been a lifeline for remote villages and communities, logging camps and sports fishing lodges along the West Coast for a quarter of a century; it has also played an important role in aviation history and hopefully will never be forgotten.
—by Gordon Baron, Dawson’s Landing, British Columbia
Making a Connection
Tracing the history of a meaningful photo helped bring it to life
I keep an old black-and-white photo on my desk for a reason. I have a number of pictures of my father, but I chose this one because whenever I look at it, I think about so many things. My dad, Lt. John Horsburgh, is in the centre of the photo; on the left is Sgt. Clifford Hebner and on the right is CSM Cormack. Studying the photo, I wonder why the jeep is partially hidden in the haystack and why Sgt. Hebner has a dent in his helmet. I also notice how CSM Cormack appears to be sleeping with a pipe in his mouth while holding a rifle with a bayonet at the end of it. Most of all, though, I wonder what these three individuals are thinking about. To me, the picture conveys so much more than simply portraying my dad and two Royal Canadian engineering corps comrades sitting on a trunk behind a haystack.
Taken in early August 1944, the image shows them in relaxed poses that I sense must belie what they had just been through: D-Day, with its horrendous death toll, destruction and utter chaos; the breakout from Juno Beach with the fierce fighting, unimaginable bombing and shelling; and examples of bravery and evil that showcased the best and worst of war. On the back of the picture my dad wrote: “The day after the start of the big push for Falaise.”
Earlier, in July, Clifford Hebner had won the Military Medal for outstanding leadership under fire south of Caen. Caen was also the location where my father won the Military Cross on July 18, 1944, as a result of his actions in conducting a thorough reconnaissance of the River Orne while under fire from the Germans. The reconnaissance facilitated the building of a bridge, which enabled more than 100 tanks to cross the Orne in the next 24 hours en route to Falaise.
On the back of the picture, written in brackets beside Sgt. Hebner’s name, is “since killed.” While my dad lived to see the end of the war, Sgt. Hebner died less than two months after this picture was taken. Tragically, he was killed in Belgium on October 5, 1944, while trying to defuse a German land mine. He is buried in a cemetery near Antwerp, Belgium. He was only 32 years old and was married, but as far as I can determine, he did not have any children. I couldn’t help but want to know more about Sgt. Hebner. If I was able to locate a member or members of his family, I figured they might appreciate having a copy of this photo. I wondered if anyone from Sgt. Hebner’s family has had the opportunity to honour his sacrifice by visiting his grave in Belgium.
As I thought about the picture some more, I also wondered how Sgt. Hebner’s death affected my dad. I suspect that military censorship was such that my dad was limited in what he could say about his comrade’s death. I am sure the words “since killed” did not even begin to convey the sense of loss and sadness my father must have felt when he gazed at this picture and wrote his comments on the back.
Sadly, after my father had successfully dodged death in northwest Europe, he was killed seven years later in a float plane crash while serving his province as the senior hydraulics engineer in 1952. Sgt. Hebner, my father and CSM Cormack were examples of men who lived Albert Schweitzer’s dictum that “you who will be truly happy are those who will have sought for and found a way to serve.” This picture makes me think about the concept of service, about how important it is to have a belief in this simple yet profound concept and that through service, we can make a difference in the lives of others. There is no doubt this photo speaks to me in a very personal and profound way.
I decided to undertake a search for information about Sgt. Hebner and CSM Cormack. After months of getting nowhere, someone finally responded positively to one of my inquiries. The response came from a most unlikely source. My wife and I attended a Winnipeg Fringe Festival play titled Jake’s Gift. It’s a heartwarming, award-winning play about a World War II veteran who travels back to Juno Beach to visit the gravesite of his older brother. It turns out that the name of the brother buried at Juno Beach is Chester Hebner. On the off chance there was some connection between this name and the Clifford Hebner I had been searching for, I sent an email to the play’s website, including the picture of my father and his two comrades.
