Lone surviving Canadian Dambuster has Peace River connection

(Source: East Kootnay News Online Weekly, July 24, 2016 – Elinor Florence)

·   2009.014.320, Glenn Murphy Collection F041

  (l-r) Clara Sutherland (Fred’s mother), Margaret Murphy, Fred 

Sutherland and Margaret Baker Sutherland. ca 1963.

There is so much about Peace River, its people, its history of which many of us are unaware. Take, for instance, Fred Sutherland, whose father Dr. Frederick Henry Sutherland, was one of Peace River Crossings first physicians and whose mother, Clara Caroline Richards was one of the “Crossings” first nurses.

Fred, who shared his parents with sisters Kathleen and Alma, made history in his own right. He is Canada’s last surviving Dambuster – “one of only two men left in the world who participated ‘in one of the most deadly, daring missions of the Second World War’.

When Fred left school at 18, his dream was to be a bush pilot in Canada’s wilderness. To reach that goal, he enlisted in the air force and trained as an air gunner at Brandon, Manitoba. In the spring of 1942, he completed his operational training at Royal Air Force Cottesmore in Rutland, England, where “he crewed up” with Australian Les Knight as his pilot – Sergeant Fred Sutherland the front gunner. They began flying the Lancaster at Skellingthorpe, Lincolnshire, in their first operational unit – Royal Air Force Number 50 Squadron.

The seven-man “close-knit” crew survived 25 trips over Europe – a full tour was 30. By March 1943, the crew looked forward to making the remaining five trips and the brief respite that would follow before their final tour of 20 additional trips.

Two crews from the squadron were chosen for a special, top secret project, in exchange for which they would be granted the last five trips of their first tour. “If you had made it through 25 trips, you were doing very well,” Fred recalls in an interview with reporter and relative by marriage, Elinor Florence, in the East Kootnay News Online Weekly, July 24, 2016. “Our crew was considered one of the best. We volunteered for the special mission because we wanted to stay together.”

As it turned out, the mission involved a “bouncing bomb” concept of scientist Barnes Wallis. There were stringent guidelines: “The bomb had to be dropped from an altitude of precisely 60 feet, at an air speed of precisely 390 kilometres per hour, and at a precisely specified distance from the target.”

The crews practised – first with dummy bombs, then with those filled with sand – still unaware their actual target(s) until the night of Operation Chastise – May 16, 1943. “It was a suicide mission”. Targets – three key dams to knock out hydroelectric power and reduce the water supply to the heavily industrialized Ruhr Valley. Fred never expected to survive. Of the 19 Lancasters taking off that night, eight were lost.

The last of the three dams on the agenda – the Eder. Five aircraft pursued the target in heavy fog – the approach made more difficult by the surrounding hills. Fred’s nose gunner position – lying in a transparent bubble at the very front of the aircraft below the cockpit was, as one might imagine, a vulnerable one.

The other aircraft had unsuccessful runs. Then, Fred’s aircraft released the final bomb “at just the precise moment” blowing the dam wide open. “As soon as the dam was hit, the water was going everywhere. There was a bridge down below the dam that just disappeared, just disintegrated. The force was terrific. We couldn’t believe it. We were just yattering away.”

Fred credits his pilot, Les Knight, with this feat. “Jumping over the hill and hitting the right speed and the right height as an act of genius.”

In total, 53 of the 133 airmen on the attack were killed – a casualty rate of 40 percent. Of the 30 Canadians, 14 were killed, one taken prisoner and 15, including Fred, returned to base.

Although this is the end of this mission, it is not the end of Fred’s war experiences before returning to Canada and home in 1944. Waiting for him at the station in Edmonton were his parents and his soon-to-be wife Margaret Baker.

For the rest of the war, Fred served as a gunnery instructor. Following the war, he became a forestry inspector for the Government of Alberta working in Calgary, Edmonton and Rocky Mountain House where he and Margaret currently live an active life – she 94 and he 93.

2009.014.374, Glenn Murphy Collection F041 – Margaret and Fred Sutherland. ca 1990s.

Fred and Margaret Sutherland have three children – Joan, Thomas John and James Duncan. Well, he may not have become a bush pilot, but he did fly and eventually spent time in Canada’s wilderness.   

The N.A.R. Station celebrates 100 years!

The Edmonton, Dunvegan and British Columbia Railway was incorporated by Dominion Statutes 1907. Its purpose was to run north from Edmonton “by the most feasible route, to a point at or near the town of Dunvegan.” Of course those were the days when it was believed Dunvegan would amount to a great centre instead of the iconic crossing we know it as today.

