HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA
ÒNever doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. Ó
Margaret Mead
Arnold Blynn of Middleton was a pilot in the Second World War. He has been missing in action since his plane went down over Poland.
PilotÕs family wonders if remains are his
By KELLY SHIERS Staff Reporter
The family of Second World War pilot Arnold Blynn learned by telegram that he was missing in action over Poland.
Sixty-two years later, his family learned from a newspaper article that his remains Ñ and the remains of the six other crew members Ñ may have been found entombed inside their plane.
"We havenÕt heard anything from anyone officially, nothing from the Canadian government," said his nephew, Wayne Blynn of Woods Harbour, who was born two years after his uncleÕs death.
"ItÕs only right that somebody should have notified us. . . . ItÕs frustrating. IÕm at my witÕs end."
According to weekend media accounts, including an Associated Press article printed in The Chronicle Herald on Saturday, Polish archeologists and historians have been working for about three months, trying to uncover the wreckage of a badly damaged Royal Air Force Halifax bomber that crashed on Aug. 5, 1944, in a muddy field near the town of Dabrowa Tarnowksa.
During a news conference there, officials said they found skeletal remains of the crew as well as maps, badges, parachutes, revolvers, a knife, containers of ammunition and clothing.
On board the flight were five Canadians, including Flight Lt. Blynn, 26, who was raised in Middleton and was a school teacher in the Annapolis Valley before joining the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1939.
Two other men Ñ one from England, one from Ireland Ñ were also part of the crew of the bomber that left Italy to lead a secret mission to Poland to drop supplies to resistance fighters in the early days of the Warsaw uprising.
Mr. Blynn said witnesses at the time said the plane was shot down after dropping its supplies. It crashed in a fireball, breaking into two pieces, killing everyone on board.
The family believed that Mr. BlynnÕs remains were first buried along with his crew in a local cemetery and then reburied after the war in a graveyard in Krakow, Poland, although Mr. Blynn said his grandmother never lost hope Ñ even to her death Ñ that her son would one day walk through the door.
Since the reports of the discovery of the plane and the remains, Mr. Blynn said he has scoured the Internet looking for more information, spoken to the sister of another Canadian on board the bomber and has tried to contact officials from the Warsaw Rising Museum who located the crashed plane.
With the help of another relative, he found pictures on the Internet apparently taken during a recent news conference at the site of the crash.
One of those photographs shows a pair of white-gloved hands holding an RCAF badge that Mr. Blynn thinks likely would be worn on a cap.
The caption reads: Badge of the Pilot.
"ThatÕs the closest that IÕve been to my uncle, ever," he said. "If thatÕs true, itÕs my uncleÕs badge. When I saw that on the Internet, it blew my mind."
He said heÕs especially keen to get in touch with officials to find out if they need DNA samples to identify the remains, to learn what will happen to the personal effects found inside the plane and to find out if the families will have input into whether the remains will be buried in Poland or returned to Canada.
Because he doesnÕt speak Polish, itÕs difficult for him to contact anyone in that country. HeÕs at a loss about who to call in Canada to find out more. "We just donÕt know where to turn now."
But he said Canadian officials should easily be able to find at least some of the crewÕs relatives since they were all brought to Ottawa in 1996 on behalf of the Polish government as part of a ceremony to honour Canadians who died trying to get supplies to the resistance during the war.
The relatives still remain in occasional contact with one another, exchanging Christmas cards, he said.
Veterans Affairs spokesman Janice Summerby said the federal department is aware that the plane has been found and that some remains have been discovered.
But she said it is department policy to wait for word from the Defence Department about the identification of the remains before trying to contact next of kin. That information has not yet come, she said.
She said itÕs not unusual for remains of Canadians killed in war to be recovered even after all these years, although itÕs unusual that so much information about the discovery is already public knowledge.
Ms. Summerby said any remains will be buried in Krakow with the remains recovered immediately after the crash, according to Commonwealth War Graves Commission policy.
"ThereÕd be no question of repatriation to Canada," she said.
© 2006 The Halifax Herald Limited
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