By Barb Brouwer
Special to the Observer
He never saw the frontlines, but 95-year-old Lawrence Williams certainly knew loss in the Second World War.
Three of his brothers served overseas but only one returned. Pilot Officer Leslie Llewellyn and Flying Officer Ronald Lennard both died in tragic accidents.
Llew, as Williams affectionately calls him, enlisted in 1942 and went overseas in 1943 as a member of Royal Air Force #1667 Heavy Conversion Unit.
He was the pilot of a Halifax Bomber that was struck by lightning over Scotland and crashed into the forest below. All five crew members died in the June 1, 1944 crash. Llewellyn is buried in Sleepy Hillock Cemetery overlooking the North Sea in Montrose, a community north of Edinburgh.
“He would have gone out on D-Day five days later,” said Williams about the attack codenamed Operation Neptune, the largest seaborne invasion in history. “I’m guessing that every piece of available equipment would have been out on D-Day.”
Lennard enlisted in March, 1941, was a member of Royal Air Force Squadron #272 and flew some 30 sorties (missions) out of a RAF Base in Malta. The 22-year-old flew a Beaufighter, an aircraft that proved to be an effective night fighter, had early airborne interception radar and whose large size allowed it to carry heavy armament.
Malta was a Mediterranean country that was almost bombed into oblivion in a two-year battle for control of the islands between the Allies and the German and Italian air force.
As a result, the island’s cities, towns and ports were destroyed beyond recognition and more than 1,500 civilians were killed. At the end of of the war, Britain’s King George VI awarded the George Cross to the people of Malta to “bear witness to the heroism and devotion of its people” during the great siege.
After a tour of 30 sorties not exceeding more than 200 flying hours, pilots were reassigned, usually as instructors with training units before flying a second and final tour.
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In 1944, Lennard was transferred to Shaluffa Station in Egypt as co-commander.
While training a student on Nov. 22, 1944, his Harvard Trainer went down in the Red Sea. The student was rescued but Lennard’s body was never found.
A third brother, Emlyn Williams, joined the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals and went overseas in 1941. He was posted to Frontline Italy for eight months then moved up to northwestern Europe with the Eighth Army.
Emlyn returned to Canada in 1945 and brought the wife he met in England home in 1946.
Williams joined the Royal Canadian Army Cadets in Foxwarren, MB. when he was in high school and was one of 500 cadets at a cadet camp on the Brokenhead River.
He tried to enlist in the Royal Canadian Navy prior to his 18th birthday. He was attracted to the idea of being a “sparks” or wireless operator on a ship. But his application was rejected because the war was winding down and recruiting offices were closing.
The father of four children and grandfather of 10 has been a member of the Royal Canadian Legion for 42 years and is still active with local Branch #62.
He and Harry Welton were the first to receive the branch’s Legion Service Award for their work on restoring the local cenotaph and the Memories Legacy Project in 2008, when the memories of 137 area veterans were recorded.
“We were trying to focus on why are you the way you are today,” he says, noting he and Welton wanted to get the stories about what the veterans did after their service. “Most of them wanted to forget the war memories but they couldn’t.”
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