Claude Berges

Other Events:

• Interesting: war, military, misfortune, life story
• Military: WW2
• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-305911
• Residence: 1921, St. Jacobs, Woolwich Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Roman Catholic
• Misfortune: 9 Feb 1945, Norway; shot down and killed over Nazi-occupied Norway

Notes:

.....Pilot Rex Myrick , 22, lifted off from northern Scotland on a warm, clear afternoon. Navigator Claude Berges , 27, sat in the seat behind him.

Their twin-engine, heavy fighter had loaded cannons, rockets under the wings, and a rare target.

A reconnaissance patrol had spotted a German destroyer in a Norwegian fiord north of Bergen. It was supported by at least nine escort vessels.

Nazi Germany had little navy left. It was three months from defeat. But it was still a formidable foe, desperate to maintain Norwegian shipping lanes that supplied iron ore for the German war machine.

The Allies felt they had to attack.

Rex and Berg, as he liked to be called, belonged to 404 Squadron, Royal Canadian Air Force . Its motto was "Ready to Fight."

Both had trained for years, but had yet to face the enemy. They had crewed together for just two months.

Pairing them made sense. Both were sons of southern Ontario merchants. Rex's father owned a butter-making creamery in Tillsonburg. Berg's father owned a bakery in downtown Kitchener, at Weber and Frederick streets.

You could call them bread and butter. Perhaps that's how Rex felt when he picked Berg to be his navigator.

"I think we'll get along fine together," Rex wrote to his parents.

Berg had attended Kitchener Collegiate Institute. He pondered becoming a pharmacist. When he enlisted to fight, he joined the army before switching to the air force.

In 1943, he married in Quebec City while training there. He left his bride Hilda to go overseas. The couple had no children.....

Outhit, J. (2018). Ring brings back memories of shot-down pilot. TheRecord.com. Retrieved 9 February 2018, from https://www.therecord.com/news-story/8125592-ring-brings-back-memories-of-shot-down-pilot/

Claude — Hilda Delaney. Hilda was born CA 1917. [Group Sheet]