A Surprise

I’ve written several Remembrance Day essays over the years.  For this year’s remembrance essay, I struggled to think of something new.  Everything I came up with was repeating a theme.  I let my thoughts drift beyond the two world wars and hit upon something more recent, yet related to World War 2.  I had discovered something that was a complete surprise to me.

My Uncle Jack was in the RCAF in World War 2.  He served as a navigator/bombardier in Lancaster bombers.  On September 10, 1942 his bomber was engaged in a raid on Dusseldorf and Neuss in Germany.  The raid was made up of 478 aircraft.  Thirty-three bombers were shot down on that raid and Jack’s bomber and crew met their end near Cologne, Germany, on their return flight.

A few days prior to that fateful evening, Jack’s good friend, Phil, did not return from a bombing mission.  That hit Jack hard.  Here is an extract from Jack’s diary.

September 4, 1942 We're on again tonight.  Our target is Bremen.  It will be plenty hot.  Phil is flying tonight with Flt/Sgt. Joslin.  He had his week leave put back twice now.  We are due to take off at 1800.  Met says the weather on return will be duff, but over the target will be OK.

September 5, 1942 Phil didn't return last night.  No word from them.  It's just about bowled me over.  Missing him is hardly the word for it.  Joslin is a good pilot and I sure hope they had a chance to bail out.  It was plenty tough over target.  We got caught in searchlights and had flak bursting all around.  We very nearly had it.  I sure feel blue.

September 6, 1942 Still no word of Phil.  They collected all his things.  I still have his radio and camera.  Will write home and see what they want me to do.  We're not on ops tonight, but we had to do a bombing detail in afternoon.  Tried to get into Newark early enough for tennis, but no luck.

Three days later, Jack was killed.

From 2018 to 2020, I was working on a novel about World War 2.  During that time I recovered a lot of information from sources on the internet.  At one point, I was looking for information on a website called Aircrew Remembered.

As an aside, I searched to see what I could find out about my Uncle Jack.  There was a good record of that last flight of Uncle Jack’s Lancaster.  There were several photos, including one of Jack in his uniform.  I decided to write to the creators of the website and offer several more photos which they were happy to receive.

This was one of them.  It shows Jack and his two friends, Phil and Matt.

When I received a thank you from the Aircrew Remembered administrator, he made a comment about this photo that completely took me by surprise.  They couldn’t find any records of Matt, but they did have information on Phil.  He had died not on September 9, 1942, but on March 6, 2015.  I could hardly believe it!  Phil had survived his bomber crash and must have returned to Canada after the war.  If Jack had lived longer, he would have learned that Phil was safe.

I wrote back to the administrator to ask if they had any more information on Phil.  He kindly sent back the name of the funeral home that handled Phil’s services and burial in March 2015.

I contacted the funeral home and explained who I was.  I sent them quite a few pieces of information and photos, and asked them to please pass them on to Phil’s family.  In addition, I gave them permission to give Phil’s family my contact information and wrote that I would be happy to talk with anyone in the family that was interested in following up.

I was thrilled to receive an email from Phil’s daughter.  She had lots to tell me.  It turns out that Phil’s Lancaster did crash, but there were survivors, and one was Phil.  He and the others were captured by the Germans and sent to a prisoner of war camp.  Their experience as prisoners was not good.  Once Germany surrendered, Phil returned to Canada and spent some time recovering his physical health.

Phil went to university and graduated as a professional engineer.  He married and had a family.

What a surprise.  I only wish that Phil and I had been able to connect when he was alive.  I realise that would have been difficult, because Phil wouldn’t have known I existed.  Still, it was comforting to have closure on someone in Jack’s life who must have known him well.

Here is another photo of Jack and Phil with their training crew.  This was not the crew with which either of them flew missions.