Dr. C.M. Johnston's Project

Henry J. Novak

In October, 1945, Dr. George P. Gilmour, the Chancellor of McMaster University, wrote a letter of condolence to Joseph Novak, lamenting "the long agony of ... suspense" about the wartime fate of his son, Henry, reported missing on a bombing flight over Germany earlier in the year. "Please accept", Gilmour continued, "this belated but sincere expression of my personal sorrow, and my assurance that Henry's place is a proud one in our annals and in our memories.... We are proud to have had [him] for a little while, and to acknowledge that through [his] sacrifice [this] university has been preserved to serve the coming generations".

Henry (Hank) Novak had been born twenty-three years before - on 9 March 1922 -- to Joseph and Cecilia (Bienker) Nowakowski (later shortened to Novak). He grew up on Beach Road in Hamilton's North End, in the shadow of the Dominion Foundries & Steel plant, one of the industrial giants that dominated the city's northern skyline. His father, a machinist, had immigrated as a young man from the Polish Ukraine, his mother was a native of Chicago, Illinois. Hank was their middle child, having two older sisters, Sylvia and Louise, and two younger brothers, Chester and Daniel. Daniel, whom Hank affectionately nicknamed Scotty, later recalled how his brother had protected him on the way to school and intervened as well on behalf of other bullied children. The first school Hank attended was Holy Rosary, and from there he proceeded in 1934 to Cathedral High School, opened six years earlier to serve the secondary school needs of Catholic youth in Hamilton.

From the very start of his high school career Hank excelled in all manner of sports and in all seasons, both on and off the school grounds - baseball, swimming, water polo, basketball, hockey, football, tennis, and the rugged sport known as lacrosse. In a word, he became, to quote a former Cathedral student, a "perfectionist" in athletics. A graduate of another city high school would have agreed. He recalled, for instance, Hank's dramatic prowess as a footballer, how he would jump over the heads of would-be tacklers to throw well-aimed passes on the run. Still another former student, who played against him, recalled as well his aggressive and hard-hitting style. In any case, little was left out of Hank's sports agenda. A friend recalled how proudly he wore his letterman's white cardigan adorned with its large blue "C", representing Cathedral's colours. When he was not performing on his high school's playing fields and elsewhere in the city he flourished as a tennis player at the club organized at his parish church, St. Ann's, and his name was duly inscribed on a club trophy.

For Hank's generation the bicycle was virtually a physical extension of the body. Weather permitting, he used his to go everywhere - to rendezvous with friends, to the lake or Burlington Bay for a swim, and to school and later to McMaster. During the summer vacations, in the company of a close friend, Francis (Frank) Rocchi, he also cycled to a farm in Winona, opposite the E.D. Smith jam factory. There they worked and sometimes played baseball with the local boys, in due course winding up on the Winona team. Occasionally they had to break off early from their farm chores and return home for a scheduled baseball or lacrosse game. For a teenager it was a full life.

At the beginning of Hank's final year at Cathedral, World War II burst on the scene, sparked by Germany's invasion of Poland, his father's birthplace. Some days before Canada officially entered it alongside the United Kingdom, a stirred-up Hank tried to do his own bit. The day following Labour Day, 1939, after a German U-boat had sunk the British passenger ship, Athenia, an outrage that produced a banner headline in the Hamilton Spectator and indignation in Hank, he resolutely set off for the local recruiting station with his equally resolute friend, Frank Rocchi. They were doubtless motivated by the same sentiments Hank expressed years later on active service: "I'm here fighting not for my life only but for everyone at home to make this a better world to live in". But in September 1939, their patriotic hopes were dashed when they were rejected for being underage. The chastened would-be recruits returned to Cathedral and finished out their final year.

