Every year, we continue to lose more and more of the brave men and women that served our country during the Second World War. Unfortunately, there are none surviving that have served in the First World War. That is why it is so important for the generations that come after them to remember their sacrifices and their stories.
My own journey into finding out my family’s involvement in the war has left me amazed at what I have discovered and has truly brought the war closer to me, and its importance in our history and the need to remember.
It all started with a picture that was on a shelf in my grandmother’s Toronto apartment.
A single frame on the shelf contained two photos; one of each of her brothers dressed in military uniform. Upon asking about them, I discovered that one, George served as a merchant marine and the other as a wireless air gunner on a Vickers Wellington in the RCAF.
His name was Kenneth Graham and he served in the Coastal Commands 407 Demon Squadron stationed out of England. His unit was tasked with hunting down German submarines in the North Sea.
On Sept. 26, 1944, while out on patrol, one of the engines caught fire and they were forced to land in occupied Norway. The pilot, Gordon Biddle managed to land the plane in a farm field without any fatalities. They landed in the Haugland region of Norway where there was a German U-Boat base and 2,500 German troops.
Staying out of their hands was going to be difficult. Fortunately, they were quickly aided by the Norwegian resistance and hidden in a nearby house for a few days before being concealed in a boat and taken through the fjords right under the nose of the Germans. They were then holed up in a cabin tucked up in the mountains and out of sight. The resistance knew that had they been caught, there was a real potential that they would be executed.
They stayed in that cabin for 10 days while the resistance worked to contact the Allies in order to get them home.
The six Canadian airmen called their residence Little Canada since the terrain reminded them so much of Muskoka.
Also, Little Norway was back at home in Gravenhurst where the RCAF had been training pilots of the Norwegian resistance and they had remarked how much the area looked like Norway.
Eventually, the Wellington crew was led back down the mountain and sent back to England via the Shetland Bus, a rescue ship operating out of the Shetlands.
The crew made lifelong friendships with their Norwegian rescuers, with whom they kept in contact well after the war. That remembrance and connection continues to this day.
When my grandmother told me the story about her brother during the war, I couldn’t believe it.
It sounded like a movie and it had actually happened to someone in my family.
I had always had an interest in history and the world wars so this was fantastic for me,
I decided that I’d look into it further; was it written about in any books or online? Where could I learn more? I ended up searching online and found a page put together by a man named Harvey “Red” Firestone. He was also a wireless air gunner that was on board the aircraft during the Second World War.
It turned out that he had visited the site of Little Canada in 2004 and the tiny lodge was still there. The Canadian government had even placed a plaque at the crash site to commemorate the event. I reached out to him on Facebook and came to learn that he was the only one still alive from the crew. He pointed out where I could get the full story from a book on rescued RAF missions. So I ended up purchasing the book and bringing it to my grandmother along with the information I had received from Mr. Firestone.
She was so impressed and touched that I had taken it upon myself to find out more about her brother’s incredible story.
She was even more surprised to hear that the little 10x12 shack he stayed in was still there. She had been to Norway years earlier and was upset that she didn’t know about it and had missed an opportunity to see the cabin and crash site.
I decided that I wanted to go to Norway and see this place and landing site for myself. Once I had made my travel plans, I reached out to the municipality of Os to see if they could help me locate the cottage.
I was helped by a man there named Øyvind who informed me that he knew all about the story and that it was actually part of the local grade school history curriculum.
Øyvind put me in contact with a man named Bjarne Øvredal who helped to look after the cabin and as it turns out, it was his father that was one of the individuals that helped the Canadian airmen.
He arranged to pick me and my wife up in Bergen and take us up to see the tiny cottage.
Needless to say I could hardly wait for this voyage.
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F: Clay Pashka, Amanda Colgan, Emily Deeth. R: Steve Deeth, Bev Graham
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Clay Pashka, Amanda Colgan, Emily Deeth, Steve Deeth, Bev Graham
The day had finally arrived to meet Bjarne and head up to the cabin.
He picked us up in Bergen as planned and informed us that another family would be joining us for the hike up to Little Canada.
The son of the co-pilot George Deeth and his granddaughter happened to have come to Norway to visit as well. We arrived after a drive on some very winding and twisting roads, to a parking lot where there must have been at least 30 people waiting to hike up to the little cabin in the woods.
I couldn’t believe that it was such an important event for the community and that all these people were there for this occasion.
As we made our way up the mountain side, I had the chance to talk to a lot of the people on our hike.
One woman had told me that it was her mother that had come up the mountain every evening in the pitch dark to bring them food from the meager rations that they had been allowed under occupation. She had to take a different path every time she went up so as not to create too distinguished of a trail that the Germans could find.
As it turned out, many of the people had family that helped out in some way.
Some had been interrogated and took great risks in order to send these boys (they didn’t even know) home. Their risks and bravery in the face of the enemy was truly incredible.
I had even found out from Bjarne that they had restored the actual boat that was used in the escape that had brought them out to an island to be picked up by the Shetland Bus that rushed them back to England. It was remarkable that so much energy went into preserving this piece of local history.
Finally, we arrived at Little Canada.
It was a humbling experience to finally be there and to touch the building and to see where my Great Uncle had been squirreled away from the Nazis.
As it turns out, the building was starting to become quite dilapidated and work had begun to restore it.
The Norwegian government has deemed it a valuable enough part of their history to pay for the restoration and even hired a helicopter to bring the logs up to the site since there were no roads they could use in which to get the necessary materials there.
After a ceremony of remembrance and some time to meet and greet everyone, our guide Bjarne took our modest party of Canadians down the other side of the mountain that the airmen had used to travel to and from the cabin.
It was a grueling two-and-a-half hour hike through the rain, which I can imagine was made all the worse in the dark with the Germans hunting for you.
We finally came to the bottom and were picked up and brought to the crash site.
There we were shown the plaque presented by the Canadian government and saw a large pine tree that the wing of the aircraft had actually cut the top off of during landing.
I realized that Gord Biddle must have been an extraordinary operator to not have killed them all.
The landing site was not very large and was quite hilly, not a typical farmers field at all.
It’s important to remember these and other stories because of the sacrifice that so many people made and continue to make during war times.
With all the horrors of war and all the extremely brutal and barbaric acts it can bring out of us, it also has the ability to bring out the very best in humanity. That is why it is so important for us to remember these great deeds and sacrifices.
C.W. Pashka
East York