Born 24/02/1923 in Wallaceburg, ON. The eldest son of Peter and Lucy (Duerinck) Cammaart of 122 Lisgar St., Wallaceburg, ON.  He had a brother Alfred/Albert at home. Fredrick attended Our Lady of Help – separate School and Merici  High School. After his graduation from Merici he attended the ‘Commercial’ department of Wallaceburg High School. After completing his course he joined the Personnel Department at the Dominion Glass Co. in Wallaceburg under manager Harold Frost.   Somewhat ironically Peter worked at the Schultz Die Cast Company in Wallaceburg as a labourer filing the flashings off of bomb fuse castings.  He attended Our Lady of Help church, where he was a valued member of the men’s choir, he is the second member of that choir to make the supreme sacrifice in this war.  

In August 1942 Bombardier Cammaart was stationed at RCAF-Toronto, he had recent visitor at his parents home. WN 13/08/42   Freddy held the rank of sergeant before going overseas.

Fred trained in Toronto at No. 1 Manning Depot, St. Thomas at the Technical Training School, returned to Toronto No. 6 Initial Training School then to No. 4 Bombing and Gunnery School  Fingal, from there to No. 8 Air Observer School at Ancienne Lorette, PQ. He wound return home for a pre-overseas leave leaving for Halifax, NS., on 26^th of  December 1942.

F/S Cammaart boarded the S.S. Queen Elizabeth 6/01/43 arriving at Greenock, Scotland on 11/01/43 where dis-embarked proceeding to No.3 Personnel Reception at Bournemouth on the south coast of England.

Shortly after arriving in Bournemouth F/Sgt. Cammaart writes, the only letter known back home to “Gladys in Wallaceburg” which goes as follows, dated 26/02/1943:

“ I arrived here from good old Canada after a very nice trip across during which I’m proud to say I wasn’t sea-sick. So far I like the company here very much and haven’t begun to feel homesick  although I do miss you all at home. The climate here is really terrific here; nothing but nice warm sunshine and blue sky and everything a beautiful green. It makes me shiver when I get a letter from home that says it was 10 below. I feel sorry for you poor people.

In the last couple of weeks I’ve begun to play golf and I’m beginning to play a pretty fair game. I’m also taking swimming lessons and to top it all off, I’m studying German. What a lingo!

I had a couple of weeks leave during which I met several ‘Burg Boys’ they were Earl Harris, Earl Carpenter, Hugh George and Dick Henry.”

[ All four of the ‘Berg Boys’ are listed on the Wallaceburg Roll of Honour – GOH.]

23/03/43 Fred transfers to No. 23 OTU (Operational Training Unit) at Pershore, Worcestershire. It is here that F/Sgt. Cammaart flies for the first time in a fully armed and operational aircraft in a Wellington Mk. III [a.k.a. a “Flying Cigar]. However the first week was taken up learning survival techniques on how to abandon a damaged aircraft, how to exit with a parachute and how to board a dinghy if you happen to survive a ditching in the ocean. After learning how to save yourself, the training switched to the real purpose for a bomber, bombing using 11.5 pound practice bombs.

Once the training was complete at OTU Fred was posted to 424 “Tiger” Squadron at Skipton-on-Swale in Yorkshire. 424 Sqd. was one of fourteen RCAF Squadrons that made up 6 group, the Canadian component of RAF Bomber Command.

On 22/07/1943 F/S Cammaart along with the rest of 424 Sqd. were transferred to Pavillier, a station 100 Km. south of Tunis, “in the desert wastes of Tunisia”. They were not alone, 420 and 425 Sqd., also became part of NWAAF (Northwest African Air Force), No. 331 RAF Wing, which was tasked with supporting the Allied campaign in Italy. That to say the Canadian flyer did not like this posting would be an understatement to be sure. Excerpts from the ORB (Operational Record Book) [a daily record of Squadron activities] bears this out as follows:

Sunday, 5 Sept., 1943 – Quite a number of airmen are sick today. Feeling under the weather. Cases of jaundice and diarrhea… it seems to be the hope of the great majority of this squadron, at least that we move to Italy and if not there, then back to England.

Friday, 17 Sept. 1943 – the Squadron was notified today that the movement order to England was cancelled definitely. All personnel very much disappointed after having been told that they would be moved.

Wednesday, 22 Sept. 1943 – The worst dust storm since we arrived here began at 12:45 hrs. today. At times one could not see 500 feet away. Dust in the air, in the eyes, nose, ears and mouth.

424 Squadron, flying the Wellington Mk. X bombers were tasked with flying over the Mediterranean Ocean to the Tyrrhenian Sea to bomb airfields, transportation centers on the island of Sicily and the southern parts of Italy in preparation for “Operation Husky” the invasion of Sicily. Fred’s first mission, flown 7/08/43 was a bombing run to Cape Bardi, he would fly twelve missions from Pavillier without incident, “mostly inaccurate anti-aircraft gunfire and searchlights – never hit by AA of enemy aircraft”.