After graduation, Hank enrolled at McMaster University and registered in Honour Science. (On his admissions application he unaccountably gave his middle name as John not Eugene, hence the "Henry J. Novak" on the McMaster Honour Roll.) He plunged at once into athletic activities both on campus and off. Before he left to enlist at the end of his second year he was awarded his Second Grade Athletic Colours and written up in the weekly Silhouette and the Marmor, the school's yearbook. He went out for football and hockey though both were confined to intramural play because of wartime restrictions on intercollegiate competition. As Hank and other freshmen, among them fellow footballer Jack Yost [HR], were advised by Nairn Boyd [HR], president of the Student Council, the war's arrival meant that "our university home this year must be elastic [and] our footballers are destined to hold a new line". In the process of holding that intramural line Hank was singled out for "special mention" by the Silhouette's sports editor, who went on to describe him not unkindly as the "poor man's Tom Harmon", after the American college gridiron star. In the fall of 1941 he was also "consistently in the limelight" on a briefly revived Varsity team that took on the Hamilton Wildcats of the ORFU (Ontario Rugby Football Union).

In the same period Hank played for the Otis-Fensom Elevator Company in a city softball league, the Big Four, in which he clearly stood out, leading the league in batting in the 1941 season. As a McMaster classmate recalled, he also took a wider interest in the sport, constantly citing the various teams' records and standings in the American major leagues. His winters were given over to hockey and here too he made a name for himself, so much so that some admirers touted him as potential NHL material. The Silhouette too commended him for his "natural aptitude for the game" and for his skilful play. On one occasion he performed so vigorously that he suffered "a badly gashed leg" and had to leave the game. He soon recovered, however, and to the relief of his teammates finished out the season in style. But any thoughts Hank may have had about the NHL dissolved when his father announced that he would not allow his son to play as a professional.

Hank's hockey skills also came to the attention of St. Michael's College in Toronto, the institution that Frank Rocchi would attend. It was a matter of regret for its coaching staff that Hank had opted for the local university instead, and a Baptist one at that. That it was less expensive to attend McMaster (Baptist or not) may have been a deciding factor for Hank and his family - for one thing, he could live at home - though before he could enroll there he was obliged to get his bishop's permission. The Novaks' decision typified that of many a Hamilton family which could ill afford in those uncertain times of Depression and war to send their sons and daughters to university elsewhere in the province.

During his McMaster days Hank briefly found time to supplement his cycling with what a dubious though inexpensive Model T had to offer. On one occasion he took his family for a spin around the Bay only to come home short a bumper. He had also indulged in the fashions and diversions of the time. Among other things, he sported a trendy zoot suit, the extreme sartorial expression of that male generation, and frequented the local pool hall whose habitues reflected the vibrant ethnic mix characteristic of that section of the city. These off-campus pursuits and his heavy involvement with athletics, however, took a heavy toll of Hank's academic commitments, and he was obliged to switch from his original honour program to a pass course. In the fall of 1941 he was also called on the carpet for "non-attendance" in class and for assuming that military drill with the COTC was "voluntary". Perhaps he was restless and at loose ends, probably already contemplating joining up for active military service and mentally putting McMaster and its particular requirements behind him.

In any event, not long afterwards Hank did in fact enlist. On 29 August 1942 his varied peacetime activities took a back seat when, no longer deemed underage to serve in the forces, he joined the RCAF. At once, like other aspiring airmen, he was caught up in the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP), the Anglo-Canadian arrangement that unfolded at airfields right across the country. He spent the better part of two months at the RCAF's No. 1 Manning Depot in Toronto, which was housed in the Coliseum of the Canadian National Exhibition. His opening days there probably duplicated those of a recruit who had passed through the place some months earlier and written about the experience in his diary:

Arrived [Manning Depot] at 1:00 P.M... fed in great style. Received bunk and blankets.... Another medical inspection.... [After] supper Cpl. showed us how to make beds .... The old bugle toots at 6:00. After breakfast ... Cpl ... gave us a pep talk, what to do what not. Route march through Exhibition grounds ... Went to movies at 7:15. Then to bed at 10:30 ....

