Canoe, Hunt, Fish, and Fly, by Otter

Today I needed my "Medical" renewed, and I went to see Dr. Maurice Shnider. Dr. Shnider has done Cat. 1 MOT Medicals for years, and I have seen him numerous times. I love going to see him, although I hate going to see Doctors in general. Nothing against the Doctors, as valued, outstanding humanitarian professionals who have taken the "Hippocratic Oath" are high on my list of respected people, it's just that I am from "The John Wayne School Of Men", and if you see a Doctor, well, it's because you need a "bullet" cut out of your shoulder, not because you have some minor ailment. Anyways, back to Dr. Shnider. Dr. Shnider, born in 1923, is an amazing man to talk to, and listen to. He enlisted in the RCAF at 18 years of age, in 1941, and became a Navigator on Catalinas. For the most part, his flying boat squadron was engaged in tedious convoy escorts and anti-submarine missions. He and his crew achieved their most dramatic success in two long range air/sea rescues of downed American Superfortress B-29 crews off the coast of Thailand. The duration of the second mission (a total of 23 hours and 35 minutes) is considered a war time record and Maurice and his Captain were each awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. Dr. Shnider became a practicing Physician in Winnipeg after the war in 1951, and still practices there today, and never misses a Winnipeg Blue Bomber home game. His mind is as sharp as a "finely-honed Damascus Steel blade", and he also writes occasionally about his life experiences. Here is an experience he wrote about a few years back, when he had a chance to return to England, where I am sure the memories of a "much younger man" came flooding back.
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RECALLING FALLEN COMRADES
By Maurice Shnider

Bournemouth is a beautiful resort city on the South coast of England. With its favorable climate and dozens of hotels it was the ideal location for #3 Personnel Reception Center of the RCAF during the Second World War. The beaches and cliffs overlook the English Channel and, even on bright days, the horizon is usually obscured by a haze. On occasion a fearful sight emerged from that haze; the so-called tip-and-run raiders of the Luftwaffe.

At times these were ME 109 fighter bombers, but the favorite attacker was the Focke-Wulf 190. They operated out of a number of airfields in the vicinity of Cherbourg and Caen. The pay-load was a 500 kilogram bomb carried under the fuselage. Their objective was to hit the railway, stations, or gas depots, but other inviting targets were the hotels of Bournemouth and Torquay where the German Command knew the Canadian Airmen were billeted.

For the most part they were young, recently graduated officers and NCOs awaiting posting to operational Training Units or active Squadrons. The time usually chosen for an attack was lunch time or tea time when most everyone was eating or relaxing.

On May 23, 1943, the peacefulness of a beautiful Sunday morning was abruptly shattered when 22 German aircraft, led by Lieutenant Leopold Wenger, conducted their most audacious raid on Bournemouth. The Kingsway Hotel, the Congressional Church and Beales Department Store sustained significant bomb damage, but at the Landsdowne Circle the Metropole Hotel was virtually destroyed when it took a direct hit.

Casualties were high. Among the 128 killed that day were 51 service men. Members of the RCAF are recorded in Les Allison’s Memorial book They Shall Grow Not Old and they include two Manitobans, Sgt. David Rainnie Chalmers, age 38, from Rosewood, and 21 year old Flight Sgt. Air Gunner William Geoffrey Abbott from Winnipeg.

ANNIVERSARY

My wife, Renee, and I visited Bournemouth this past May (2000) and I had the opportunity to read the Anniversary copy of the Bournemouth Echo. It contained a picture of Rhonda Taylor, the wife of Renee’s nephew Leon. At the time of the raid, Rhonda was a pretty seven-year-old girl who narrowly missed death when she and her sister answered their mother’s call to lunch as they were playing in the garden behind her uncle’s tobacco shop on the Landsdowne

Leon agreed to drive me to the Bournemouth Echo building where I could start my research on the Canadian casualties. I identified myself to an attractive young receptionist, but if I expected any assistance in what might prove to be a special human interest story, then I was sadly disappointed. Rather than direct me to the reporter who had written the Anniversary article, she suggested that I might find the desired information at the Bournemouth Library. I silently wondered whether she had heard of the Second World War and if she had, did she know that the streets of Bournemouth were once alive with young Canadian aircrew proudly sporting their recently acquired wings that identified them as Pilots, Observers, Navigators, Bomb aimers or Wireless Air Gunners, Air Gunners, and Flight Engineers? Did she know that thousands of them made the supreme sacrifice in the defense of her country and that many were buried right here in Bournemouth?

Leon then drove me to Charminister Cemetery where an obliging member of the Legion directed us to the military section known as the North Cemetery. The grounds were immaculately maintained and there were spring flowers at each grave site.

I recorded the names of all the 21 Canadians, three of whom were fighter pilots killed in training accidents, and three in an earlier tip-and-run raid when an ME 109 fighter bomber hit the Anglo-Swiss hotel on June 6, 1942.

Among those killed were 21-year-old Pilot Officer Russell Norman Bailey, a Wireless Operator Air Gunner from Winnipeg, and Pilot Officer Jacob Alexander Epp, a 25-year-old Wireless Operator Air Gunner from Manitou.

As a matter of interest, that Messerchmitt was pursued towards France by two RAF Spitfires and shot down over the Channel. I discovered that Christopher Gloss, an aviation writer and historian who lives outside of London, is completing a book on the tip-and-run raids over Southern England.

Shortly after my return to Canada, I left a phone message on his line and I was pleasantly surprised when he called back within the hour. I had a delightful chat with him and I can't wait to obtain his book.

In the process of researching his book, Mr. Gloss had corresponded with Lieutenant Wenger’s brother in Austria. He obtained a picture of a hotel on the East Overcliff Drive taken from the cockpit of the Focke-Wulf 190 as it swooped in from the Channel at roof-top level. This hotel was later identified as the Cumberland, which is only two doors away from the Cottonwood where I was first billeted in January 1943.

As a footnote Mr. Gloss learned that the enemy pilot was awarded the Knight’s Cross for bravery in January 1945 and was killed three months later when his aircraft was shot down by the Russians.
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NOTES

*Maurice Shnider, a longtime Wartime Pilots & Observers Association Member, is a Winnipeg family physician. He was a Navigator during WWII in the RCAF, and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross after completing a tour of operational flying in the Far East on Catalinas.

** The Bournemouth Echo wrote Dr. Shnider later to apologize for its behaviour.

***This article first appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press, November 10th, 2000.


Yes, it is said that the young men and women who fought and triumphed over the Nazi and Japanese "aberration" during World War II are our "Finest Generation". I concur. Dr. Shnider, was, and still is, one of "Our Finest".................