In the early 1900s, railways were the veins of the country. Across them, from coast to coast, steam engines carried the nation’s manufactured, agricultural, and raw materials. Such an efficient system contributed millions to the nation’s economy. It allowed people to travel more frequently and with greater ease, and also opened the way for better national communication systems with the telegraph lines which often ran parallel to the tracks. It was a time when if you were ‘an-up-and-coming town’, a place with a good future and not just ‘any old town’ you were on the railway – it was your link to the outside world, to investors, to product markets, to labour forces. No better example could be found than Peace River and Grouard. Both were small communities that started as service points. Both were of a comparable size, and offered the same sorts of services. However, when Grouard was by-passed by the railway in 1914, and Peace River received its own station, Peace River prospered, while Grouard gradually declined.

The railway made it to Judah Hill in 1915, and passengers and goods could disembark and embark there for trains to Edmonton and Grande Prairie. Railway workers were busy erecting the Heart River Trestle (completed May of 1916) and others the railbed from the Heart River, across Pat’s Creek to where the station is. A spur line was also in the works for the warehouse district near the river. Trains were anticipated to be running to the site of the station as early as the end of July – right around this time of month. The station that was to be erected was meant to “be the largest and best building of the kind erected on the lines of the company.” And was it! It was on par with Grande Prairie’s, McLennan’s and later Fahler and Spirit River. It was expected to be in use by the end of the summer.

The N.A.R. railway station shortly after Northern Alberta Railways
was formed in 1929, awaiting the arrival of Lord and Lady Tweedsmuir,
the Governor General of Canada and his wife. From the Cruickshank
Family fonds, F044.002.103.

The E.D. & B.C. was optimistic in 1916. Surveying crews worked on establishing future routes from Peace River to Fort Vermilion via Battle River (Manning). Can you imagine how different Fort Vermilion might be had they been successful?  

The railway continued west with the completion of the Million Dollar Bridge in 1918, reaching Berwyn in 1921, Whitelaw in 1924, Fairview in 1928, and Hines Creek in 1930 when the railway movement had run out of steam and the Great Depression began. 

The station building was enlarged in the late 1930s, and passenger service ceased in May of 1960. It was designated as a Provincial Historic Resource 29 Apr 1988. Rescued in 1992 and restored to its former glory (and thankfully repainted from the N.A.R. colours) the building is a lasting reminder of our proud railway heritage.  Thankfully Peace River is lucky, and the lovely simple Edwardian building is still with us today to celebrate 100 years. 

Join us for a BBQ, pie and ice cream Saturday Jul 30^th from 11 to 2pm at the NAR station in Peace River to celebrate its 100^th birthday. Details can be found on the Peace River Museum Facebook page or on the town’s website: http://bit.ly/2auivuf . The museum has also issued a series of archival postcards commemorating the community's milestones including the NAR Station, Heart River trestle and the D.A. Thomas – these are available for sale in our giftshop.

The postcard available for sale in the Peace River Museum, Archives and Mackenzie Centre commemorating the NAR station's 100th birthday. Drop by and browse our selection of other anniversary postcards.

The Witness Blanket

By Laura Love

Using a traditional quilting style, artist Carey Newman not only weaves cedar together with items from residential schools and government buildings, but the memories and stories associated with them. The 887 objects that were found and retrieved from communities all over Canada relay very profound messages; connecting cultures, traditions and histories.  Like the cast off pieces of fabric from old shirts, blankets, and dresses used to make beautiful patchwork quilts, Newman has taken previously used items that became cast off to create a beautiful memorial.

Giving these items purpose again, the symbolism of many of the objects that were discarded and reclaimed have also given the Witness Blanket an alternate way to speak to Canada’s darker residential school history on many different levels.  He has taken the mundane, the everyday, and the innocent and woven them together in such a way to make us think about the people and experiences behind them. Many items hold multiple meanings – where some people may view them one way and others another. The pair of skates speaks to sports and laughter and community to some, while to others these items may reach a different, deeper meaning.  The small statue of Mary may bring comfort to some, and anxiety to others.  The bricks that are affixed to the blanket may symbolise grand old buildings, but may have been sources of intimidation to others, where terrible things happened behind their ‘beautiful’ facades. Some children even carved their name into them as a way of remembrance of who they were…

Braided hair within the Witness Blanket

The physical objects are woven together by photographs, survivor testimony, newspaper articles and legislation. Some are harder to see and read than others, further developing the symbolism of the Residential forgotten story, emphasizing the struggle to see what was happening in our own country. With faded photographs, and the small, almost illegible text on select tiles, Newman has increasingly created a tough narrative to read, but one that piques our need to understand, encouraging us to try to decipher what the items say. As an artist and one whose family experienced residential school history has been able to articulate the increasingly important story of the Canadian Residential School system using artistic interpretation and personal involvement with survivors. The artistic quilting of these objects create and inspire conversation that help us document and share the Residential School story.

 

Like the traditionally stitched quilt that is passed down from generation to generation, Newman has given Canada a new blanket to appreciate and pass down to future generations.