In short order there were inoculations and vaccinations, fingerprinting, the issuing of uniforms, more "pep talks" and then lining up for pay. A few days later things "started in earnest" - to return to the trainee's diary -- with a "route march in A.M... In P.M. first musketry lecture then another route march.... Route marches seem to be the order of the day ...." But even after a week or so of this routine, the enthusiastic diarist could still call it what he had called it in the beginning, a "great life". This sentiment the ever exuberant Hank Novak doubtless shared.

He might have thought differently, however, when subjected next to such customary preliminaries as doing guard duty, in his case at the Centralia (Exeter) air station. Once again, like fellow McMaster airman Stanley Gaudin [HR], Hank was still rooted firmly to the ground, discharging duties familiar to any raw infantry recruit. But the Centralia stint mercifully came to an end in late February, 1943, and a thankful Hank was posted to No. 1 Initial Training School in Toronto. Selected there for pilot training, he proceeded early in May to No. 7 Elementary Flying Training School at Windsor. But at this stage of his instruction he was in for a major disappointment. He "washed out" as a student pilot, and in June was switched to navigational and bomb-aimer training at No. 4 Air Observer School, located in London. He obviously took to this more readily and progressed steadily through the ranks. In December, 1943 when his local training was successfully completed he was awarded his navigator's wing, routinely promoted sergeant, and then, on the strength of his standings in the navigator's course, appointed Pilot Officer.

Three months later Hank was part of a contingent that embarked from Halifax, bound for the mounting air war overseas. (It appears from the record that plans had been laid to dispatch him to Britain earlier but the necessary transport was unavailable.) "... As I write", he told his parents on the eve of his departure in March, 1944, "I feel kind of hollow inside, it sure is going to be very different I guess but I'll never forget all you've told me and I'll be at church regularly so please don't worry on that score". Besides his family, he had also left behind somebody equally close, his fiancee, Jean Gilchrist of Windsor, whom he had met during his training stay in that city. He urged his parents to keep in touch with her and visit her family, which they did. He arrived safely in the United Kingdom on 14 March and a few days later was able to wire the news to the relieved Novaks.

From that point on, it was more navigational training and eventually service with Bomber Command's Operational Training Units, which were made up of crews, which had for the most part received basic training only. They were sometimes dispatched on actual missions, a form of initiation and on-the-job training that made available, at a time of heavy losses, as many aircrew as possible for major assaults on the enemy. Hank may also have participated in so called "Nickel Raids", which dropped propaganda pamphlets in occupied France and the Low Countries. Periodically he received short leaves and took advantage of these to visit his fiancee's Scottish relatives, the Murrays, who treated him to the "comforts of home - eggs, milk, soft bed, sleeping in". He also managed - "no kidding" -- to get in some swimming and skating when the season was right. But even the Murrays' warm hospitality and the welcome diversions could not entirely erase his nocturnal "blues" and homesickness.

All the same, Hank was able to engage in one of his favourite sports when he was posted in the late summer of 1944 to a Canadian station in Yorkshire, quite possibly the one at Leeming, the home of 427 (Lion) Squadron, part of Bomber Command's 6 (RCAF) Group. He told his parents that he was playing "lots of baseball" on the station, where, he added cryptically, there were "few Englishmen". With mock seriousness he also reminded them that since he had been promoted Flying Officer the previous May his mail should now be addressed "F/O -- ahem", this after he had casually told them that "we're not on the job to-night".


A month later, in September 1944, the now experienced Hank and his crewmates were posted to the veteran 405 (City of Vancouver / Ducimus) Squadron. The RCAF's first bomber squadron, it had participated in the massive 1000 - plane raid on Cologne in May, 1942. It was now equipped with Avro Lancaster and Handley Page Halifax heavy bombers flying out of Gransden Lodge in Bedfordshire. It had the distinction of being the first squadron to receive a Canadian-made Lancaster, aptly named the "Ruhr Express" after the German region it constantly raided. The Lancaster Mark III, which an appreciative Hank would navigate, was renowned for its dependability and its powerful Rolls-Royce Merlin engines. Thus equipped, the 405 was designated a Pathfinder Squadron, indeed the only Canadian one in Bomber Command's elite 8 Group. It played the crucial role of pinpointing and illuminating targets for the main attacking force, in the process seeking to improve the raiders' bombing accuracy. "As the first ones in on a raid", as one of Hank Novak's fellow Pathfinder recalled, "this responsibility held certain dangers. It was [however] a special honour to fly with the Force and we relished the challenge ...which sometimes meant being at the head of things".

