Friday, 11 June 2010
Winnipeg, Canada
Introduced to Tim Horton’s by Mr & Mrs Manitoba. Canada’s answer to Starbucks. Breakfast for the three of us costs CA$ 7!!! About £4. Three coffees and bagels. Bloody hell. That’s cheap. Costs about £4 for a coffee alone in the UK.
We’re to meet Maurice Shnider. A small modest man with combed back white hair and a neat white moustache. Who is 87. And his girlfriend. Who is 80. Both look sprightly and twenty years younger than they are. Maurice is still a practising doctor.
Maurice never met my Great Uncle but heard all about him from his best friend Ron Bradford, my Great Uncle’s second officer. Maurice recalls the time that Great Uncle and Ron were so hungover one morning that Ron had to take off and then scramble back in the aircraft to do the navigating. Love all these little anecdotes.
Maurice trained in Prince Edward Island and Winnipeg and being a navigator also undertook Bomber and Air Gunner training before being transferred to Lough Erne in Northern Island and then Bowmore on the Isle of Islay and Oban, in Scotland.
Great Uncle trained at Carberry, near Brandon, Manitoba, then Prince Edward Island. Before also being based in Lough Erne and Bowmore before being finally transferred to Pembroke Docks and 228 Squadron Coastal Command.
Maurice has researched the U-boat that shot down my Great Uncle and his crew whilst it was itself being attacked by them. As a result, U-564 was badly damaged. Commanded by Hans Fiedler it was eventually destroyed the following day by the RAF. In the intervening hours it required escorting back to base. The U-boat Commander that escorted the stricken U-564 was August Maus (Commander U-185) and Maurice had researched him and managed to contact his family in Hamburg. Who had no idea whatsoever of their father’s role and that he was in fact a famous U-boat commander awarded the Knight’s Cross by Hitler. He had shot down a number of aircraft and ships but was eventually taken prisoner of war by the US Navy. They had no idea until Maurice rang them up decades later. Google him.
I mean. Can you imagine it. Some foreigner rings you up and tells you your father was a famous U-boat commander. And your father never said anything about it.
Absolutely mesmerising listening to this really interesting chap.
And a connection to my Great Uncle.
