Redirect Notice

LTC (Join to see) thanks for the read and share:

Claire Bennie Clark’s mother, Jane, adored her older brother, Bob Bennie. Jane was eight-years-old when Bob was shot down in Europe in June 1917, and a teenager in 1924 when her family traveled from Leamington, Ont., to France to look for his grave, without success. The story of that trip would be told and retold at family gatherings for decades to come.

“My uncle was never a distant memory,” Clark says. “He was very much a presence in our family.” Bob had been a big brother. He was a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse in Pelee Island, Ont. He used his first paycheck to buy his mother, Ada, a crystal bowl that was a fixture on the family dinner table in Leamington. He rode a motorcycle. He went away to war and didn’t come back.

Decuypere found Bob in the war diary of a clergyman in Geluwe and in the report of a German officer from 1917. Lt. Robert Smith Bennie flew a Sopwith Strutter, a two-seater plane. His observer was Arthur Metheral of Moose Jaw. Bennie and Metheral were taking photos over Menin, Belgium, on June 5th, 1917 when 16 German fighters appeared.

“When they were shot down they jumped out of their burning aircraft,” says Decuypere. “In that moment, they had a choice — and they decided to jump together.”