Homegrown Hero: The short, intense life of Uncle Geoff (1922-1942)
By Mary Leah Milligan de Zwart November 17, 2024
Uncle Geoff, my father’s younger brother, died in the Second World War. His mother, Edith Milligan forbade any mention of Uncle Geoff after his death. Even today, 82 years later, the cousins cannot talk about Uncle Geoff without choking up.
May 5, 2025 is the eightieth anniversary of the Liberation of Holland.
Here are the facts.
In November of 1940, at age eighteen, Geoffrey Eaton Milligan enlisted in the Special Reserve of the Royal Canadian Airforce. In March of 1941 he began Elementary Pilot Training. He earned his Pilot’s Wings in August 1941. His active service began in September of 1941. It ended September 10, 1942, over Holland when the Short Stirling Bomber Geoff piloted was shot down by a German night fighter. They were on their way back to Downham Market, in Norfolk England, after taking part in an incendiary bombing raid over Dusseldorf. There were no witnesses and no survivors. The crew of seven came from all over the Commonwealth.
Now for the story.
On January 10, 1922, Edith Hewitt Milligan and John Milligan of Bon Accord, Alberta, welcomed their last baby and third son of nine children, Geoffrey Eaton Milligan. At the time, Edith was 47 years old, and John was fifty-one.
Geoff grew up with older sisters to mother him. His siblings ranged in age from seven to 19 years old, and John and Edith had already started going to California and then Victoria in the winter. One of a very few family stories described Geoff’s fearlessness as a horseback rider, riding straight down a steep slope to the river.
In 1940 the Great Depression had been pushed aside by World War II. Geoff was eighteen and had completed his junior matriculation requirements and three senior matriculation classes in Algebra, Social Studies, and Physics.
Geoff enlisted on November 22, 1940, at Edmonton, Alberta. He wrote that he wanted to become a pilot. If he were unable to make a future in flying, he would go back to farming. His attestation papers included reference letters from the Bon Accord high school principal and the Bon Accord Postmaster. He wrote that he played baseball and hockey moderately and his special interest was shooting. At five feet eight and 150 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes, he resembled his older brother Jack, my father.
The enlistment process was finalized on February 24, 1941, when Geoff was pronounced “fit” at the Regina Medical Board. The R.C.A.F Special Reserve Interview report noted these qualities: healthy and rugged, poorly dressed but clean and neat, deliberate, organized, confident, and pleasant. One assessment said he had a developing personality while another said he was immature. He had a 10-cigarette-a day smoking habit and used alcohol occasionally. He was nineteen years old.
In the next few months of 1941, Geoff learned to fly at Elementary Flying School, Sea Island, Eburne, BC. One of the instructor comments in his flying logbook was “Tends to fly with his head out of the cockpit.” A pencilled note in the log indicated that his night vision was above average. All of Geoff’s training flights and missions were listed in the logbook as well as in his service records.
Geoff earned his pilot wings on August 20, 1941. Then he visited his family in Alberta for a week. He departed from Halifax on September 18, 1941, to join the Royal Airforce Squadron 218 (not the RCAF) as a pilot for the Bomber Command. It was a British squadron with a multinational crew, trained as part of the Commonwealth Air Training Plan. Geoff’s crew had two New Zealanders as well as four Brits. He was the youngest and the only Canadian on the crew.
Geoff flew active bomber missions for the RAF for about the same number of days as he trained, just under a year, until September 10, 1942. He piloted in three massive bomber command raids, Lubeck, Cologne, and Dusseldorf. The raids all involved the bombings of civilian targets and were credited with turning around the outcome of the war.
The Short Stirling Bomber was an effective bomb transporter, carrying huge payloads. It had serious shortcomings. It was enormous and clumsy, and an easy target at low altitudes for night fighters.
A memorial service for Uncle Geoff. Was held at Bon Accord, Alberta. His service is noted in the Book of Remembrance at the Alberta Aviation Museum. A white granite gravestone marks his burial in Bergen-op-Zoom, the Netherlands.
The pilot’s flying logbook arrived at the Bon Accord Post Office in 1948. It was delivered to Jack Milligan. Edith Hewitt Milligan had asked that a new baby be named after Uncle Geoff. The flying logbook filtered down to my brother named Geoffrey Eaton Milligan, born shortly after the war.
Uncle Geoff’s service medals and clasps were framed and always visible in a shadow box on the wall by his mother’s bedroom. The medals vanished sometime in the past twenty or thirty years.
The postscript to this story involves a Dutch connection and a cousin by marriage. Kees de Zwart (my late husband) immigrated from Holland to Canada in the late 1960s. Over the years, his cousin Lia and her husband Ruud Janssen have visited Canada many times. Ruud has become an enthusiastic Royal Canadian Legion member in Holland. He did not know about Uncle Geoff until October of this year. He asked friends to take a photo of Uncle Geoff’s marker at the Canadian War Cemetery in Bergen-op-Zoom.
I have not seen Uncle Geoff’s marker n real life, only the photo. The word “Pilot” appears under Geoff’s name. That is what he wanted to achieve, and he succeeded.
The marker and the care given to it by the people of the Netherlands provide an ending.
War is wrong. It will always be wrong. Nothing can ever compensate for any lives lost in war. Grief transcends the generations.