I immediately got a response from Julia Mackey, who wrote and plays all the characters in Jake’s Gift. Julia emailed me back, stating that she had written the play as a result of seeing Chester Hebner’s gravesite at Juno Beach. Julia had the information about the Hebner family I sought. We arranged to meet Julia and her husband Dirk for lunch, where Julia showed me another picture of Clifford and his friend CSM Cormack taken during World War II. Most important to me, however, she showed me a photo of Clifford’s younger sister and her husband visiting Clifford’s gravesite in Belgium. At its core, Jake’s Gift is a play about the importance of remembering. I had been looking at a picture taken almost 70 years ago, some four years before I was born, wanting to know and understand this picture on a deeper level. What a gift it was to meet Julia and Dirk, who were able to bring this very meaningful and unique picture to life.
Remembering has to do with the past; it involves thinking about people and events that were important to us. I also believe, however, that the importance of remembering has to do with the future in terms of how it shapes our lives, clarifies our values and fundamentally helps us determine who we are and who we want to be as we move forward in life. I am very thankful for a photo, a play and two individuals, Julia and Dirk, who have helped me to remember.
—by Mac Horsburgh, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Canada’s Dambusters
One fateful spring night in 1943, a crew of brave airmen embarked on a secret mission
When I saw how innocent people were being shot to death by the German military—for no good reason—I said to myself, “We have to win this war at all costs!” That was also how my friend Fred Sutherland saw his role in World War II as a front gunner in a Lancaster bomber, one of several tasked with destroying Germany’s Eder Dam on the night of May 16 through 17, 1943.
In a private ceremony held on November 30, 2013, Fred’s contribution to the war effort was recognized when members of the No. 703 Wing Royal Canadian Air Force Association presented him with a lifetime membership and citation acknowledging his bravery.
A longtime resident of Rocky Mountain House, Alberta, Fred was born February 26, 1923, in that province’s town of Peace River. He enlisted in the air force when he was 18 years of age. Little did the new recruit realize what lay ahead. He would soon be drawn into one of the most intense battles in World War II—the renowned Dambuster raids.
Fred joined a close-knit crew of seven dedicated airmen and flew 25 bombing missions before his team was assigned to the secret operation. “We were called in one day and invited to join a newly formed squadron—No. 617—under Wing Commander Gibson,” Fred said, adding, “Our crew, under pilot Les Knight, was chosen because we had an excellent bombing record. If we joined the squadron as a crew, we could stay together. And since we liked each other and performed well as a team, we wanted to stay together.”
The airmen had no idea what their secret mission was until the actual day of the raid. “During the briefing, you could feel the tension in the air,” Fred remembers. The idea of skipping a bouncing bomb over water to break a dam seemed absurd. As the crew’s engineer, Ray Grayston, put it, “It horrified us to think they’d put this great lump of metal, like a cricket pitch roller, underneath a Lancaster. It interfered with the handling of the aircraft.”
Yet the airmen had no choice. Gibson’s orders were clear: “If you don’t do it tonight, you’r
e going back tomorrow night.” With pilot Les Knight in control, the crew, including Fred, took off from Scampton airbase at 10 p.m. They were part of the first wave of nine aircraft. Although others tried and failed, it was Knight’s crew who successfully bounced their bomb against the Eder Dam to score a hit. Fred saw a gaping hole in the dam and marvelled at “the unbelievable force of water coming out and how high the water was.” The collapse of the Eder Dam temporarily crippled Germany’s economy, so the men under Knight’s command were elated. On returning to base, however, they discovered that a large number of the airmen on that particular mission had been killed: It turned out to be a very sad day after all.
A similar raid on Germany’s Dortmund-Ems Canal—a strategically important waterway—in September 1943 resulted in disaster. As usual, Les Knight was at the controls with Fred manning the forward gun. Blinded by fog, the low flying Lancaster hit a treetop. Although Knight was able to pull the damaged craft up, he ordered Fred and six others to jump. Knight, who bravely stayed with his plane, was killed in the crash. The rest of the crew landed in German-occupied Holland unhurt but surrounded by danger on all sides. On landing, Fred quickly hid his parachute and began a treacherous journey through enemy-occupied territory.
