Charley Fox

(1920-2008)

Charley would have loved the roar of the nine Harvards which flew in close formation over his grave site on Friday, October 24 just after Noon, performing the missing man --- followed by, wonder of wonders, a Hawker Hurricane and a Spitfire.

He would have smiled and shaken his head in humility to see the strong military presence including officers from Trenton and Ottawa. He would have had a tear in his eye and a smile in his heart to hear the words spoken by his son, his daughter, his grandchildren and his friend, Ted Barris, during his funeral; he would have chuckled to hear their stories and smiled and nodded his head at the reading of "High Flight". He would have loved the Bible readings and the music of the bagpipes as he left his church for the final time, and would have stood tall with bowed head on hearing "The Last Post" at the grave site. Charley would have admired the precision of the folding of the RCAF flag which had draped his casket and the reverence with which it was handed to his family. He would have loved seeing all the members of CHAA who gathered to pay their respects both at visitations and at the funeral, and would have been pleased to see his dear friends from Geneseo who made a special flight to London on Friday to attend his funeral. Charley loved life and always said strangers were just friends he hadn't met yet. If this were a perfect world, we would all take a lesson from this Canadian hero who put others first, who always kept his commitments, who wasn't afraid to show his love for his family, who fought bravely for his country, who spoke with passion to all who would listen about our need to remember and honor our veterans. We thank him for all he has given to us. We loved him, and we will miss him more than words can say. Thank you, Charley Fox.

With heavy heart we reported that H.Col Charley Fox passed away on Saturday, October 18, as a result of injuries suffered in an automobile accident. Charley had attended the monthly member's briefing and was enroute to Jimmy’s Restaurant in Tillsonburg as is the Saturday CHAA ritual.

Funeral arrangements were as follows....

Charles “Charley” Fox DFC, CD of London, Ontario. Honorary Colonel of 412 Squadron of the Canadian Air Force, in his 89^th year. Beloved husband of the late Helen (Doughty) (1995) and dear father of Jim (Cheryl) of Kitchener, Sue (Doug) of Thamesford and Adrienne (Bruce) of Budd Lake, NJ. Dear grandfather of Kristi, Todd, Steven, Ryan, Amy, Katie, Travis, Jeff and Jen their spouses and step-grandfather of Dominique, Frank and Veronica. Also loved by 6 great grandchildren. Sadly missed by 3 sisters-in-law Mary, Barb and Christine, many nieces, nephews, and some very special ladies who were additional daughters to Dad. Predeceased by 2 brothers Ted and George.

Charley served his country as a decorated Spitfire Pilot during WWII. He ended his tour of duty in January 1945 but became active in the London-based 420 Reserve Squadron after the war. On April 30^th, 2004 he was named Honorary Colonel of 412 Squadron passionately devoting his time and energy to honour the veterans, past and present. Throughout his working career, Charley contributed 30 years to the success of Tender Tootsies and Lyons of London. He will be missed by family, friends and everyone whose lives he touched.

Visitation was held at the Harland B. Betzner Funeral Home, 177 Dundas Street, Thamesford, ON (519-285-2427) on Wednesday from 7 – 9 pm and on Thursday from 2 – 4 pm and 7 – 9 pm. Funeral service was at at East London Anglican Ministries, 2060 Dundas Street, London on Friday, October 24, 2008 at 11:00 am. Rev June Hough officiating. Internment followed at Forest Lawn Memorial Gardens. As an expression of sympathy memorial donations may be given to the Canadian Harvard Aircraft Association, Stevenson Children’s Camp, or the Children’s Hospital Foundation of Western Ontario.

