A War Time Treasure

A War Time Treasure
by G. William Streeter

Gail Hill is the widow of my cousin Ray Hill who was raised in Arran Township near Elsinore. Gail lives in Georgian Bluffs. We were exchanging well-wishes via phone on Christmas Day and we got talking about WWII. She told me the story of her Uncle.

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Gail’s family are of Portuguese descent and immigrated to Canada from what today is Guyana in South America. In WWII, the country was then known as British Guiana. Gail’s uncle, Frank Gonsalves, had volunteered in the British Royal Air Force and he was sent to South Asia. In August of 1945, shortly after the war had ended, he was in an aircraft that crashed into the sea and all on board were never found. Frank’s personal effects, including a parachute that he had used in training, were sent home to his mother.

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A short time after the war ended, the grandparents immigrated to Canada where Gail was the first grandchild born in 1951. Her grandmother made her a baptismal dress from Frank’s parachute material.  Gail still has this treasured dress today.

The family never knew anything more about Frank’s military life. They had tried to find out more but that was all that they knew.

I, of course, just had to get on the computer to see what I could find out. Here is what I can add to the story after a few hours of researching, assembly and writing.

Diego and Anita Gonsalves had immigrated to British Guiana from Portugal where their eldest son, Frank Winston Gonsalves, was born in 1917, in the city of Georgetown. On October 10, 1943 he volunteered into the British Royal Air Force. His training was in England and, in May of 1944, he was assigned to the 356th Squadron as a Flight Sergeant Air Gunner. The following September he was a member of the crew that was given the responsibility of caring for a brand new B-24 Liberator Bomber. This aircraft was an American made Heavy Bomber which was a highly modern aircraft for its day.

It was given the serial number KH218 and arrived in Montreal on September 15, 1944 for delivery to the British Royal Air Force. Upon its arrival in England, Frank and his fellow crew members took possession and headed to Singapore via India and East Pakistan, arriving in Singapore on September 24th at the British Air Force base.

The crew of eight consisted of Flight Sergeant Frank Winston Gonsalves and volunteers from around the British Commonwealth. They were:

Navigator P/O – Walter Frederick Mons Skipworth of Dover England
Captain -F/O– Roydon Hubert McLeod of Mather, Manitoba
Air Bomber F/O – Ernest Albert Penfold of Essex, England
WOP/ATR F/S – Sidney Solomon Aarons Family Location Unknown
Air Gunner- F/S – Robert Henry Lacey of Hamilton Ontario
2nd Pilot – F/S – John Stewart of Essex England
Flight Engineer F/S – George James Harry Snewing of Essex England
Air Gunner- F/S – Frank Winston Gonsalves of British Guiana

For the next 11 months, they flew bombing and surveillance missions against the Japanese, originally from Singapore before being moved to the Cocos Island base in the central Indian Ocean, in early 1945. On August 6th and 9th, atomic bombs were dropped on Japan quickly bringing an end to the war. Surveillance and supply missions continued for the weeks that followed however, to ensure that there was no further aggressive Japanese activity.

On August 18th the B-24 Liberator Aircraft serial number KH218 left the RAF Station on Cocos Island for a Surveillance and Supply Drop Operation in Central Malaya. Following are comments from the official report the the 356th Commanding Officer, F. H. Hall made in the “Circumstantial Report” for that mission.

Section 1.

– Left Cocos Island for a Supply Drop Operation in central Malaya.
– On return an early E. T. A. was signaled.
– Shortly after a S. O. S. was sent out but was quickly cancelled.
– Soon after another S. O. S. was received saying the aircraft was ditching.
– It gave course, height, approximate position and airspeed.
– No reason for ditching was received.
– It is believed that some mechanical defect developed because the message was very          hurried.

Section 2 of Report

– An intensive search was instituted.
– Sixteen sorties were flown over the next 4 days.
– On Aug. 20 a light was seen on the water by an aircraft doing the search. They circled        and reported this to base.
– Based on this information 2 HSKs and 3 Corvettes joined as well as a Catalina aircraft        that was sent to relieve the other aircraft.
– Nothing further was reported, and the search was called off on August 22nd.

Section 3 of the Report

– The aircraft had completed a satisfactory mission and they made a very successful drop.
– The captain, F/O Mcleod, was a steady and experienced pilot.
– There is no evidence that his handling of the situation was open to question.

All eight Crew members are remembered on the Singapore War Memorial that contains 24,318 names of those from the British Commonwealth that died in that area while fighting the Japanese in WWII. Included are 2,442 that were members of the British Royal Air Force.

We Shall Remember Them
Researched and Written by: G. William Streeter