Documenting the WWII Fallen of Toronto's Elementary Schools
Carlin Anthony Bannon
Patrick Bannon, Carl's grandfather, was born in Vaudreuil, Quebec, near Montreal, in 1840, the son of an Irish immigrant. In 1871 Patrick married Ann Carlin, a girl from Argenteuil, 25 kilometres from Vaudreuil. They left Quebec after their wedding and settled on a farm in Lambton Mills. Most of their land was east of Walford Road (previously named Millwood Avenue) and today's Bannon Avenue runs through what was their property. A stream which flowed from Lambton Kingsway Park (The Shale Pit) ran through their land to the Humber River. Their street address was Fisher Road, which is today's Kingsway Crescent and they built their house at number 86 in the 1880s.
Their first child, James, arrived in 1872, followed by Carl's father, John Patrick in 1875, Elizabeth in 1878 and Joseph in 1883. Although the family was Roman Catholic, the children attended Lambton Mills school, which was a one room schoolhouse built in 1875 on the corner of today's Prince Edward Drive and Government Road. Prince Edward had been named Blizzard Road until World War I and Lambton Road for several years after that.
The sons worked on the family farm and each eventually married. John Patrick Bannon wed Catherine Alice Gracey on April 8, 1908. Born in 1885, she came from a farm near the village of Highfield, which was in today's north Etobicoke, near Woodbine Racetrack. Her sister Maggie married John's brother Joseph in 1914.
Between 1909 and 1928, John and Catherine produced a very large family – nine boys and seven girls. Carl was born on September 25, 1923, the eleventh in the family. In 1925, John entered his children in the “Largest, Best Looking Family” competition at the Canadian National Exhibition.
Grandfather Patrick had passed away in 1913 and his land was bequeathed to his children. John continued working the property as a market gardener. In the 1920s he and his brothers took jobs as machinists for the Canadian Pacific at the rail yard north of Dundas Street. In 1925, James Bannon lived at 54 Fisher Road (94 Kingsway Crescent), Joseph lived at 60 Fisher Road (88 Kingsway Crescent) and their sister Elizabeth lived in the family house. John and his family lived on Fisher's Lane, a road which essentially ran from Prince Edward to Kingsway Crescent, along the back property lines of today's Queen Anne and Kingsgarden Roads. Part of the lane was still visible at Prince Edward Drive until the 1970s.
Young Carl followed his siblings to Lambton Mills school in 1930. By 1930, the original schoolhouse had been demolished and when Carl started his first class, the school consisted of a building which had been opened in 1918, followed by a small addition in 1922, for a total of approximately 9 classrooms. The Lambton Mills area underwent tremendous growth between the First and Second World Wars. The farmland made way for suburban housing and another four classroom addition to the school was opened in 1936. Carl graduated public school in 1940 and continued to Weston Vocational which he attended for a year before leaving school in 1941. He achieved excellent marks in Mathematics, Electricity and Woodworking, the latter being one of his hobbies. By the early 1930s his family had moved to today's 74 Kingsway Crescent on the southern boundary of their property. The Bannons gradually subdivided their land during the Second World War for housing.
Detail of a 1937 aerial view of Lambton Mills. The remnant of Fisher's Lane is visible south of Queen Anne Road, running east from Prince Edward. From www.wikiwand.com/en/Lambton_Mills.
Carl wasn't an athlete, but he liked to play rugby, baseball and hockey. After he graduated, he worked for Aluminum Good Manufacturers, which was a munitions factory on the north side of Dundas, just west of Scarlett Road. He was a lathe operator and enjoyed his job.
On November 11, 1942, Carl signed his air force papers, but wasn't formally activated until February 22, 1943. He spent several weeks at the Manning Depot on the Exhibition Grounds in Toronto. The course taught basic training and kit maintenance and after that the pilot and navigator candidates were sent to Initial Training school. Although Carl only stated that he wished to be part of an air crew, he did not indicate any specialization and after the Manning Depot, he pursued the air gunners' stream. On April 3 he arrived at No. 4 Bombing and Gunnery school which was located near St. Thomas, Ontario to start courses in aerial machine gunnery.
As Carl had only attended one year of high school, he took the Pre-Aircrew Education courses at the University of Toronto in May. His subjects were English, Math and Signals and in the latter course he scored 93. He was given leave from May 29 to June 11 as he waited for his next course to begin at Trenton's Air Gunners Ground Training School. After six weeks in Trenton, he took the train to No. 3 Bombing and Gunnery School in Macdonald, Manitoba, 16 kilometres northwest of Portage la Prairie, starting his course on July 25. There Carl had gunnery training on Battle and Bristol aircraft. Carl wasn't an athlete, but he liked to play rugby, baseball and hockey. After he graduated, he worked for Aluminum Good Manufacturers, which was a munitions factory on the north side of Dundas, just west of Scarlett Road. He was a lathe operator and enjoyed his job.
