Pic: Dave O’Malley
The Canadian writer Dave O’Malley lives in the Glebe area of the country’s capital city, Ottawa. Nearby is the fine house in which Lewis Burpee, who skippered AJ-S on the Dams Raid, was brought up. Last year, O’Malley wrote this interesting article about Burpee and his family, and took the photograph above. O’Malley writes:
I paid a short walk-by visit to the former home of another young man from the Glebe whose life held great promise before the war took everything from him and his family. The young man’s family has long since moved away, but the memory of their loss will forever dwell in this house, recognized or not. The house is on a wide shady avenue in the most well-to-do area of the Glebe. The family was one of means. The young man’s life was one of privilege and opportunity. His name was Lewis Johnstone Burpee.
When details of the raid became public, the local newspaper carried the story on its front page. And, by tragic coincidence, in the same edition there was a further mention of the Ottawa man:
The Ottawa Evening Journal carried a front page story about the raids. In a tragic coincidence, it also carried a story about Burpee’s award of a DFM and his marriage to an English girl. The piece on Burpee began with “The Air Ministry in London today announced the award of the Distinguished Flying Medal to Pilot Officer Lewis J. Burpee, 25, son of Lewis A. Burpee, general manager and vice-president of Charles Ogilvy Limited, and Mrs. Burpee, 111 Powell. “That’s certainly good news” said Mr. Burpee when informed of his son’s decoration by the Journal.” For a day or so, the Burpee family felt comforted with the knowledge that Lewis was safe in England, happily married and highly experienced. Given the secrecy of the raid, it is doubtful that they had any idea their son was part of the historic event. That would change the next day.
In September 1942, Lewis Burpee had married Lilian Westwood, and at the time of the Dams Raid she was pregnant with their child. When Lewis was killed Mrs Burpee was given permission to travel to Canada to meet her in-laws for the first time, and to have her baby in Canada. Their son, Lewis Johnstone Burpee Jr was born in Ottawa on Christmas Eve 1943.
In May 2018, 75 years after his father was killed, Lewis Burpee Jr made his first ever visit to the site at which AJ-S crashed, shortly after being hit by flak. It is on the edge of Gilze Rijen airfield in the Netherlands, and a new memorial was unveiled there to honour Plt Off Burpee and his crew.
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