233474 Flt.Sgt. Frederick Peter Gordon Royal Canadian Air Force 178 Squadron from:Vancouver, BC My father, Fred Gordon was a very quiet, private man who never spoke about the war. What he did tell us was that it was horrific. He lost friends; had shrapnel in his ribs as a constant reminder and did not want to talk about it.
One evening, I wish I could remember the date, my mother called and told me to turn on the television.
"Your father is in tears. He keeps saying 'oh my there is....' I wondered where he got to."
My parents had been watching a program on CBC about the grandfather of a film student. After the documentary was over it was the only time my mother ever heard my father speak of this time in the RAF. She told me it was like the floodgates had opened up and the details began to pour out.
Later that year, at Christmas, I returned home with my family and at dinner one night he started to tell us stories about collecting bed bugs in a jar and taking them to the front desk of their 'hotel' in Italy so that they could get free rooms.
Then there was the time they were flying over the desert. He and his mates had been charged with placing fuses in frozen oranges. Whenever they flew over some tents they would light the fuses, throw the oranges out. As they fell to the ground the would whistle and then explode. If the people in the tents were German military not a single person on the ground moved. If not, the people on the ground would scatter. If they located some German troops they would 'call in the location'.
He then told us of flying tree top level behind the lines to drop supplies off to the resistance and how one night they were spotted, that is why he had shrapnel in one rib. He said he lost many friends that night. They were disbanded after that, signed an 'oath of secrecy' and he never saw any of his unit again.
More than that he never shared. I did find, after he died, photos of the military band he played with 'for fun' and copies of New Year's dinner dance menu and a Brigade Bulletin.
In the package of his war records there was a notification that he would have received 39-45 star; Italy star; defence medal; CVSM award and clasp. But I never found any of them. I have no idea what he would have done with them
|