VIGARS o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-08-19 published
MYNARSKI's man
FRIDAY
Knocked unconscious, the young bomb aimer was saved when his
flight engineer pushed him out of their stricken Lancaster
By Tom HAWTHORN
Special to The Globe and Mail Tuesday, August
19, 2003 - Page R7
Victoria -- A Second World War bomb aimer who survived an ill-fated
mission during which his friend Andrew
MYNARSKI was later awarded
a posthumous Victoria Cross for trying the save a trapped fellow
crewman has died. Jack
FRIDAY, who spent his peacetime career
with Air Canada, died in Thunder Bay.
Mr. MYNARSKI's sacrifice awed a generation of children who learned
of it in their school readers. Mr.
FRIDAY was often asked to
recount what happened aboard his doomed Lancaster as it burned
over France. What many did not realize was that Mr.
FRIDAY only
learned the details of Mr.
MYNARSKI's heroism after the end of
the war.
On June 12, 1944, his Royal Canadian Air Force crew was assigned
to bomb the railroad marshalling yards at Cambrai. The mission
was similar to others in recent days, as No. 419 (Moose) Squadron
attacked German reinforcements being rushed forward to repel
Allied forces in Normandy.
Six days earlier, the crew had bombed coastal guns at Longues
in the early-morning hours before the invasion fleet landed on
D-Day. The Cambrai target -- their 13th mission -- was to be
attacked on in the early morning hours of June 13. Later, superstitious
survivors would speak of that coincidence as a missed omen.
Their Lancaster lifted off the runway at Middleton St. George
in Yorkshire at 9: 44 p.m. on June 12. After crossing the English
Channel, the bomber was coned -- caught in searchlights -- but
the pilot, Flying Officer Arthur DE
BREYNE, managed to manoeuvre
his craft out of the dreaded lights.
The reprieve did not last long.
Rear gunner Patrick
BROPHY, who sat in an isolated compartment
at the rear of the aircraft, spotted an enemy fighter below.
"Bogey astern! Six o'clock!" he shouted into the intercom, just
before a Junkers 88 attacked.
Mr. DE BREYNE threw the bomber into an evasive corkscrew. In
an instant, though, his plane was rocked by three explosions.
Both port engines were knocked out and the wing set afire. A
hydraulic line in the fuselage had also been severed and the
midsection of the plane was burning.
The pilot ordered the crew to evacuate as he struggled to prevent
the Lancaster from going into a dive. Mr.
FRIDAY's duty as bomb
aimer was to release the escape hatch. As he did so, the rushing
wind whipped the steel door open, striking him above the right
eye.
Flight engineer Roy
VIGARS was the first among the other crew
to clamber to the hatch.
"I made my way down to the bomb-aimer's position and found Jack
FRIDAY slumped on the floor, unconscious," Mr.
VIGARS told Bette
PAGE for her 1989 book, Mynarski's Lanc. "I rolled him over,
clipped on his parachute pack, and slid him over to the escape
hatch and dropped him through the opening while holding on to
the ripcord."
The act was risky, as the parachute could have wrapped around
the craft's tail wheel. Mr.
VIGARS saw that Mr.
FRIDAY's parachute
had opened clear of the bomber. He then jumped, followed by wireless
operator James
KELLY, navigator Robert
BODIE and the pilot, who
had recovered control of the bomber and set it on a gentle descent.
Unknown to those men, a terrible drama was being played out at
the rear of the flaming craft.
As Warrant Officer
MYNARSKI prepared to jump, he looked back
to see that Flying Officer Patrick
BROPHY was still at his rear-gunner's
position.
Mr. MYNARSKI, the mid-upper gunner, crawled through the burning
fuselage, his uniform and parachute catching fire. Mr.
BROPHY
was trapped in his seat and the men struggled desperately to
free him.
Finally, Mr.
BROPHY told Mr.
MYNARSKI to jump without him.
