| Rank | Sergeant |
| Service # | R20740 |
| Unit # | R.C.A.F. |
The son of Mr. and Mrs. W. T. Burke of Wallaceburg, ON. It was reported that he was home recovering from injuries received in a flying accident while training when the twin-engine he was in crashed on the west coast of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, near Cheticamp. The pilot was killed when the plane struck a mountain shrouded in cloud. Besides Sgt. Burke, two other student pilots were aboard the aircraft. They escaped without any significant injuries.
With the radio demolished, Sgt. Burke signaled a search plane by the means of an Aldis Lamp and Morse Code, but they were not rescued until the afternoon of the second day. It had taken that long for the rescue party to walk through twenty miles of forest to the crash site and then back to Cheticamp. It was from there that they were transferred to hospital in Sydney, NS. The following day, the survivors were taken back to the main base at Summerside PEI by their commanding officer. CDN 22/08/44, 15/01/46, W-RH, WHS-RH.
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