Lot 36
Adolphus George Broomfield, O.S.A., R.C.A.
Additional Images
Note:
On Remembrance Day in 1941, as Canadians have since 1919, the citizens of Saint John, New Brunswick assembled in churches and at cenotaphs across the city to mark the armistice of 1918 and remember the war dead.
The Second World War was not going well in Europe, and many Canadian troops had already paid with their lives. The United States were not involved yet; the attack on Pearl Harbour was still weeks away. Bad news was not what the people of Saint John needed, but that is what they got. On this day of remembrance a Lysander II aircraft crashed near the municipal airport at the north end of the city, killing both the pilot (Officer John Wylie Wood) and his observer (Lieut. Alfred Byrne Jobin). The tragedy brought the distant war much closer to home, and reinforced fears about the safety of husbands, sons, uncles and grandfathers.