Surprising find

British Columbia man wants to know how father’s military medals came to P.E.I.

It all started with a photo. Tom Gordon opened up an email from his daughter with a link to a Journal Pioneer article.

He opened the link and his jaw hit the floor.

“I was shocked. I didn’t really understand what it was, and then I looked in the corner and I saw the photo of my dad standing near the tail of his plane and I just knew.”

The man in the photo was Thomas Haughton Gordon, Tom’s father, a Second World War veteran who served in the Royal Canadian Air Force. Some how, his father’s medals were in Prince Edward Island.

“The last time I saw my father’s medals was in the 90s before they went missing.” When Tom’s father died, there was no mention of the medals in the will.

But somewhere along the line they must have been found, said Tom.

“My dad never talked often about the war. What I know are tidbits from what he told me over the years.

“It had a strong impact on him.”

Tom’s daughter, Sydney, was researching her family’s history when she came across the article.

“For many years I’ve been trying to find information on my grandfather’s military service during World War Two.

“It’s not easy as most archives for the war have been sealed… but for some reason I thought I would do some pursuing on ancestry.ca and Google.”

She typed in her grandfather’s full name and three items down was the article.

After reading the article she wondered how a young man from Prince Edward Island knew so much about her grandfather.

Now Sydney and Tom are hoping to learn how the medals made their way to the Island, and hopefully bring them home to their family.

“The war and those medals aren’t just a simple thing to me and my family, it was an integral part in what happened to my family.”

Thomas Haughton Gordon received the air force cross, a medal given for an act or acts of valour, courage or devotion to duty whilst flying, though not in active operations against the enemy.

“My dad was an excellent flyer and he was a great teacher.

“That’s why he got the medal. For his ability to teach pilots how to fly this one particular plane that was difficult. “I remember one time he told me he was flying with a student and they crashed because the guy froze and my dad couldn’t get the controls away in time,” said Tom.

He said he was taken aback when he realized where the medals were.

“I’d love to be in possession of them. I’d love to know how they got to P.E.I.”