The 405, with picked crewmen like navigator Novak, eventually carried out more raids than any other Canadian squadron. A friend and erstwhile crewmate of Hank's told his family after the war that such airmen were "very smart and highly trained ... and had very intricate and secret equipment", a description confirmed by a history of 8 Group:

"Those who served were the very best at their trade. The Navigators in particular were well above average ability ... and together with the blind-bombing aids that came into use by Bomber Command ... the Pathfinders were able to mature to become a crack force."

Mrs. Murray lightheartedly understated the case when she wrote Mrs. Novak in November, 1944 that "Hank ... has been at his old tricks again giving jerry a visit", particularly in "Happy Valley", Bomber Command's sardonic name for the heavily bombed Ruhr. Its industrial cities of Essen and Dusseldorf, defended by what was often described as "moderate to heavy flak", were among 405 Squadron's frequent targets. Then shortly before a Christmas break Hank reported to his family that he had just had another "good trip" to Germany and "wished old Adolf [Hitler] Merry Xmas with a 2000 lb. bomb". The target happened to be the beleaguered city of Cologne which Lancasters from 8 Group attacked on the night of 21 / 22 December 1944.

Like earlier operations the pre-Christmas Cologne trip would have found Hank in his curtained –off space behind the pilot, poring over maps and charts, and the rest of the crew paying equal attention to their respective chores, ranging from the pilot, the flight engineer, the wireless operator, and the mid-upper gunner down to the isolated rear gunner crammed into his Browning machine gun turret. A fine study of Bomber Command provides a graphic picture of a typical Lancaster and its crew after the launch of an operation. In front of the navigator

... the pilot sat high in his great greenhouse of a cockpit, the flight engineer bedside him ... Behind the navigator sat the wireless operator, his back to the bulk to the ... waist-high barrier in the midst of the fuselage. The space beyond, in the rear of the aircraft ... [was] crowded with [electronic] equipment ... the rest bed for a wounded man, the flare chute, and the tram lines carrying the long linked belts of machine gun ammunition to the rear gunner’s four Brownings and the two in the mid-upper turret ... The rear gunner faced the loneliest and coldest night of all. Gazing back all night into the darkness behind the aircraft ... far from the tight littler cluster of air crew so far forward around the cockpit.

Even so, the comfort of the “tight little cluster” was sharply limited. Among other persistent irritants, the outlet of a powerful heater “permanently roasted” the nearby wireless operator while the navigator, some distance away, was reduced to “shivering amidst the draughts.”

Shortly after Hank and his crewmates returned safely from the hazardous bombing run on Cologne, they were treated to an eerily different scene, an almost carefree Christmas party at Gransden Lodge. Hank was a popular participant, "so full of life - really a grand boy", in the words of an admiring English WAAF (Women's Auxiliary Air Force) officer employed in the station's operations room. Her remarks described attributes that had marked his personality from the very beginning. A former high school mate, for example, recalled Hank as a "popular person who never forced himself on anybody but was just good to have around". The recipient of these tributes obviously enjoyed himself at the Christmas party and was cheerfully voted the "handsomest waiter in the place" by the WAAF officers to whom he had served drinks.