Two missions on 22/09/43 “Unsuccessful trip to bomb Formia on west coast of Italy. Trouble with guns in rear turret”. [The tail-gunner was the eyes looking for enemy aircraft]. On 5/10/43 “Bombed airfield at Grosseto, north-west coast of Italy”. Good news arrived on the 27^th of March, 1943 when F/Sgt. Cammaart boarded the S. S.Samaria at Algiers, Algeria to sail to Liverpool, he arrived there safely on 6/11/43 into the “Snow and rain” of an English winter.

F/S Cammaart along with RCAF 424 Sqd. were moved to 1664 (HCU) RAF – Heavy Conversion Unit at Dishforth, Yorkshire to work up on Halifax bombers. It was here that Frederick would become part of the “Vornbrock crew”. The RAF had what we would think today a peculiar way of forming up a crew. All of the officers and other ranks were assembled in a large room and they wandered around finding whom they might want to fly with, every indication is that it worked well. In the end W/O Wilfred F. Vornbrook – pilot and “Skipper” 24 from Saskatoon; F/S John S. Laid, navigator, 21 from Montreal; F/S Frederick P. Cammaart, bomb-aimer, 22 from Wallaceburg, ON; Sgt. Leslie Honson (RAF), wireless air-gunner, 21 from Rochdale, Lancashire, England: Sgt. Lionel Walter (RAF), flight engineer, 22 from Golders Green, Middlesex, England; Sgt. John James Renning, mid-upper gunner, 21 Vancouver and F/S Francis P. Morrisey, tail-gunner, 22 from Winnipeg, MN., would become the “Vornbrock crew”.

The serious work ahead would turn this group of relative strangers into an efficient crew that would depend on each other’s skills if they were to survive their tour of duty. On an “operational station” bomber crews tended to stick together and did not social much with other crews.

In January of 1943 RCAF 6 Group becomes the first non-British unit in Bomber Command and on 23 February Arthur Traver Harris “Bomber Harris” would take over Bomber Command who believed that bombing German industrial cities along with large civilian populations would win the war for the Allies. The cost to Bomber Command would be high both in air craft and their crews would be large with fatalities of from 7 to 9.5% of planes in operational flying.

These facts would have been on Frederick’s mind, as it would be every crew in 6 Group. In order to complete a “Tour of Duty” every airman had to fly 30 operations (ops.). He had flown 12 ops  from the desert of North Africa but they only counted as ¾ of an operation so as he prepared for bombing Germany he had to complete 21 operations, he would be well aware that the odds were not in his favor.

Listed as “missing in air operations on 23 April, 1944 the Wallaceburg News of 6/07/44 the the International Red Cross had declared that officially dead, in information received by his parents.

The first step on the road to the 21 missions would begin in the early darkness of 13 March, 1944 from Skipton-on-Swale as the crew loadeded themselves into a Mk.III Halifax bomber for an operation against Le Mans, France. The Mk. III was a state-of-the-art death delivering aircraft. It was equipped with H2S ground-search-radar, “Fishpond” air-to-air radar to warn of approaching enemy fighters and GEE an aircraft navigation system, four 1,675 HP engines, 31.7-meter wingspan and 6 tons of bombs and a flying range of 2,800 km. The enemy was also very well equipped to stop them.

Lift-off for the “Vornbrock Crew” was 22:25 hrs. from Skipton-on-Swale to join 221 other bombers on the Le Mans strike. Their operation to Le Mans was successful and they arrived back at their station at 04:10 hrs. They had destroyed the train station and two nearby factories were severely damaged, 15 locomotives and 800 train cars were also destroyed all for the loss of only one bomber.

There was little rest for the crews in Bomber Command at 18:43 hrs. [6:43 P.M.] 0n 15/03/44 the Vonbrock in Halifax bomber QM-M took off from Skipton-on-Swale to join 862 other aircraft to bomb the industrial town of Stuttgrat, Germany. Woulfd they survive the enemy night-fighters and the anti-aircraft shells or would mechanical trouble bring down their heavy bomber? The ORB summed up their mission:

“Had to abandon the task at 4970N 0010E at 2048 hrs [2hrs and 5 minutes after takeoff] while flying at 21,000 ft. due to the port inner engine [left engine closest to the fuselage] failure. The pilot reports that the starboard outer engine [right engine furthest from the fuselage] was not running smoothly either. All the bombs were brought back to base.”

The next morning 37 bombers of the 862 failed to return, each with a crew of seven that meant 259 men were missing in action [MIA], killed, injured or POW’s.