Mr. MYNARSKI crawled back through the fire, stood at the door,
saluted his doomed comrade, and leapt into the inky sky with
his uniform and parachute in flames.
Aboard the Lancaster, Mr.
BROPHY prepared for certain death.
Some miles away, Mr.
FRIDAY floated unconscious to earth by parachute,
landing near a chateau at Hedauville. A pair of farm workers
found him in a vineyard the next morning. He was taken to a local
doctor who feared reprisals for treating an Allied airman. The
injured man was turned over to the Germans.
Mr. FRIDAY finally regained consciousness on June 17, wakening
in a prison cell in Amiens. He feared he had lost his eye. A
fellow prisoner peeked beneath Mr.
FRIDAY's bandages and saw
that a flap of skin was blocking his vision. The wound had not
been stitched.
Mr. FRIDAY was reunited with Mr.
VIGARS as their captors prepared
to transport prisoners to Germany.
The pair were sent to an interrogation centre near Frankfurt,
before being transferred to Stalag Luft 7 at Bankau, outside
Breslau (now Wroclaw), in Silesia near Poland.
The men were separated again on January 18, 1945, as the Germans
marched prisoners out of the camp ahead of the advancing Soviet
army. The forced march was arduous. Many died of disease, exposure
and exhaustion. Mr.
FRIDAY survived by stealing frozen beets
and potatoes from farmer's fields. He would later remember the
only warm night of the march was spent in a barn, where he snuggled
overnight with a cow. Mr.
FRIDAY was at last liberated by the
Soviets in April.
He returned to England in May, where, as recounted in the 1992
book, The Evaders, he prepared a statement, the brevity of which
perfectly captured his sense of the dramatic events. "Took off
from Middleton St. George. Do not remember briefing or takeoff.
First thing I remember is coming to in a hospital in Amiens."
Only later did he learn what happened aboard the Lancaster. As
the bomber crashed, the port wing struck a tree, causing the
plane to veer violently to the left. The force freed Mr.
BROPHY
from his turret prison and he landed against a tree, far away
from the burning wreckage. He had survived.
Mr. MYNARSKI, the
son of Polish immigrants and a leather worker
in civilian life, was not as fortunate. He was found by the French,
but was so badly burned that he soon died from his injuries.
He was 27.
The other crewmen, including Mr.
BROPHY, evaded capture with
the assistance of French civilians.
John William
FRIDAY was the third son born to a pharmacist in
Port Arthur, Ontario, on December 21, 1921. He graduated from
Port Arthur Collegiate Institute before joining the Royal Canadian
Air Force in 1942. He was demobilized with the rank of flying
officer. He worked as an Air Canada passenger agent for 31 years
before retiring in 1985.
In 1988, he joined his former crew mates in ceremonies marking
the dedication of a restored Lancaster at the Canadian Warplane
Heritage Museum at Mount Hope, Ontario The aircraft, which was
refurbished in the colours and markings of the crew's plane,
has been designated the
MYNARSKI
Memorial
Lancaster.
MYNARSKI's
name also graces a string of three lakes in Manitoba, as well
as a park, a school and a civic ward in his hometown of Winnipeg.
Mr. FRIDAY died of cancer in Thunder Bay, Ontario, on June 22.
He leaves Shirley (née
BISSONNETTE,) his wife of 54 years, five
children and four younger sisters. He was predeceased by two
brothers.
Mr. BROPHY, whose life he tried to save, died at age 68 at St.
Catharines, Ontario, in 1991. According to the second edition
of MYNARSKI's Lanc, Mr.
VIGARS, who saved Mr.
FRIDAY's life,
died in 1989 at Guildford, England; Mr. DE
BREYNE died at St.
Lambert,
Quebec, in 1991; and, Mr.
BODIE died in Vancouver in
1994. Mr. FRIDAY's death leaves James
KELLY of Toronto as the
only survivor.
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