Memories...
My Dad, Robert T. Weller, RCAF, Pilot Officer
These are just a few images of family heirlooms that i've kept of my Dad's from his time as a Pilot Officer in the RCAF during WWII and his time on the Toronto Police Force afterwards.
My Dad, in uniform
My Dad's family with 6 kids grew up at 227 Erskine Ave., near Yonge and
Eglinton during the dirty 30's and the kids went to John Fisher Public School on Erskine and then onto Northern Secondary on Mt. Pleasant. I recall Dad telling me that during the winter months, the kids would skate down Erskine to and from school while in the summer evenings, the popular sport was 'dickie shine your light' while playing in Mt. Hope cemetery up the street.
My grandfather, William James Weller,
My grandfather, William James Weller, joined “ The Borden Machine Gun Battery,” as a
machine gunner in January,4, 1915, #867, as Private. He was part of the
Canadian Expeditionary Force in France and Belgium during this European War..Was he at the
1st, 2nd and 3rd Battles of the Somme? We are unsure, but the timing is
right for the Somme and the following battles in France and Belgium involving the 'Old Contemptables'. We do know that he fought in Belgium during the bloody WWI battle of
Passchendaele where he was wounded in October or
November, 1917. With that injury, his war was over and he was discharged from Christie Street Hospital in Toronto, Ontario
on December 31, 1917.
My Grandmother, Edith Weller
While in Christie St. Hospital, he met his future wife,
Edith Mae Shilling, who was a nurse's aide at the time.
My Grandson, Owen wearing his great-grandfathers RCAF uniform
My Uncles landed in Normandy with the Canadian
Army in WWII and fought in Montgomery's operation, 'Market Garden', sent
to liberate Belgium once again and provide a gateway into Germany. Uncle Jack McDonough was with the Engineers and Ski Patrol. My cousin Steve
believes he disembarked form the "Isle de France" in 1941. He volunteered for the navy, air force and army, but
was turned down for various health reasons, until the army finally
drafted him in 1941. Steve says that his Dad was thrown in with the Americans, I
guess in England, who were in tears that they had been drafted, but Uncle Jack was ecstatic! He trained at Camp Borden, Petawawa, and in Calgary.
He was on guard duty in Niagara Falls, Steve thinks, guarding the power
plant, when a family of skunks followed him along his path until he had
to turn around and march back. Luckily they wandered off! He was also
on guard duty somewhere, sometime and was inspected by Princess
Elizabeth! He always loved the Queen! Never a Christmas morning went
by that he didn't stop and listen to the Queen's message to the world.
He was a Private most of the time and was just made a Corporal before the war ended.
My Uncle Jack in Uniform
When
the Canadians liberated Holland from the Germans, they couldn't believe
the starvation and other deplorable conditions the Dutch people were
forced to live - or try to survive - under. So those big Lancaster
bombers flew in en masse low and loud and, instead of dropping bombs on
the Dutch, as had happened so often in the past, the big doors of the bombers opened up above them
and dropped them loaves of bread! Then went back and loaded up with
more food. Steve always thought that was a great story.
A view from the cockpit of a Lancaster
One of the youngest RCAF Pilot Officers in WWII, my Dad joined the RCAF in 1943 and received his Flying Officer Commission in October 1944, only 19 years old. Dad trained in
Dunnville, ON. and then on to Comox, B.C., preparing for the invasion of
Japan, right up to the Japanese unconditional surrender on August 15, 1945.
My Dad and Mom, during WW2
While Dad was stationed in BC, my mother was making Lancasters at Victory Aircraft in Malton, On. As a rivet girl, Victory made over 4,000 Lancasters, from plans developed in England. As it turned out, my sister was born on August 1, 1945 and they sent Dad home to be with Mom. By the time he got back to his squadron in Comox, the most horrible event of their time was drawing to a close.
Dad at the arrest of the Boyd Gang on Heath Street, Toronto in 1952
After WWII, my Dad joined the North Toronto Police Force with many of his childhood friends after they all returned from war and he was
stationed at old #12 at Yonge and Montgomery where, amongst many other
events, he was in on the arrest of Peter Woodcock, the child killer who
murdered little 4-year-old Carole Voyce, amongst others. Dad and his partner in 1957, both in plain clothes
went to Woodcock's foster mother's home around Yonge and Lawrence and
arrested then 17 year old Woodcock to the loud wailing's of his foster
mother. As I recall, an image of Dad and Partner, in plain clothes
escorting Woodcock into #12 made the front page of the Toronto Star! It
could even be the page that Dad put into his scrap book! I recall him telling me the story of the joint North Toronto Police/OPP
arrest of the Boyd
Gang at their hideout on Heath Street after their last prison break from the Don Jail. I also recall details in his scrap book, but when watching a
Boyd Gang special on TV last year, there he was, top left in full
uniform in a congratulatory 1952 photo with then Toronto Mayor Alan
Lamport, front and centre shaking hands with the then Chief of Police,
who's name I don't recall (not James Mackey) with the rest of the North
Toronto Police squad who arrested Boyd in two rows around
them. Dad was on a stakeout [from a tip] at Caufield's Dairy
on Manor Rd and Young St. at night, when The Boyd Gang
struck. Dad and his partner were upstairs where the safe was when the Boyd Gang
burst into the room. The Toronto police at that time carried .32 revolvers. We don't
know how many guns the Boyd gang had but one had a shotgun. In the next minute, they were all shooting. No one in the gang was hurt and they escaped. Afterwards, they noticed Dad's partner had his body outline on the wall in shotgun pellets where he was
standing. These days, they send in the ETF to do the dangerous stuff.
As a rookie, Dad started off as a uniformed constable walking the beat on Yonge Street and one day, shortly after receiving his St. John Ambulance training, a cab comes flying toward him and suddenly braked. The driver hollered at Dad to jump in the back seat as a young lady was in the throes of delivering her baby. Dad jumped in and off they went to the nearest hospital. When they got to the hospital, Dad handed over a newborn, still with cord attached to the nurses in Emergency...and then the cabbie drove him back to Yonge Street.
My sister recalls a photo of him lugging a teenager from a dairy. This appeared on the front page of, she believes, the Toronto Telegram.
In the late 40's, North Toronto Police led the way with personal service. When the father's in the community went to the Jolly Miller, in Hogg's Hollow on Friday nights, they didn't drive. They didn't need to as the cruisers were waiting outside at closing hour so their 'boys' could drive them all home. When my Aunt Pat, Dad's youngest sister was 15, was walking up Keewatin, between Mt. Pleasant and Yonge Street wearing a halter top, she noticed a cruiser in the distance. With that, she turned around and ran back towards her home but the cruiser roared up beside her and then stopped abruptly. In attempting to identify her, an officer then asked her, in no uncertain terms if she was, "Bob Weller's sister"!
In October 1954, I clearly recall peering out the window to the darkest day that I had ever seen when out of the mist, Dad's cruiser drove up. Suddenly Dad hopped out of the cruiser and bounded up the steps to get out of the pouring rain.
Looking like a drowned rat, he told us that he just came home for a change of clothes as he and his team where still pulling people out of the raging Humber River during Hurricane Hazel!
There are many other RCAF and North Toronto Police stories to tell so come back often.
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