Family honours fallen pilot

Posted By IAN ELLIOT IELLIOT@THEWHIG.COM

Updated 11 months ago

The annual Battle of Britain memorial service was more than just a collective remembrance for the Carpenter family.

For them, it is a way to keep alive the memory of sub-Lt. Jack Carpenter, an aviator from Toronto who was serving with the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm before being pressed into service with the Royal Air Force at the start of the pivotal air campaign against Germany.

Ironically, he had written his brother following his first crash to say he much preferred to ride to the ground in a burning Hurricane and risk being burned or crushed to death in the plane to bailing out and hoping that his parachute would open.

His niece, Capt. Gillian Carpenter, herself a member of the Air Force and who is posted at Royal Military College, laid a wreath at City Park yesterday in memory of her uncle at yesterday's ceremony marking the 69th anniversary of the battle.

"We're a military family and we knew all about Jack growing up, so it's special for us to be able to remember him in this way," said Carpenter, as her three-year-old daughter Jacqueline -- named after her uncle -- watched from the crowd.

Carpenter, who was just 21 when he died when his parachute failed to open after he bailed out of his crippled fighter, was one of 23 pilots from Canada and the Dominion of Newfoundland to die during the Battle of Britain, although some records erroneously list him as being a British pilot.

He had shot down two German planes and was on sick leave after being injured during his second dogfight when he was called back to service in 1940.

"They were very short of pilots at the time, and that was why he was called up from the navy to begin with," his niece noted.

Yesterday's service was overseen by Col. Christopher Coates, commander of Kingston-based 1 Wing tactical helicopter squad -ron, who recently returned from a tour in Kandahar.

The service was punctuated by Winton Churchill's radio address to Britain in 1940, in which he announced the start of the air campaign and promised it would be Britain's finest hour.

Rev. David Ward, who gave the blessing, said the battle continues to resonate today.

"Some of us would not be standing here today had this battle not occurred," he told the crowd.

Carpenter just hopes she is not sent to another posting in the next year so she is able to lay a wreath remembering her uncle in 2010.

"Next year is the 70th anniversary and that's the big one," she said. "I just hope I'm still here for that."

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