Two pals from New West set out to join the RAF in England, by bus
Muriel Honey’s mother, Isabella, died on Jan. 2 at the age of 96. Going through her stuff, she found an unusual piece of ephemera: a Pacific Stage Lines travel itinerary from New Westminster to New York City, dated March 9, 1939.
But it wasn’t for Isabella or her husband, Howard Godfrey. The itinerary was for her father’s friend, William Radcliffe, who was on his way to England to join the Royal Air Force.
“I think my dad and Bill Radcliffe probably went over together,” reasons Honey. “Knowing my dad, he would have tossed his, and Bill probably saved his. How it ended up with my mother, I have no idea.”
The Second World War was on the horizon, and Radcliffe and Godfrey decided to enlist. It might have been for the adventure, but it might have also been a way out of the economic grind at home.
“It was patriotic, but it was also practical,” said Honey. “My dad was born during the Depression, the third youngest of 13 kids of a widowed mother. What chance did he have?”
They left New West at 7:30 p.m. on March 17, arriving in Seattle four hours later. They travelled on to Portland, Boise, Ogden, Cheyenne and Omaha before arriving in Chicago at 5:10 a.m. on March 21.
After nearly three days on the bus, they stayed at the Roosevelt Hotel in Chicago, then left at 10 a.m. on March 22 for New York, where they arrived at 7 p.m. on March 23.
After a night at the Hotel Times Square, they were scheduled to leave for Britain on the Steamship Antonia at 5 p.m. on March 24. The cost was $41.85 for the bus and $91 for the ship, for a total of $132.85.
Radcliffe became a flight engineer, flying more than 60 missions. He was the subject of a Vancouver Sun story on June 18, 1943 when he was part of a legendary RAF force nicknamed the Dambusters.
“(Radcliffe) aided in smashing the great dams of the German Ruhr and unleashing thousands of tons of water to spread destruction through the industrial Rhineland,” said The Sun story.
He stuffed a toy panda into his boot before each flight for luck. In 2015, his daughter brought the panda to the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow, where an expert heard the tale and appraised it as “priceless.”
Radcliffe and Godfrey met their wives in England. Radcliffe married his wife Joyce there in 1944, but Godfrey didn’t wed Isabella until she came to New West in 1946.
“She and my dad met on V-E Day in Piccadilly Circus,” said Honey. “They must have exchanged 250 letters between the day they met (May 8, 1945) and when she came back in 1946.”
Isabella kept a box of those letters with her until the day she died.
“But not all of them,” she wrote on a note that Honey found in the box. “I tossed a lot years ago.”
Joyce Radcliffe was an English war bride, but Isabella Price was from Melocheville, Que, west of Montreal. Like her future husband, she volunteered for the war, which she spent in England.
Honey is amazed at all the stuff Isabella kept from the war and the immediate aftermath.
There is a lovely sepia-tone portrait of Bill and Joyce Radcliffe on Oct. 10, 1944. It was printed as a postcard, probably so the happy couple could mail it to their friends back in Canada.
There are poems she typed out on fine paper, most with a war theme. There is a Post Office Savings Bank Book with her banking details during the war, and an ominous “State Security ” stamp on the back. There is a blurry photo of a beaming Isabella holding a couple of flags, perhaps when the war ended.
There are also a couple of menus from the 1944 and ’45 Christmas dinners for Canadian personnel in London. The 1944 menu was at British Columbia House, and featured roast turkey with creamed potatoes and brussels sprouts, followed by Christmas pudding, mince pies and “Canadian apples.” The last item on the menu is “Beer — Cigarettes.”
On the front is a hopeful note: “May you be eating your next Christmas Day dinner by your own fireside in your home town.”
Godfrey had worked for customs before going overseas, and returned to his old job after the war. He died on May 1, 1984, a month shy of his 65th birthday.
Radcliffe also worked for customs, but was killed on July 5, 1952 in a car accident on Lulu Island. His wife then returned to England with their children. Honey has been in contact with their daughter Linda. Almost seven decades after Bill Radcliffe died, his family will be getting some mementoes saved by his best friends in Canada.