Years later, when serving with British Columbia Forestry, Fred survived a second plane crash. Experiencing two plane crashes in a single lifetime is remarkable, yet Fred remains hale and hearty. He is also one of the last three Dambusters in the world today. No doubt about it, Fred Sutherland is a genuine Canadian World War II hero.
—by Annette Gray, Markerville, Alberta
The Forgotten Ones
Recognizing the terrible ordeal suffered by Canadian POWs during the building of the “death railway”
By definition, the word pilgrimage can mean “a journey to a special or unusual place.” My husband Roger and I decided to embark on a long-awaited pilgrimage to Kanchanaburi, Thailand, to visit the infamous Thailand-Burma Railway, better known as the “death railway.”
We were inspired to do this by a remarkable 96-year-old man named Jack Jennings, my second cousin, who still lives in Devon, England. Jack was captured during World War II in 1942, when Allied forces in Singapore surrendered to the Japanese. After many months as a POW in Changi, Jack was one of thousands of Allied servicemen transported, in horrific conditions, to Thailand to labour on the construction of the railroad. After reading Jack’s memoirs, we were so in awe of his story that we decided to do a pilgrimage to retrace some of his footsteps. The timing could not have been better, as 2015 marked the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II and so it was an especially well-timed and poignant journey.
We began our pilgrimage in Singapore, as this was where Jack began his years as a POW. We visited several historic sites, the first being the Adam Park estate where Jack’s 1st Battalion, the Cambridgeshire Regiment, took its last stand against the Japanese before the British troops—including Jack’s battalion—surrendered. We also visited the Changi area, where Jack was held captive, and Kranji War Memorial, where many of Jack’s comrades were laid to rest.
From Singapore, we flew to Bangkok and headed northwest to Kanchanaburi to retrace his steps on the railway, with the guidance of the staff at the Thailand-Burma Railway Centre.
First, we undertook an upcountry pilgrimage, following parts of the original railway bed, north to the Thailand-Burma (now Myanmar) border at the Three Pagodas Pass. We paid our respects at the Chungkai and Kanchanaburi war cemeteries. We also visited the site called Hellfire Pass and walked across the Wang Pho viaduct bridge, both built by POWs under inhumane conditions with incredible suffering and loss of life. We rode the railway on the still-existing track from Kanchanaburi to Nam Tok and then took a long-tailed boat ride on the famous river. All the while, we were thinking of the men, who, 70 years ago, “gave their tomorrow for our today.”
Our pilgrimage led us to the conclusion that the POWs who built the infamous railway are often the forgotten ones. It seems the survivors of this brutal 3 1/2 years of captivity are forgotten men, because the fall of Singapore is viewed by many as the greatest military disaster of the British Empire. Subsequently, it seems the men who survived this terrible ordeal receive very little recognition for their horrific experience, even to this day. Something else to consider is the fact that few people even know that Canadians were POWs on the infamous railway, as they were serving with British regiments and are counted in with the British statistics.
Does the name Norman Maurice Dorval mean anything to most Canadians? He was a Canadian from Dawson, Yukon, serving in England with the East Surrey Regiment, who was executed at Tha Makhan POW camp after a failed escape. Do we know about James McCracken of the Royal Artillery from Keswick, Ontario, who died of beriberi while a POW at Kanchanaburi? And what about Roy M. Borthwick of the RCAF from Vancouver, who was one of several airmen who helped destroy three spans of the main bridge in June 1945? These were just three of our forgotten ones. (Thanks to the initiative of Bob Hemphill of British Columbia, a plaque recognizing Borthwick’s contributions was unveiled in 2016 at the Thailand-Burma Railway Centre giving him the recognition he so deserves.)