The Torchbearer

Charley Fox, the Canadian pilot who stopped Rommel in Normandy, died on Saturday at the age of 88. This is his story

Ted Barris, National Post --- Published: Wednesday, October 22, 2008

In the fall of 1945, a train carrying wartime troops from the campaign to liberate Europe delivered a 25-year-old air force veteran to the platform in Guelph, Ont. Flush with victory over the Luftwaffe, Charley Fox came home with one of the most distinguished air combat records of the Second World War -- 222 operational missions and two Distinguished Flying Crosses, as well as credit for taking Germany's most celebrated officer out of the war. He returned to his wife and son and the department store job his employers had held for him. There, he received an unexpected visit from the mother of one of his childhood chums, Andy Howden, killed in the air war overseas. The distraught woman grabbed Fox by the shoulders and shook him.

"Why my Andy?" she cried, "and not you!"

"Mrs. Howden, I don't know why not me," he replied trying to console the woman. So deep was the effect of this encounter that Fox committed himself to recounting the stories of fellow Canadian veterans. Eventually, his crusade to inform school children, historical societies and serving troops became known as Torch Bearers Canada. His sporty Saab with its flaming torch emblem on its bumpers has zigzagged across the province, delivering him to more speaking engagements than he flew sorties. He has spoken from the heart without fanfare and without a speaking fee. He has never stopped answering Mrs. Howden.

Over the weekend, his "Why not me" mission came to an end. On Saturday, Fox drove from the Tillsonburg airstrip to join fellow members of the Canadian Harvard Aircraft Association for brunch. He never made it, dying in a car crash just south of the airport. His CHAA friends lamented that at 88, Charley still had lots planned in life.

Charley Fox's teenage plans had never included flying. He once refused a flight over Hamilton for fear he'd be airsick. But on a summer day in 1934, when he was 14, he watched a touring flight of RAF Hawker Fury fighter aircraft swoop low and fast over his home in Guelph.

"They were silver-coloured fighter biplanes," Fox said. "Five [of them] came zooming over the top of College Hill, glinting in the sunlight. Then, swoosh, they were gone. But I never forgot it."

When war broke out in 1939, Fox left his job and enlisted in the RCAF. He'd set his sights on flying the fastest fighter aircraft of the day -- the Spitfire. Because he graduated second in his class, however, the Air Force told Fox he would train military pilots in the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. From 1941 to 1943, instructor Fox trained hundreds of pilots.

As a result of his two years of instructing in Canada, Fox accumulated 1,500 flying hours, but he still flew tail-end-Charlie (last man in a group of four Spitfires) when he joined fighter command at Tangmere aerodrome in England in 1944. On his first combat sortie over the English Channel with Canadian fighter ace Buzz Beurling leading, Fox overcompensated during a formation takeoff and accidentally allowed his propeller tips to scrape the tarmac. Later that night, Beurling disciplined him over a game of billiards.

"Shoot, Charley, that was a stupid thing to do," Beurling said. "The prudent thing would have been to turn back."

"That would make me look yellow," Fox protested. Just then, Tangmere station came under bombing attack. The two Spitfire pilots dove under the pool table for cover. Fox turned to his squadron leader for a final word. "Consider yourself told off," Beurling said. Initiation complete.

Charley Fox's brushes with history only began with Beurling. He scrambled numerous times from that storied Battle of Britain aerodrome in the lead-up to D-Day. As the June 6, 1944, invasion began on the beach, Fox and his RCAF 412 Squadron flew three operational trips over Normandy, protecting thousands of ships and landing craft.

"I felt very much alive that morning," Fox said. "For some reason, everything was so much more intensified at the moment --our smell, sight, everything. We were living on the edge."

Throughout that summer Fox and his squadron mates dive-bombed German rocket sites that began launching V-1 and V-2 rockets at English civilian centres. And as the Germans fell back in France, Allied Spitfires hastened the retreat by chasing German locomotives, tanks and truck convoys, all considered "targets of opportunity."

Fox's greatest "opportunity" appeared on the afternoon of July 17, 1944. He and his wing-mate Steve Randall spotted a German staff car racing along an avenue of trees. While Randall protected his quick descent, Fox swooped in out of the sun, strafed the vehicle and drove it off the road.

