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Ernst Kuglin
Local News -- Monday, November 07, 2005 @ 10:00
CFB TRENTON -- A few short weeks later, Jacqueline Bastable might have
grown up to know her father.
Now 61, Bastable put one of the finishing pieces of her life-long search
to know and remember her father - Flight Lt. Walter Mitchell.
Bastable was just six months old when her father died in the freezing
waters of Lake Mjosa, Norway. Mitchell, a navigator, and four other
crewmen died shortly after Halifax NA337 crashed landed after being shot
down by fire from a German antiaircraft battery.
The ditched landing took place April 23, 1945, just 15 days before the
guns went silent in Europe
It wasn't until Saturday's unveiling of the famous Halifax that Bastable
finally felt connected to her father.
With her father's fully restored Halifax serving as a dramatic backdrop,
Bastable laid a wreath in remembrance of her father and the four other
NA337 crew members who lost their lives.
Second later Bastable walked back to her chair at the RCAF Memorial
Museum exhibition hall and wept. Her husband Robert Bastable gently
place his arm around his wife's shoulders in a solemn act of comfort.
Bastable had visited her father's grave at a cemetery in Lillehammer. On
a 1999 trip from the United Kingdom to Canada she had looked at the
Halifax.
The aircraft was still in pieces. The restoration project nearly six
years away.
But on Saturday, Bastable finally saw the finished product, a complete
restoration of the plane her father served as navigator.
"I finally got to touch something very real and realize this was the
plane that my father spent his remaining hours in,'' said Bastable.
"I can't really describe my feelings. This is incredible and Canadians
should be very proud of what they have accomplished.''
When she was a young girl Bastable tried to imagine her father sitting
in the navigator's chair as NA337 lifted off the ground in England
enroute to Norway to resupply underground forces near Grue.
"I tried to imagine what my father might have felt,'' she said.
She grew up not knowing her father. Bastable's mother, Ethel, found it
too painful to talk about her husband and the war years.
But Saturday's ceremony filled a huge void in Bastable's life.
"I think I can understand him a little bit more, and actually touch
something my father was in...this is the last place he was in before he
died,'' said Bastable.
Only one crewman survived the crash.
Flight Sgt. Thomas Weightman spent most of that ill-fated night in a
life raft before locals picked him up.
He was later turned over to the Germans.
Bastable has exchanged letters with Weightman, had telephone
conversations with the lone crash survivor.
"He's always wanted me to know that my father was the perfect
gentleman,'' said Bastable.
Now living in Essex, Bastable said members of the Halifax Aircraft
Association have shown a deep connection with the restoration of the
Halifax and its British crew.
During an earlier visit, members of the association presented Bastable
with the actual compass used by her father. It was mounted in a hardwood
frame.
"They've done an incredible, fantastic job,'' she said.
Even though the aircraft will serve as a personal memorial, Bastable
said it's important NA337 serves as a tribute to all the crew who flew,
fought, and died in Halifaxes during the war.
_________________ Mike R. Henniger Aviation Enthusiast & Photographer http://www.AerialVisuals.cahttp://www.facebook.com/AerialVisualsDo you want to find locations of displayed, stored or active aircraft? Then start with the The Locator. Do you want to find or contribute to the documented history of an aircraft? If so then start with the Airframes Database.
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