Alfred Cyril Seymour Barker

This story is shared by the Trust with kind permission from Pete Colley, Curator, Wickenby Museum. Additional information and photo from the WWII Records and Service Files of War Dead, Libraries and Archives, Canada

Remembering Alfred Cyril Seymour Barker, Sgt, air gunner, Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), aged 18, son of Cyril Frederick Seymour Barker and Mary Elizabeth Barker (née McGuire), of Duffield, Ontario. He was killed on his first mission attacking Vierzon.

Alfred was born on 8 October 1925 at Onoway, Alberta. His father was born in England and worked as a fur buyer, and his mother was born in Scotland. He had several half brothers and sisters: Frederick who was in RCAF, Edmonton, Granville, and Russell who was in the Royal Canadian Navy. His sisters were Florence, Phyllis and Eileen. Their maternal grandmother appears to have been a primary carer. The schools he attended were Smithfield, 1930-1938 followed by Franciscan College 1938-1939 (Grade IX). Alfred enjoyed skating, basketball, swimming and skiing. He was a warehouse assistant with H.B.C.Watering, for a few months in 1942 and then as a Sales clerk. He then went on to McDonalds Consolidated as a Warehouseman, 1942-1943.

Alfred enlisted on 28 April 1943 and was soon embarking from Halifax for the U.K. on 14 December 1943. He arrived at 3 RCAF PRC on 22 December 1943, 28 OTU 18 January 1944, 11 Base 26 April 1944 and 626 Squadron on 15 June 1944. Alfred was to lose his life just two weeks later, at the age of only eighteen years.

In his service record, there is an Estates Branch form that his parents had to complete after his death. In the Particulars of Domicile section they wrote this in the box for 'Place where deceased stated he intended to make his permanent home': "he was just a boy and didn't know himself"