"I timed the shots so that I was able to fire and get him as the car came through a small opening in the trees … I got him on that pass," Fox said. "We were moving pretty fast, but I knew I got him."

By the time Randall and Fox had landed back at their base, the radio buzzed with exciting news. An Allied pilot had shot up a Horch convertible containing a driver, three German officers and the Desert Fox himself, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. By nightfall an American Thunderbolt pilot, a Spitfire pilot from No. 411 Squadron and several others in the air about the same time all claimed the score on Rommel. Charley Fox never talked about it, "but it's always been sitting in my logbook," he said. In 2004, Quebec historian Michel Lavigne announced he'd compared official RCAF and German military records to confirm the time, location and aircraft involved. Charley Fox had put the Desert Fox out of the war.

Victory was relative for Charley Fox. More important than the 361 enemy aircraft, 493 locomotives and 1,569 enemy railcars his RCAF Wing had destroyed was his wartime family: rigger Monty Montgomery and fitter Danny Daniels.

"One time I came in to land, near Nijmegen [Holland]," Fox said. "I couldn't get the under-carriage down. I elected to put the Spitfire down on grass beside the runway. It didn't do too much damage, [but] I remember Monty crying at the end of the runway, wondering what he'd done wrong."

Knowing Daniels and Montgomery had completed their tours by the time the squadron reached France that summer of 1944, Fox presented them with cigarette lighters engraved with their names as they were about to return home.

"Charley Fox," the two ground crewmen announced, "when you finish your tour, that's when we go home." His air force family remained with him until his final operational sortie in 1945.

As busy as he was, Fox always made time for his blood family, too. Following a speaking engagement two weeks ago, he turned down several offers to retire to a restaurant for refreshment; he'd promised to deliver some groceries to his daughter Sue down the road.

"Family comes first," he said.

"It's the kind of man he was," Sue Beckett said. "A man of compassion and integrity."

Ted Barris is a journalism professor at Centennial College. His latest book -- Victory at Vimy, Canada Comes of Age: April 9- 12, 1917-- is now in paperback.

Tribute to Charley Fox from Ted Barris

Oct. 24, 2008

I am a relative latecomer in the life-story of Charley Fox…

I met him 20 years ago next month. But even as a latecomer, I found Charley’s effect on me … instantaneous … involuntary … intellectual … and in many ways wonderfully intimate… I remember the day (four years ago), we staged a memorial for my father, Alex, at the Arts & Letters Club in Toronto. My sister and I had planned for about 150 people attending. Almost 400 showed up, including Charley. He’d driven up from London to be there. I didn’t expect him. But the moment he emerged from the crowd, I hugged him like he was a life preserver.

He said, “I just wanted to be there for you.”

That could well be the motto of the man’s life. “I just wanted to be there for you.”

Charley and I met at the Tillsonburg airstrip on a November fly-day. I had come down to do a short piece for CBC Radio about CHAA (the Cdn Harvard Aircraft Association). I’d been told about this incredible… larger-than-life… former Harvard pilot.

He’d instructed during the war. He’d won two DFCs overseas on Spitfires. I was a little nervous. I expected God incarnate. Then, I met him. You know the first thing he said to me? “Got Loonies for twos and fives for the cash box?” He was collecting change for the cash float selling coffee, sandwiches and donuts during the fly-day. He may have been a larger-than-life instructor and ops pilot. But that day he was the CHAA cashier… Mind you, he did change my life that day… forever!

Charley Fox made me realize what role the Harvards had played during the war. He made me see the value of those who’d instructed in them and learned in them. What’s more, by the end of that day, Charley had charmed me into believing I could, should and would write a book about it.

