Remember the survivors

Well, I don’t really have to go to the cenotaph, but, you know, I can stay at home and listen to the remembrance ceremony at the cenotaph, on the radio or now on tv, and I remember, I don’t only remember the guys who were killed in action but a lot of the guys who died since. Like I’m the only survivor from my crew now, they’re all dead. They all died of natural causes but I think of those guys, you know there’s as missing as any and probably more so because they, you know, I’ve seen them often since. And everything, you know people go missing in operations, they’re there when you take off but they’re not there when you come back. And we used to say they’d gone for Burton, it meant Burton was a tailor shop up in London, they were gone for another uniform. It’s like the old WWI guys they said oh he’s gone west, you know we didn’t really, didn’t really hit us that they were dead and gone and not coming back. But the guys who survived and gone missing, who died naturally since, you know they’re really closer than all those guys who died in flying operations. At least with me, there may be some people who are different than that I don’t know.

Mr. Bower-Binns discusses his memories of his fellow crew members, all of whom survived the war.

John Bower-Binns

John Bower-Binns was born in Ottawa, Ontario. One of two children, he was born on March 7, 1921. He had two uncles in the Royal Air Force, inspiring him to build model aeroplanes. There being a six month waiting list for naval enlistment, Mr. Bower-Binns opted for the Air Force. After being screened out of the pilot queue, he became a navigator. After crewing up in England, he flew many bombing missions, including one to Berlin. Mr. Bower-Binns was fortunate to fly with the same crew during his entire tour of duty. A recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross, he achieved the rank of Flight-Lieutenant during his Second World War service.