77 The Royal Canadian Legion www.mbnwo.legion.ca BURTON, Gordon S. WWII Gordon was born on July 26, 1924, to Sidney and Ruth (Mills) Burton of Kelwood, Manitoba. He enlisted on March 25, 1941, with the Fort Garry Horse and was sent overseas on November 20 of the same year, landing on the beaches of Normandy at 5 a.m. He went on to serve with the 10th Armoured Regiment in France, (where he was wounded), Belgium and Holland. Gordon received his discharge on December 11, 1945. He and his wife, Elda Tyerman, married and moved to Tofield, Alberta. BYRAM, Clair Stanley WWII Clair was born on June 24, 1906, to George and Harriet (Richardson) Byram in MacGregor, Manitoba. He attended high school at Oberon, Brookdale, and took his engineering course at the University of Manitoba. Clair spent three summers at Camp Borden, Ontario where he received his wings as a pilot. In 1930, he went to England hoping to join the Royal Air Force. Having interrupted his civil engineering education to join the RAF, his instructors advised him that it would be the best move as the job opportunities were very poor then. Out of 1 000 applicants all over the British Empire, he was one of the seventeen that were accepted. After completing twelve months of RAF training in five months, he was commissioned “Acting Pilot Officer”. In 1932, he was sent to England, and from there was stationed in Amman, Jordan. He flew missions of every sort (including mail runs) from Dover to Nairobi, Jordan to the Rhine Valley and Cairo back to Canada. The planes and their navigation equipment were quite primitive in those early years with the Air Force, and Clair could entertain by the hour telling stories about some of his adventures in the air and on the ground. Because he spent time training troops in Canada, his family did see him on rare occasions during those years. During the next fifteen years, he was posted to various parts of the world including England, Palestine, India, and Egypt, where he became Officer in Command at the time of the Italian-Abyssinian Conflict. Similarly, he was given command of an Air Force training school in Northern Ireland and again in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. He retired from the service as a Senior Flight Squadron Leader, the equivalent of a Colonel in the American forces. He married Phyllis Bell of Medicine Hat, Alberta after the war. They remained in Canada for a few years and then moved to California where Clair was employed by the Metropolitan Water District of Los Angeles. Phyllis died suddenly in 1973 and later that year, Clair retired. He spent his summers in Canada and winters in California for a few years before settling in Packwood, Washington where he met and married Lucy Jennings. Clair died on November 14, 1985 after a brief illness and is buried there at the Evergreen Cemetery.
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