On November 11, 1942, Carl signed his air force papers, but wasn't formally activated until February 22, 1943. He spent several weeks at the Manning Depot on the Exhibition Grounds in Toronto. The course taught basic training and kit maintenance and after that the pilot and navigator candidates were sent to Initial Training school. Although Carl only stated that he wished to be part of an air crew, he did not indicate any specialization and after the Manning Depot, he pursued the air gunners' stream. On April 3 he arrived at No. 4 Bombing and Gunnery school which was located near St. Thomas, Ontario to start courses in aerial machine gunnery.
As Carl had only attended one year of high school, he took the Pre-Aircrew Education courses at the University of Toronto in May. His subjects were English, Math and Signals and in the latter course he scored 93. He was given leave from May 29 to June 11 as he waited for his next course to begin at Trenton's Air Gunners Ground Training School. After six weeks in Trenton, he took the train to No. 3 Bombing and Gunnery School in Macdonald, Manitoba, 16 kilometres northwest of Portage la Prairie, starting his course on July 25. There Carl had gunnery training on Battle and Bristol aircraft. By the time Carl was awarded his air gunner wing on September 3 and promoted to Sergeant, he had spent 29.5 hours in the air. His instructors described him as an “industrious worker, clean-cut, possesses a sound knowledge of his trade.”
Carl returned to Toronto and his family the next day for his two week embarkation leave. He reported to Halifax on September 18 to await a ship to Britain. Carl had the unusual diversion of taking a troop ship from New York City on October 8 as there appears to have been a bottleneck of men shipping out of Halifax. He reported to the Personnel Reception Centre in Bournemouth, England on October 17. All RCAF members who landed in Britain were sent to Bournemouth to await their assignment.
Carl in September 1943. He is standing on Kingsway Crescent with Bannon Avenue and his grandfather's house behind him. From the Canadian Virtual War Memorial.
October 26 saw Carl arrive at No. 22 Operational Training Unit (OTU), where he would be prepared for operations on the aircraft he would eventually fight in. This OTU trained RCAF crews on Wellington night bombers. It was located at RAF Wellesbourne Mountford, 6 kilometres east of Stratford-Upon-Avon. Carl was given leave almost immediately and returned for duty on November 3. As each new class arrived, the men would meet each other at an informal social event and form crews. Carl arrived at the unit on the same day as William Allen Hobson, an 18 year old gunner from Alberta. They had sailed on the same ship from New York and teamed up at the OTU. Other than the two gunners, it appears that their pilot, Gordon Henry Schlitt, a 20 year old also from Alberta and their air bomber, Edward Addy Davis, a married 24 year old father from Victoria, didn't arrive at the unit until November 16. The crew slowly filled out and by December 14, they were a full complement. The new members were navigator Clarence Walter Pearce, a 29 year old from St. Catharines, Ontario and 22 year old Frederick Arthur Nichols, a wireless operator from Nova Scotia. For the first few weeks of a course, the crew took ground courses while the pilot got the hang of the large Wellington bomber.
Wellington bomber. United Kingdom Government photo.
Carl celebrated Christmas and New Year's on the base. Training continued into the New Year, mostly in the air at night. One of their instructors was Flying Officer Lionel Wollaston Matthews from Calgary. Although he was only 23 years old, he had already completed a tour of duty. He had flown thirty-one operational sorties over Germany, Italy and Tunisia and had been awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal for his success. After completing a tour, airmen became instructors, sharing their operational experience with trainees.
On January 30, 1944, Matthews was at the controls of the crew's Wellington for bombing practice on a range 20 kilometres east. The bomber took off at 1924 hrs from Wellesbourne Mountford, climbing to 4000 feet. Two or three minutes into the flight, permission was requested to bomb. Several minutes later, another Wellington crew on the same course spotted Carl's plane on fire. Carl's bomber took a steep dive and crashed into farmland 11 kilometres from the airfield at 1931 hrs. All aboard were killed instantly. The subsequent investigation noted that the crew had not attempted to bail out. A piston in the port engine failed, causing a fire which had spread too rapidly.
Carl and his crew mates were buried on February 2 in Stratford-Upon-Avon Cemetery with a full military service. Carl's class at the OTU had sixty-five men. By the end of the war, twenty-three had been killed, two were prisoners of war and four had been shot down and evaded capture (source: www.aviationarchaeology.org.uk).
Carl's grave, Stratford-Upon-Avon Cemetery. From militaryimages.net.
Carl's parents continued to live on Kingsway Crescent. After John passed away in 1955, Catherine sold her house and moved to an apartment on Vaughan Road. She died in 1961.