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Bancroft shares story of great-grandfather’s wartime Valour

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   A Delia man went on an emotional journey last spring when he visited the grave of his great-grandfather who was awarded the Victoria Cross for Valour in World War 1.
    The Mail brought readers the story of the DVSS students who travelled to Vimy last spring to celebrate the centennial of that nation-defining battle. On the trip, members of the Bertsch family visited the grave of John George Pattison, to which whom they are related.
   Robert Bancroft told The Mail he was there too, just days before, and in fact, Pattison was his great-grandfather, one of only four to receive the Victoria Cross at Vimy.
   “It still kind of brings tears to my eyes,” said Bancroft of the experience in Vimy. “I have never cried so much for someone I never met. It was a great honour.”
   Bancroft tells The Mail the story of Pattison. Originally, it was not him, but his grandfather John Henry Pattison who joined up in Calgary. The problem was he was only 15 years old.

   “They were getting ready to send him to Europe, and my great-grandfather (John George) found out about it and said, ‘if he is going, so am I,’” said Bancroft.
   “They never said anything to the enlisters until they got to England, and then they informed him that he was 15 and was held back.”
    John George, however, continued on his tour in the military and went to Vimy as a member of the 50th Infantry Battalion. This is where he became a war hero.
   On April 10, 1917, in the area called Hill 145, he was part of an advancement of Canadian troops that was held up by damaging machine gun fire. According to his citation:
“For most conspicuous bravery in attack.
   When the advance of our troops was held up by an enemy machine gun, which was inflicting severe casualties, Pte. Pattison, with utter disregard of his own safety, sprang forward and, jumping from shell-hole to shell-hole, reached cover within 30 yards of the enemy gun.
   From this point, in face of heavy fire, he hurled bombs, killing and wounding some of the crew, then rushed forward, overcoming and bayonetting the surviving five gunners.
   His valour and initiative undoubtedly saved the situation and made possible the further advance to the objective.”
   He survived the attack, but seven weeks later he became a casualty of war. On June 3, he was killed in an attack on a German-held Generating Station near Lens, France.
   “What happened there, and I got this from my cousin in Toronto, John George was covering a retreating action, with two other soldiers. He was covering that to allow the rest of the battalion to escape. He held the position and was wounded and died. It was actually the Germans who buried him on the spot.”
   He was later interred in the Chaudière Military Cemetery.
He was awarded the medal posthumously. The Pattison Bridge in Calgary is named after him as well as a Mountain in Jasper National Park.
   Bancroft tells The Mail that his medal is currently in the Glenbow Museum collection. His uncle spent many years trying to get the medal back for the family.
    Bancroft explains that it was tradition that the first-born son was to receive the medals when awarded posthumously, however it went to Pattison’s widow.
   He does have a number of documents and items from his great-grandfather he is planning to donate to the Military Museums in Calgary.

Drumheller marks Remembrance Day

The Pioneer Singers provide music for the Remembrance Day Service at the Badlands Community Facility November 11.

Lynn Hemming and Liam McDougald did a presentation of their experience last spring travelling to France to mark the centennial of the Battle of Vimy Ridge.

Members of the Drumheller Girl Guides recite In Flanders Fields.

Silver Cross Mother Mrs. Mary Zacharuk places a wreath at the Cenotaph.

Drumheller Sea Cadets stand guard at the Cenotaph.

Jack Turner recalls wartime plane crash in valley

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   Some memories are fleeting, lasting only moments or days, while others are burned into the mind for decades and are as vivid as if they have only happened days ago.
   After seven decades, Jack Turner can still see a plane crash into the Red Deer River like it was yesterday.
   Turner brought The Mail a spectacular story that happened January 8, 1944, while he was just a youngster playing hockey on an outdoor rink in what was then known as Parkdale. The Mail recently took his story, and helped to confirm the incident day. In its archives, it found a story in the January 13, 1944, edition of The Mail with the headline “‘War’ Comes Close to Home; Two RAF Flyers Killed Here Saturday.”
   “I am amazed that no one has ever regurgitated that story, again,’ said Turner, “It is as plain as if it happened five minutes ago.”
   Turner was in Drumheller on that Saturday like many others during wartime. As food was rationed at the time, his family would come into town from the farm in the Churchill School area and his mother would peddle cream and eggs door-to-door. While she was busy, Jack, then nine years old, and his cousin Barry would stay at his aunt's home on Riverside Drive, about a half a block from the hospital, and play hockey on the outdoor rink.
   He said on that day he heard a plane overhead.
   “During the Second World War, a lot of planes flew over the Drumheller Valley to train over the air pockets, I am told,” he said. “The sky was black with them, we heard them all the time.”
   On this day, when he heard the plane, he could tell one was very low.
   “I knew it, just instantly, I didn’t want to dull my skate blades, but I didn’t have time to take them off because I heard it coming. I ran around to the front of the house, Barry was toddling behind me, I looked up to my right, I could see the hospital, and that plane was less than 100 feet above it. “It was a yellow trainer. What they were going to do was come down and buzz the river,” he said.
   “They dived right down, on the deck, they were low, like right at the banks of the river. There was an electric cable across the river and all of a sudden it burst into flames.
   It burst into flames on a wing to start with and then pretty soon the whole plane became engulfed in 15 or 20 seconds. It was heading upriver and you couldn’t see the plane, all you could see was flames.
Turner said the plane could have veered left and gone into the residential area, but instead, it turned towards the steep bank, the nose turned straight up and then it crashed down on to the bank on the north side of the river.
   He recalls that according to talk at the time many believed the flyer would have been electrocuted, but Jack believes the pilot was a hero.
   “That pilot was still alive and he didn’t want to put it down over in the houses,” he said.
   “As far as I know, to this day, my cousin Barry and I were the only ones that saw it from start to finish.”
     According to The Drumheller Mail report:
   “Two airmen from No. 37 S.F.T.S., R.A.F Calgary, were killed Saturday afternoon at 3:15 when their Harvard trainer burst into flames and crashed on the hillside immediately north of Third St. E, Drumheller. The plane struck aerial wires which spanned the Red Deer River north of Fifth St. E.
   A number of Drumheller residents witnessed the crash and within a few minutes hundreds of people were attracted to the scene of the accident.
   Drumheller Fire Brigade answered an emergency alarm, but there was little they could do other than to quelch the flames by means of chemicals.”
   “I can see it like it happened three minutes ago, I can’t tell you what happened yesterday, but I can sure tell you about that plane,” he laughs.

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