|
--------------------------------------------------
"He enlisted fairly early in WW2 after working as a trapper in Fort Chipewyan, met my mother while training at Wireless No. 2 Training Depot in Calgary, got married and was finishing at B&G school in Quebec when Pearl Harbour was bombed. He was one of many young airmen that they loaded onto troop trains to work in Coastal Command on the West Coast, smuggling my very pregnant mother (with me) onto the train (family were not permitted but the conductor didn’t want to argue with 500 young airmen when my mother and another wife were found).
Mom got off in Calgary where she had family and my father was sent to at RCAF Ucluelet, patrolling for Japanese submarines in Stranraers. My Mother and I arrived a month and a half later and we all lived in a rented cabin three miles north of the base for over a year. No. 4 BR, now in Cansos, was eventually reformed as 160BR and sent to Yarmouth, NS for five months before being sent overseas. He was sent to RAF Alness with 4 OTU and flying in Sunderland DD851 when it developed engine trouble soon after takeoff from Moray Firth and crashed and burned on the railway tracks 2 miles NE of Invergordon, Scotland, killing him and 10 other Canadian airmen.
On reviewing his logbook, it appears that he was part of one submarine attack out of Yarmouth and based on his service, while he had received the usual medals, had never received an Atlantic Star. I did battle with Veterans Affairs Canada but they rejected my claim but the Ministry of Defence in the UK approved it earlier this year and I have added it to his previous medals."
- David Kinton
--------------------------------------------------
Son of T.L.D. Kinton and Jerrine Wells Kinton
Husband of Olga Kinton, of Calgary, Alberta
KiFA 26 November 1944, age 23
Harrogate (Stonefall) Cemetery, Yorkshire, UK
Grave Reference: Sec. G. Row C. Grave 10 |
--------------------------------------------------
About The Crash
Dave posted this info on theinvergordonarchive.org -"It happened early on November 26, 1944 shortly after Sunderland DD851 left on a North Sea U-boat patrol. A connecting rod on the starboard inner engine broke soon after take-off when they were over the land. The aircraft caught fire, the engine fell off, and the aircraft crashed on the rail line two miles north-east of the railway station at Invergordon, as they were unable to reach the Firth and land on the water. There was no time to jettison fuel or the six 250 pound depth charges so there was a large explosion and fire which woke up many of the local residents including airmen at RAF Alness. The Canadian crew of eleven men is buried in the Air Force section of Stonefall Cemetery at Harrogate, Yorkshire."
The Crew of DD851 - Back row, from the left: James E. Porret, Engineer, Edmonton; Milton L. Hill, Air Gunner, Vancouver; Donald C. Beattie, Air Gunner, North Bay; Frederick J. Peters, Wireless Air Gunner, Winnipeg; Francis W.G. Cosgrave, Engineer, Whitewood, Sask. Front row: Clare Kinton, Wireless Air Gunner, Calgary; Charles M. Kendall, Navigator, Windsor; John A. Johnson, Pilot (Captain), Ottawa; Garth B. Johnson, 2nd Pilot, Winnipeg; William Fedoruk, Wireless Operator Mechanic, Vancouver. Not pictured but also killed in the crash: John H. Shand, Lethbridge, Alberta.
--------------------------------------------------
Air Force Casualties
Ottawa, 15 Dec 1944 — The Department of National Defense for Air today issued casualty list No. 1067 of the Royal Canadian Air Force, showing next of kin of those named from Ontario as follows: OVERSEAS - Killed on Active Service :
BEATTIE, Donald Charles, Sgt. W.H. Beattie (father), North Bay.
BROWN, James Gordon, S/L. A.P. Brown (father), Lyndhurst, Ont.
COSGRAVE, Francis William George, Sgt. Whitewood, Sask.
FEDORUK, William, F/L. Brighouse, B.C.
HILL, Milton Lynn, Sgt. Quesnel, B.C.
JOHNSON, Garth Borland, F/O. Winnipeg.
JOHNSON, John Alfred, F/L. Mrs. E. N. Johnson (mother), 691 Bank St., Ottawa.
KENDALL, Charles Marland, P/O. Balcarres, Sask.
KINTON, Clare, W/O. Mrs. Clare Kinton (wife), 433 Durie St., Toronto.
PETERS, Fredrick John, W/O. Winnipeg
PORRET, James Edward, F/Sgt. Edmonton.
SHAND, John Hodgson, F/O. Lethbridge, Alta.
--------------------------------------------------
Calgary Memorial at McDougall Centre
Newspaper clipping from September 2004 - "A memorial to more than 1,600 Alberta airmen who died during the Second World War was unveiled Friday (September 3, 2004) in downtown Calgary.
Bleachers and sidewalks were packed with veterans, relatives of deceased airmen and others who came to participate in the ceremony and to watch Premier Ralph Klein and other dignitaries unveil a six-metre bronze statue of battle-ready airman on the grounds of the McDougall Centre.
"I think we all know the sacrifice they made," said Klein of the men and women who died while serving in the RCAF and RAF, "but it can be hard to find words that adequately capture the gratitude we feel and the debt we owe them as Canadians.
Sue Kinton of Calgary knew what he was talking about. In 1941, she married a young Ontario man who had come to Calgary to train as an air gunner and wireless operator. When he was eventually sent overseas, she returned to her family's farm near Standard to look after their two small boys and to wait.
The waiting never ended. On Nov. 26, 1944, Clare Kinton, 23, was killed when his Sunderland flying boat crashed in Scotland. Sue raised her boys on her meager widow's pension, which she supplemented by taking in boarders and working at whatever jobs she could find.
"That was pretty tough," said David Kinton, who was three when his father was killed. He came to Friday's ceremony carrying his father's medals and accompanying his wheelchair-bound mother."
--------------------------------------------------
|