At the same time, the dutiful son hastened to assure his parents that throughout the holiday he had managed to stay "as sober as a judge", having only "social drinks" with his crew, whom he fondly regarded, along with the Murrays, as another kind of family away from family. Photographs taken at the time show a closely-knit and smiling group of airmen, who, to quote one of their mothers, "were always so happy together". They included the pilot, Flight Lieutenant Leslie Payne, Flying Officer Horace Mawson, three pilot officers, Allan Miller, Joseph Bruggeman, and Ben Cunliffe, and a sergeant, Harry Marshall. The close bond was not surprising. The crew had been together since their OTU days when airmen had usually been left free to pick their own. "The whole process", as a fellow navigator recalled, "was somewhat akin to courting; you sized up the fellows that you hoped would help you to survive". So it had doubtless been in Hank's case. Meanwhile, his other overseas family, the Murrays, reported to the pleased Novaks that Hank had also found time to discharge his Christmas religious duties, helping, for example, to decorate the local parish church and organize its choir. (So far as is known the letters he wrote his fiancee, Jean Gilchrist, have not survived.)

Then, shortly after the turn of the year, it was back to what Hank tersely called "work". According to the Murrays, who may have learned this from one of Hank's aircrew friends, he "did not [have] to go up at all after he went back from leave, he could have been grounded but he wanted to carry on with his old crew". And carry on he did. On 8 January 1945, in what appears to be his last letter home, he wearily wrote that "... in 4 days back [from leave] I've done two op[eration]s, one to Hannover & one to Munich, [the latter's] been the longest one I've done into Germany. We were in the air for seven hours, it sure was a long trip, and I hope I don't have to do any more like it"..... The sentiment was firmly echoed in an entry that the pilot, Leslie Payne, made in his flying log book. Yet Hank ended his letter by baldly stating that "We're really giving them hell, mom, but it's not over yet".

The Hannover raid of 5/6 January, carried out by 664 aircraft, including Hank's Lancaster, struck hard at every part of the city, destroying nearly 400 residential and military buildings and killing some 250 people in the process. Hank need not have worried, however, about another "long trip" to Munich. The assault he took part in on 7/8 January - the night before his letter home -- turned out to be the last major one on that city. Nevertheless, as Hank had warned, other trips were soon in the offing. The "hollow feeling" experienced in Halifax and his recurring nocturnal "blues", though invariably masked by the bonhomie and vibrancy that made him so popular, were doubtless intensified on the eve of every raid, not least his last one.

On the evening of 16 January 1945 he and his crew in Lancaster PB 402, along with 327 others, thundered off for Zeitz, a town south of Leipzig, their target the Braunkoll synthetic-oil plant. Of the 10 Lancasters lost on the mission, it would appear, from later eye-witness accounts on the ground, that two collided near the German village of Pfaffenhausen en route to their objective. One was found to be PB 402, whose entire crew, including Hank Novak, perished. The other hapless Lancaster was KB 850, which suffered the same fate. The following day, 17 January, for want of concrete information at that point, Hank, like the others, was reported missing, and months would pass, as Chancellor Gilmour discovered, before he was officially declared killed in action. In the interval - the "long agony of suspense" - friends at home and overseas sought to console the Novaks and held out hope for his safe return. Mrs. Murray, in whom he had obviously confided, wrote from Scotland: "Knowing Hank as I do, if he had a chance of getting out of his kite as he talked about, he will be safe ...." The WAAF officer who served in the station's Operations Room told them that "... I waited until dawn - Hoping and praying that his plane would sooner or later turn up". It was not to be.

Henry Eugene Novak and his crewmates, as well as the airmen in KB 850, are buried in the Durnbach War Cemetery, Bad Tolz, Bayern (Bavaria), Germany. There was one fortunate exception so far as PB 402 is concerned: Horace Mawson was ill and hospitalized on the night of the Zeitz raid and could not take part. He survived the war and made a point of visiting or writing letters of comfort and condolence to the relatives and friends of his fallen comrades.

