A Rambunctious Ride to Halifax

Heroes Remember

A Rambunctious Ride to Halifax

Transcript

We took the train to Halifax and this was another experience, if you’ve never done it. They keep picking up people all the way along plus all the troops that were going overseas, hundreds of guys. I remember some of the incidents... In northern Ontario, the guys wanted to stop to get some beer, see, a place called Little Longwack (sp), which is just somewhere in the bush, but there was a beer store over there. And the train would stop for 20 minutes for water and whatever else, see, and the guys would hike off there to buy some beer and tried to hold up the train. I’ll never forget this one time, Bill Barker was waiting there; his buddy has taken off and the train was going to go. So he went out and layed down on the track in front of the big engine, see. And I can remember the engineer looking out the window and thinking, saying, “What’s that man doing up there?” So he got the conductor, number one conductor and said, “Go and see what that man’s doing out there on the...We’re going to go pretty soon!” And he’s laying down, holding onto the rails, see, for dear life! And he’s going to hold up the train until his buddies get back. It’ll be a few minutes but... Well, finally the conductor can’t do anything so the engineer gets down out of there, which is a big deal, and he goes up to old Barker and he’s saying to him, “Young man, we can’t have any of this. Come up out of there.” And of course, by then, everybody’s arriving. They’re jumping on the train and Bill sees them, so he jumps right up and he salutes the old engineer and he says “Yes, sir!” and hikes back and everybody breaks out in a big laugh and they all get back in the train. Anyway, they all got the beer, cases of beer. Cause I didn’t drink, see, so I was just watching all of this.

Description

Before sailing off to Great Britain and the battles, the boys had to get to Halifax. So why not have a bit of fun on the way?

James Francis Edwards

Mr. Edwards was born on a farm near Lockwood, Saskatchewan on June 5th 1921. His father, a First World War Veteran, kept horses until the depression forced him to move the family to Battleford where he became an insurance salesman. His mother had been a nurse during the First World War. In June 1940, Mr. Edwards enlisted in the Air Force. He was sent to the Brandon, Manitoba to do his Initial Training, then to Edmonton, Alberta for Flying School. After completing Flying School, Mr. Edwards was sent to overseas. He was assigned to 55 Operational Training Unit in Osworth, England where he flew Hurricanes. From there he was posted to Africa to take part in the Desert Campaign. Among many battles and operations, he took part in the El Alamein Battle (Egypt) and the Tunisian Campaign. In Egypt, he was promoted to Flight Lieutenant. After a period in Cairo running a gunnery school, he was called back to combat in Italy. There he fought in the Battle of Ortona and Anzio and he was given his own squadron, the RAF 274. He was shot down on his first flight as squadron commander. Surviving, he and his crew were sent back to England to take part in D-Day. He would also fight in Holland and Germany. In total, Mr. Edwards served two tours of duty, flying over 360 missions. He had more than 19 confirmed kills. After the war was over he returned to Canada and continued service with the air force retiring as a wing commander.

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