We would wholeheartedly encourage all Canadians interested in World War II history to explore the railway story with the help of the amazing staff at the Thailand-Burma Railway Centre in Kanchanaburi. They organize personal tours or pilgrimages with leading experts on the railway. Advance research from their extensive records can be conducted for any family connected to POWs so they can follow in their footsteps and visit precise locations.
Every November, we hear the words, “lest we forget,” and yet there are Canadians buried in Thailand who are almost forgotten. We must remember that there is a corner in some foreign land that will be forever Canada.
—by Christine Cameron Emmett, Brighton, Ontario
Canadian Kangaroos
Paying tribute to some unsung heroes
Nicknamed the “Kangaroos,” they were officially called the 1st Canadian Armoured Carrier Regiment. This Second World War regiment was composed of two fighting squadrons of personnel carriers. One squadron, each with 53 carriers, could lift an entire infantry battalion into battle. My father, Arnold Frederick Hare, was a proud Kangaroo.
The Kangaroos were so named because their primary function was to safely transport army personnel to their front-line objectives throughout Holland and into Germany in the steel belly of a tank chassis—the same way a mother kangaroo protects and carries her young within her pouch.
They made military history, being the first heavy-armoured personnel carriers ever commissioned, the development of which was a guarded secret at the time. Many of the soldiers selected were farm boys and mechanics who had the necessary skills to traverse difficult terrain and maintain their tanks.
They carried men and supplies to the front lines and brought back the wounded, often at great risk. Their efforts substantially reduced casualties. While working through long days and often terrifying nights, they formed incredibly close bonds and a deep loyalty to one another. They also developed a fondness for their specially altered tanks, often naming them after sweethearts or mothers back home.
My father told some harrowing stories of near misses and lost comrades. Even though we children pestered him for more of what we thought were incredibly romantic and death-defying stories, he would grow quiet and tell us that war was truly terrible, and not to be glorified. He’d gone overseas an immature, inexperienced farm boy, eager to get into the thick of things, but returned a seasoned and more sombre man.
The Kangaroos achieved many firsts, including becoming the only regiment to be formed, battle-tested and decommissioned on foreign soil. After the war, members were sent home to their far-flung hometowns in Canada, without fanfare or recognition for their courage and service.
Over 70 years after the war, the surviving Kangaroos still meet for a reunion in Toronto every November. Originally more than 500 strong, they are now few in numbers bu
t still proud, patriotic and more than willing to share their stories, particularly the ones that demonstrate their spirit of camaraderie and shared humour. Many say it was the hijinks and laughter they shared in the midst of chaos and fear that got them through. Before they are all gone, it’s time to recognize their quiet heroism and sacrifice.
—by Colleen O’Hare, Parry Sound, Ontario
Lone Rider
Motorcycle dispatch riders were relied upon to get key information where it was needed, without being intercepted
I was 19 years old when I enlisted for duty in the Second World War. I ended up in the Royal Armoured Corps, 5th Division, as a motorcycle dispatch rider with a small group referred to as the Divisional Maintenance Area—or short form—DMA.
After completing my basic training at Fort William, now Thunder Bay, I arrived at Camp Borden in March 1943 for more training before being sent overseas. One day, as I was watching tank drivers and mechanics changing the tracks of their tanks in the mud, and truck drivers struggling with their big vehicles under the same conditions, I noticed the ease with which the fellows in the motorcycle training group were able to clean up and maintain their machines. I decided then and there that I wanted to be a motorcycle dispatch rider—even though I had never ridden a motorcycle in my life.
Being a dispatch rider was a whole lot different, I think, than any other job in the army. First of all, you had to be content to be on your own, because you ended up being alone quite a lot of the time. And I know it was the only job in the Armoured Corps that was strictly voluntary. You volunteered to ride that motorcycle and, at any time you felt that you didn’t want to ride it any more, you could say “I don’t want to do this,” and they’d find another job for you, in a tank or something like that.
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