Strangers linked by war
An RCAF pilot who died a hero’s death, a war bride whose husband never came home, a machinist aboard a frigate in the Atlantic — all forged connections across continents, writes George Gamester
No, they’ve never met. But they’re connected.
Like so many others who’ll gather at that faded gray monument on Queen St. today. To hear the bells toll and bugles blow. To salute the dwindling survivors. And, to reflect . . . On that which links them with a thousand threads. Of love. Of sorrow. And of remembrance . . .
Ollie will be there, of course. Sixty years, she’s been coming to the cenotaph by old city hall to remember a man and a bond that began and died with water.
Seven Sister Falls was Ollie Tittlemeir’s hometown, just down the road from West Hawk Lake, at 111 metres the deepest in Manitoba.
Cliff Ridge was a lad from Angusville, over Brandon way, drawn to her tiny community to work at the hydro dam before joining the Air Force. On June 4, 1943, they married. Twenty days they have together. The sweet- natured farmer’s daughter and the happy-golucky flier who loves to dance and play his violin. When Cliff pulls out of Elma station on the CN line after his matrimonial leave, he leans out from the train’s back platform and waves and waves. A year later, with her 21- yearold husband flying combat missions with the RCAF’s Britishbased 404 Buffalo Squadron, Ollie ups and moves to Toronto.
“ Just wanted to do my bit,” she recalls. Snagged a $7-a-week room and a job making fuses for naval shells.
“ Somehow, coming east, I felt closer to Cliff. When he came home, I could run right down to Union Station to hug him.” And why wouldn’t he come home? Hadn’t he been voted most promising pilot at Virden flight school? Hadn’t he been mentioned in dispatches for DDay exploits? Now it’s March of ’ 45, and everyone knows the war will soon be over. Her landlady, Vi Hopper, brings the telegram to Ollie at the GECO munitions plant in Scarborough. Cliff’s twin-engine Beaufighter is missing somewhere over Norway. How did it happen? For six decades, Ollie cannot answer that. Not in 1948 when she receives Cliff ’ s posthumous Distinguished Flying Cross in the mail. Not in 1950 when she marries Douglas Gilker of Toronto. And not over the years as she raises her boys, Grant and Murray, loses Doug in ’ 83 and journeys to the cenotaph every November to salute her first love.
Until today. Today is different. For now she knows . . .
It was last May when the 83year-old grandmother journeyed alone to Norway to visit Midtgulen Fjord, where Cliff’s plane had gone down.
There, she was introduced to a farmer named Rolv Yttrehus who, in his youth, had witnessed the March 8, 1945 raid on a German convoy in the fjord. As Rolv recalled, a squadron of Beaufighters swooping down on the troopships was met by a hail of anti- aircraft fire.
After the attack, as his comrades turned to head for home, one Beaufighter pilot peeled away and returned to empty his guns at the enemy ships. Thereafter, he rapidly lost altitude and crashed into the fjord.
“ I believe the pilot knew his plane was too badly damaged to make it home,” Rolv told Ollie. So he returned to the attack. That pilot was Raymond Clifford Ridge, DFC.
Today, standing with all the others before the cenotaph, Olga “ Ollie” Gilker will remember her first love’s bravery — and feel a calm she’s not had before.
It comes from knowing where he rests. “ Not all broken up on some mountain,” she says. But in a serene place. “ Coming to that beautiful fjord felt so right,” she says. Green trees. Placid water. Lovely little church.
“ Cliff would love it. I feel at peace now.” . . . . . So many people drawn together to remember. To mourn. And to give thanks. Which is why Matthew Baird will be joining the throng at Queen and Bay today. To honour a man who won no exceptional medals. Just a regular guy who served and survived — but left a legacy of love and gratitude on two continents. His name was Ken and he came from Galt. An apprentice machinist, he volunteered for the Navy and wound up on a frigate called HMCS Saint John, working below decks, keeping the engines running for convoy duty, sub- chasing and D- Day. Not a glory job. But let’s face it: They couldn’t have sunk those two U- boats without Ken and his engine room mates. And the whole 140- man crew might have gone down when battle damage and that North Atlantic storm buckled the steel deck. But Ken and his grease monkeys saved the day, figuring a way to keep her afloat. Which is why, in August of ’ 44, the Saint John was available for an unenviable job — zig- zagging across the Bay of Biscay to draw fire from enemy shore batteries, enabling the glory boys in bomber command to pinpoint those coastal guns for attack. Launched the following day, the bomber strike was quite successful — except for the leader of the mission, a dashing 27- yearold RAF Wing Commander named James “ Mouse” Grant.
His Halifax bomber took a direct hit from enemy anti-aircraft fire off Bordeaux, plunging Mouse and three of his surviving crewmen into the sea.
For more than 10 hours, they floated in their life preservers, clinging and singing together while Mouse waved a handsized piece of his wrecked plane’s shiny fuselage in the remote hope it might be spotted.
Fat chance, eh? Well, if you spoke to Matthew Baird amid the crowd at Bay and Queen today, he’d tell you such unlikely hopes can be fulfilled.
Because Ken, that engine room guy on the Saint John was Matt’s father. And before he died in ’ 94, he was persuaded by his twin sons Matt and Roger to put his war memories on tape. Among his most vivid was one August day in ’ 44 when a lookout on the Saint John spotted flashes of sunlight reflected off a piece of metal in the Bay of Biscay. When Mouse Grant and two of his crew — one had swam away to his death shortly before the rescue — were hauled aboard, recalled Ken to his boys, “ they were pretty happy fellas.”
Today, Matt in Toronto and Roger in Ottawa will be remembering the story. And they will not be alone . . . Near Bristol, England, a busy mother of two named Rowena will also be at a cenotaph, hearing the bugles and reflecting: On how she was recently contacted by Matt and Roger after she’d posted on a commemorative website ( http:// saint john. freeservers. com) to thank crewmembers of the Saint John for rescuing her father — Wing Commander “ Mouse” Grant. On the warm bond she now feels with the twins, after exchanging information and memories of their fathers. And how, were it not for those Canadians, her father would never have met mum. Nor would she be here. Nor her boys. So many connections there. So many threads binding past and present, people and nations. Which is why Ollie and Matt and Roger and Rowena and you and I pause this day. Linked in our debt and in our thanks. To Cliff. To Ken. To Mouse. And to all the others.
Lest we forget.