C.M. Johnston

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: The following provided invaluable assistance and information: John Campbell, James Cross, Anne Denneny, Kenneth Emerton, Robert Erdman, Joseph Flaherty, Reginald Lane, Sylvia (Novak) Masztaka, Lloyd McCague, Kenneth Morgan, Paul Morley, Daniel Novak, Kaz Novak, Patrick O'Neill, Linda Payne, Melissa Richer, Francis Rocchi, Norman Shrive, Sheila Turcon, Robert Washburn, and Susan Welstead. As well, meetings with Daniel Novak and Francis Rocchi yielded indispensable documents and recollections. Linda Payne, Flight Lieutenant Leslie Payne's niece, also furnished important documentation, information, and photographs. (See LP below.) Norman Shrive, who recalled Hank Novak's high school playing days, also kindly deciphered and explained the cryptic entries in the airman's service record. John Campbell, another helpful McMaster colleague, alerted the author to Max Hastings' work on Bomber Command (see below).

SOURCES: A collection of wartime letters of Hank Novak et al (in the possession of Daniel Novak); National Archives of Canada / Wartime Personnel Records: Service Record and Investigation Report, Flying Officer Henry E. Novak; Commonwealth War Graves Commission: Commemorative Information, F/O Henry Eugene Novak; LP: RCAF Pilot's Flying Log, Flight Lieutenant H.L. Payne and official reports of the Zeitz mission, letter from Air Historical Branch (RAF) to L.J. Payne, 30 May 2003 (regarding the fate of KB 850); Cathedral High School Archives: Boxes 1, 3, and the yearbook, The Orbit, 1951, 51; Canadian Baptist Archives / McMaster Divinity College: McMaster University Student File 7536, Henry Novak, Biographical File, Henry Novak: McMaster University admissions application, newspaper and magazine obituaries; McMaster University Library / W. Ready Archives: Marmor, 1941, 105, Silhouette, 1 Oct. 1940, 31 Jan., 7 Feb., 28 Feb., 21 Nov. 1941; C.M. Johnston and J.C. Weaver, Student Days: An Illustrated History of Student Life at McMaster University (Hamilton: McMaster University Alumni Association, 1986); chap. 5.
Martin Middlebrook and Chris Everitt, The Bomber Command War Diaries: An Operational Reference Book, 1939-1945 (London: Penguin Books, 1990), 635, 648, 649, 653, 762-3; Les Allison and Harry Hayward, They Shall Grow Not Old: A Book of Remembrance (Brandon, MA: Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum Inc., 1996, 2nd printing), 565 ; Jack Watts, Nickels and Nightingales (Burnstown ON: General Store Publishing House, 1995), a fellow navigator's memoir, particularly chap. V; James S. Cross, ""From the Palliser Triangle to Confederation Square: Memoirs" (unpublished: the author, 2002), 39; Blake Heathcote, Testaments of Honour: Personal Histories of Canada's War Veterans (Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2002), 106 [Tom Lane's recollections]; Bill Hockney and Moe Gates, eds., Nadir to Zenith: An Almanac of Stories by Canadian Military Navigators (Trenton ON: the editors, 2002), 25, 99 [Robert G. Dale, "Recollections", H.A. Forbes, "Discretion is the Better Part"]; F. Norman Shrive, A.C.2, "RCAF Diary: 27 Jan.-5 Feb 1942, No. 1 Manning Depot, Toronto" (in the diarist's possession); W.A.B. Douglas, Brereton Greenhous et al, The RCAF Overseas, III: The Crucible of War, 1939-1945 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986), 593, 864; Spencer Dunmore, Wings For Victory: The Remarkable Story of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan in Canada (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1994), particularly chap. 5; Max Hastings, Bomber Command (New York: Dial Press/James Wade, 1979), 158 passim.

Internet: "Bomber Command Order of Battle: 8 Group (Pathfinders)", www.hellzapoppin.demon.co.uk/orderofbattle.htm; Department of National Defence: "History of No. 405 (City of Vancouver) Squadron R.C.A.F. "The Pathfinders"; "Avro Lancaster", www.home.westman.wave.ca, www.hillmans/lancast1.html, "Leeming", www.raf.mod.uk/bomber
command/stations/html

[ For related biographies, see Albert Harry Mildon, Charles Leonard Szumlinski ]