If I hadn’t come to Tillsonburg that day… I’d have never realized the importance of CHAA volunteers preserving those heroic old warbirds – the Harvards… I wouldn’t have begun my journey to search out instructors, (eventually I interviewed 4-500 of them all over Canada)... I wouldn’t have compiled a history, rich with real people stories. I wouldn’t have felt the urgency of the war effort here at home. Most important of all, I wouldn’t have sat down and listened to Charley Fox, as I did hundreds of times over the next 20 years. I wouldn’t have learned at the elbow of a master instructor… I wouldn’t have understood the true meaning of service to one’s country... I wouldn’t have given thousands of faceless instructors their first real recognition in half a century… I wouldn’t have written my first bestseller... Nor would I have come as close as I did to Charley Fox… the greatest friend Canadian veterans have ever had. That motto: “I just wanted to be there for you,” applied to Charley’s friendships, his sense of history and his drive to make a difference in the world.

Charley Fox wanted to be, and was there for so many things, events and people. Not to be the least bit corny about it, during the Second World War, Charley Fox was there for his family… his commanders… his comrades…and his country. I don’t think I have to recite here his entire wartime record. But it’s important to remember… he was there for Canada when he enlisted…He was there when the RCAF called him up – Oct. 18, 1940 – (exactly 68 years ago, to the day he died)… He was there when he graduated second in his wings class and, as a result, when his air force told him he would not fly Spitfires right away, but Harvards as an instructor… He was there for course after course of student sprog pilots whom he tutored and hurried through the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan between October 1941 and May 1943, so they could serve and survive in the most critical conflict of modern times... He was there, overseas finally, at Tangmere aerodrome in England, to prepare for the greatest military invasion in history.
And on D-Day, he was there (flying cover) for his brother, Ted, in artillery (and 15,000 other Cdns who landed beneath him on Juno Beach that June 6, 1944)… He was there for his 412 Squadron wing-mates – dozens of them – and for his ground crew Monty Montgomery and Danny Daniels – who reciprocated by refusing to be posted home until Charley had completed his last ops flight in January 1945…
He was there for his King and country and (though he always downplayed his DFC & Bar, saying “oh there were hundreds of them awarded”)… the fact is, he was a hero. And even though it took historians 60 years to catch up, records proved he was there to put Erwin Rommel out of the war… And, at the end of it all, he was there for his family – Helen, Jim, Sue and Adrienne and all their offspring whenever he sensed they needed him.  

Maybe most remarkable and enduring about Charley’s loyalty was his commitment to lost comrades and fellow veterans long after the war was over. He never stopped saying “I just wanted to be there for you.” He was there for air force cadets. He was there for more than 60 veterans’ reunions of the No. 6 SFTS Dunnville crew. He was there for the Canadian Harvard Aircraft Association (and countless other history preservation groups). He was there for the Canadian airmen, when most (even the moviemakers) forgot Canadians had spearheaded the Great Escape. He was there to raise the profile of the BCATP, the Royal Canadian Navy and the Polish veterans of WWII. And he was there (saying “Ready, Aye, Ready”) when his former air force squadron invited him to be its honorary colonel. I dare say no figurehead colonel ever worked as hard as Charley Fox in the preservation and promotion of the squadron’s legacy.

Charley and I spoke together… to school kids, service clubs, historical societies, military institutes, men’s social clubs, women’s groups, TV and radio – when thousands were listening or just a handful (I remember we even made a spontaneous speaking event in the middle of a shopping mall). There was no distance too great, no time too early or late, no group too remote to meet, greet and educate about his Torch Bearers mission. In statement and in deed, he continued to say: “I just wanted to be there for you.”

I suppose the true measure of a person… is how each of us (who lives on) remembers him. I will always consider myself one of his storytelling disciples… a proxy son (if that’s OK)… and (like his BCATP students) I consider myself one of his aspiring protégés…   Charley Fox didn’t teach me to fly… but he taught me that my reach should exceed my grasp… Charley Fox didn’t teach me how to survive a tailspin or a dogfight… but he gave me the tools to become a passionate veterans’ advocate… Charley Fox didn’t show me how to maintain needle, ball and air-speed… but he did help me to become a better writer … and (I think) a better person…  

I just hope I can say – for the rest of my life and out of respect for his memory – “Charley, I just wanted to be there for you.”