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Veteran_crain

Feature

Nov. 19/99

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Contact Us A Veteran Remembers David Brison

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Bob, Slim and Henry Henry Crain, retired now and living in Clarendon Station, reunited this fall with two members of the B-24-Liberator bomber crew he flew with in WW 2. Bob Gray, the wireless operator on the crew, came east from British Columbia where he lives, and he and Henry drove up to Elk Lake in northern Ontario to visit with Slim Somerville, the nose gunner on the crew. Henry, the tail gunner, had seen Slim shortly after they returned from India (in 1946) but hadn't been in touch with Bob since they both left the service. The men hadn't seen each other in 53 years. Henry enlisted in the Air Force in 1943 when he was 18. His gunnery training and combat flying over Burma were a hard act to follow when he returned to Canada. Henry says now that he realized when he got out of the services that he had to put those experiences in the past and get on with civilian life. Although the memories of his experiences in the war remained intact, he made an effort not to dwell on them. It is only recently that he has been actively reviving his memories and renewing efforts to get in touch with people he shared those experiences with. The contrast between his life on the farm (and what he might have anticipated had he stayed there), and his war experiences, was almost unimaginable. He got his wings as a gunner in Mt Pleasant, PEI, after stints of training in Lachine, Quebec and in Kingston (where he had 6 months of academic training at Queens). Following a month's commando course at Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, he was shipped by 1st class rail across the country to Boundary Bay, British Columbia where his Liberator Bomber crew was formed. The experience of forming a crew is described in detail in a book by W.W.(Wally) Frazer, A Trepid Aviator - Bombay to Bangkok. Frazer is a retired Ottawa chartered accountant who now lives near Perth. He was a Liberator pilot (as a 24 year old) stationed, along with Henry in Salboni, India. According to Henry, he captures the war time experiences in living detail -- as the men experienced them. The crews were not assigned by higher command. The men who were to compose the crews (navigators, pilots, co-pilots, gunners, wireless operators, flight engineers, and bomb aimers) were all billeted together. The process of choosing crews was a surprisingly informal one. Pilots usually, but not always, took the lead and asked men that they had sized up favourably if they wanted to join their crew. When people had been chosen, and accepted (they were free to decline), they in turn would suggest others they might have known in training. All in all this was a very democratic procedure for an institution (the armed services) better known for following a strict chain of command.

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Henry after receiving his wings. Slim and Henry In Henry's case, Cecil Collins, the 1st pilot (who had been a fighter pilot and was shot down over North Africa) and Johnny Hammond, the 2nd pilot, asked him after dinner if he wanted to be on their crew. He accepted, and when asked, said that he wanted to be the tail gunner. The crew then moved to Abbotsford, B.C. for further flight training before being shipped overseas to Bournemouth, England. From there, they went by ship to Bombay, India. After further flight training, and jungle self-preservation training at a resort in India, the crew flew from Bombay to Bangkok on bombing missions. They also dropped food to prisoner of war camps behind the lines. The crews stationed in India actually flew after the war ended -- some Japanese troops in Burma were still fighting and the bombing missions were necessary as support for the allies. In a little more than a year after he had left the farm, Henry had substantially upgraded his education; received his wings as a gunner; travelled across Canada from PEI to B.C. (with training stops in Quebec and Ontario); become part of a Liberator bomber crew; gone overseas to England; been shipped by boat to India; and had flown combat missions. Quite an experience for a farm boy from Clarendon! It's a long way from Clarendon Station to Salboni, India. When Bob Gray and Henry got together in Clarendon this fall, they talked about the flights. There was a forced landing in 6 feet of water on Ramree Island when their engine failed. There were 56 holes from enemy fire in the aircraft and the plane had to be abandoned. They had aerial photos which Bob had taken of bridges being bombed -- Bob and Henry could recall these flights in detail. There were very frightening memories of being lost when their navigation failed; vivid recollections of planes shot down and crew members killed -- men with whom they had lived in close quarters both in India and during training. There were of course the comparisons between how they were 53 years ago and are now, the kind of thing that always takes place at reunions; stories of how they would tease Henry when they were playing cards and how he would tear the deck up (but he always carried another deck so they could keep playing); about partying they had done; and quiet moments experienced together. For Henry, the briefings the crew received before flights were special -- he recalls the crew gathering and being briefed by meteorologists on the weather they would encounter, and by other personnel on the targets they were to hit and the conditions they might encounter. The briefings would take place under the control tower -- quiet reflective moments before flights behind enemy lines. Bob and Henry both had tried hard to put these memories in a distant part of their mind and get on with their lives. The stuff of their war experiences are not like what people talk about at high school reunions. These experiences were, however, extremely important to them, highlights of their lives in many ways, and in their 70s they have both decided to get together with old crew members and talk about their flying days. Related Reading: see W.W.. Frazer, A Trepid Aviator - Bombay to Bangkok (Burnstown, Ontario: General Store Publishing, 1995). Wally Frazer choose not to write about the big picture of the war or tell heroic tales. Instead he has written a wonderful memoir of the little things that constituted his wartime experiences -- a memoir that both resonates for those, who like Henry, Bob, and Slim, were there too, but for others like me who walked through the mess hall with him when he was fighting through his shyness to pick a crew, and vicariously sat in the cockpit of the massive Liberator bomber when he flew it for the first time. (And whoever said that chartered accountants can't write?)

With the participation of the Government of Canada