The evening of 22/04/44 at the Halifax Mk III bomber QB-M, serial LV780, the Vonbrock crew left their base at Skipton-on-Swale this time the target was in the Ruhr Valley (aka Happy Valley) one of the most heavily defended area in Germany the target would be the industrial town of Dusseldorf. This mission when completed would mean only 17 more missions for Fred to complete for his tour to be over. This evening QB-M would be part of a 596 plane stream of bombers.

At approximately ‘mid-point’ in the trip to target the archives of the Dutch town of Tilburg record that :

Age: 21, KIA – Date of Death: 23/04/1944, in Halifax bomber # LV 780, on night  Air Ops., Target – Dusseldorf, Germany was shot down at Goirle near Tilburg, Holland. All of the crew was killed except for Flt. Sgt. F. P. Morrisey who was taken POW.

At approximately 2A.M. on 23/04/44 an airplane fell burning from the sky and crashed into the Mooen family farm, destroying the house and barn. The bodies included W/O. Vonbrock, F/S Laird, W/O. Cammaart, Sgt. Walters and Sgt. Renning. The following morning the body of Sgt. Hanson was found.

The olny survivor was F/S Morrisey, alive with a fractured leg he was taken to hospital in Den Bosch. The dead were put into caskets and buried at 7:00 A.M. on the 25^th of April, 1944 after a Holy mass for the three Catolics. Their graves were decorated with flowers from the locals.

The CDN 26/04/44 “Burg Airman Is Missing” WO 2^nd Class Frederick Peter Cammaart RCAF was reported missing “as a result of enemy action”. 

It was reported in the CDN 29/06/44 that Warrant Officer (2^nd Class) RCAF reported “missing on air operations on 23 April last, was yesterday declared to be officially dead.” This was obtained by the International Red Cross. 

Originally at Goirle, Holland, exhumed and reburied; Casualty Type: Commonwealth War Dead, Grave/Memorial Reference: 12. E. 3. Cemetery: BERGEN-OP-ZOOM CANADIAN WAR CEMETERY. Also found on the Bomber Command Memorial Wall in Nanton AB.

The interrogation of F/S. Morrisey taken on 29/05/1945, after his liberation from a POW camp gives some insight into what happened to Halifax QM-M :

“On the way home, there was a terrific number of fighter flares going down over Holland. Without any preliminary warning there was an explosion up front of the aircraft, presumably flack [an anti-aircraft shell]. The pilot shouts “Bail out, bail out and just as I am leaving I heard him say “for Christ sake hurry; I can’t hold it much longer”. The aircraft was burning violently – I said “rear gunner going” and out I went.”

“I got the impression somebody was hit over the escape hatch and prevented the rest of the crew getting out. But that’s only a guess.”

At the best of times the escape hatch was a tight fit and hard to get out through. With QM-M tumbling down and the crew being thrown around the fuselage, luck would have to come to the rescue of the trapped men.

The last time the Vonbrock crew is mentioned in the records of the 424 Sqd. ORB is in the summary of the operation for each crew on the Dusseldorf operation, as follows:

“This A/C carrying 1 x 2000 lb. bomb and 48 x 30 and 450 x 4 incendiaries failed to return and is missing from this operation.”

The crews belongings would have been removed from their quarters that morning when they failed to return and a replacement crew would have been brought in. Other crews on the station might have referred to the crew as having “got the chop” or “went for a Burton” to describe the missing crew.

On 22/07/1943 F/S Cammaart along with the rest of 424 Sqd. were transferred to Pavillier, a station 100 Km. south of Tunis, “in the desert wastes of Tunisia”. They were not alone, 420 and 425 Sqd., also became part of NWAAF (Northwest African Air Force), No. 331 RAF Wing, which was tasked with supporting the Allied campaign in Italy. That to said the Canadian flyer, did not like this posting and it would be an understatement to be sure. Excerpts from the ORB (Operational Record Book) [a daily record of Squadron activities] bears this out as follows:

The next day the 26^th of April, 637 bomber s left England for Karlsruhe, Germany and 19 would not make it back. “The meat grinder of Bomber Command churned slowly into the darkness.

Age: 21, KIA – Date of Death: 23/04/1944, in Halifax bomber # LV 780, on night  Air Ops., Target 

 

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Sources	No Return Ticket” by Alan Mann. Index of Overseas Deaths., They Shall Not Grow Old”, VIS-IODE, NRT, ISOD, TSGNO, W-RH, CDN (7/11/08, 8/11/08 and 10/11/08 (article by John Martinello Special to the CDN.).), VIS-IODE, Four part article by John Martinello from the CDN 8/08/2008, CDN (26/0 4/44 (MIA))
Supplemental Information	Born 24/02/1923 in Wallaceburg, ON. Son of Peter and Lucy (Duerinck) Cammaart of Lisgar St., Wallaceburg, ON. emetery: BERGEN-OP-ZOOM CANADIAN WAR CEMETERY.

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