There is a photograph in the archives of Port Hope, Ontario, showing Hancock’s Hardware, just after the turn of the 20th century.
The owners and customers pose on the wooden floor with the moustachioed stiffness classic to having your picture made at that time – amidst an atmosphere of hanging oil lamps, a barrel of nails, fishing rods, new tools, and other doo dads.
You can almost smell the place.
It was into this world that Harold Hancock arrived, in November of 1909.
He was the sixth of seven children born to George and Clara, and he grew up in this small town surrounded by farms. He would go off to Queen’s University and earn a Bachelor’s in Commerce, returning to the town to be co-manager, with one of his brothers, of Hancock’s Hardware.
Port Hope had taken an interesting turn at that time, thanks to the opening in 1933 of a radium processing plant owned by the Eldorado company.
When war came, Harold was almost 30, but it wasn’t long before the bugle’s call caught his attention and he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force. That was January of 1942.
Earning his brevet as an Observer in the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, he went overseas and eventually found himself as navigator on Morris McKenzie’s crew, at 426 (Thunderbird) Squadron, No. 6 Group, Linton-on-Ouse.
Lancaster II DS776 (OW-A) took off at 2354 on Feb. 19, 1944, for the long trip to Leipzig, in eastern Germany. They bombed the target, but on the way home were jumped by a night fighter and crashed at 0545, 10 km south of Eindhoven, Netherlands.
Harold was 34, somewhat old for aircrew. He was buried at Woensel General Cemetery, with his friends.
Per Ardua ad Astra to the brave crew of Hancock, McKenzie, air bomber Richard Alleyn, wireless operator Paul Cox, gunners Ed Dowe and Vern Whalen, and engineer John Gwynne.
