Honker Happenings November 2019
Month: October 2019
Ophir native was veteran, head of medical association
Credit: Brian Kelly Sault Star Ophir native Dr. James McPhee survived being shot down in the Second World War, helped found a southern Ontario hospital and led an Ontario association of doctors. He worked at Algoma Steel before joining the Royal Canadian Air Force and serving with 408 Squadron. During his second mission in November 1944, McPhee’s Halifax bomber was shot down during a mission to bomb an oil fabrication plant in Castrop-Rauxel, Germany. He died Oct. 8 at Royal Victoria Hospital in Barrie, Ont. McPhee was 94. continued
Read MoreHonker Happenings October 2019
New Memorial to be unveiled in The Netherlands. (Lancaster Aircrew Memorial)
The Aircrew Remembrance Society has been cooperating with Dutch Historian Jaap Geenson for many years. In 2014 our chairman David King was able to identify items recovered by Jaap on the Dutch coast line, as coming from a Lancaster aircraft. A memorial to the crew of this Lancaster II, LL720 408 Sqdn, will now be unveiled on the 9th November 2019. The relatives of two of the crew members have been located, those of F/O J. Bonneville, RCAF and P/O E. Dramnitzki, RCAF. The search continues for relatives of the other five.…
Read MoreLAST FLIGHT TO STUTTGART: SEARCHING FOR THE BOMBER BOYS OF LANCASTER EQ-P
A woman’s journey to uncover the fate of seven RCAF crewmen who perished in the Second World War. For most of her life, Lisa Russ knew little about her second cousin, Robert “Bud” George Alfred Burt. All she had were two grainy photos, a poem Bud had written shortly before his death, and the knowledge that he was a tail gunner in a Lancaster bomber during the Second World War. It was only when Russ—a self-described “discouraged modern-day war bride”—found herself displaced, unemployed, and homesick in Australia that she began…
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