John (Jack) Hallam was born in London, England on June 8, 1918, the son of Cyril Francis Hallam (born in Hougham, England) and Marjorie Laura (nee Park, born in London, England) Hallam, of Lakeshore Road, Sarnia. John had two sisters, Betty W. (born 1917) and Nancy M. (born 1921). Father Cyril had come and stayed in Canada between June 1912 and August 1914 before returning to England. Cyril returned to reside in Canada permanently with his family in 1928. John was nine years old when the family arrived aboard the passenger ship Aurania that had left Southampton, England and arrived in the port of Quebec on April 22, 1928. At that time, father Cyril listed his occupation as a farmer.
John Hallam was a graduate of Sarnia Collegiate and then went into employment in the drafting department of the Sarnia Bridge Company. He was exceptionally popular among the young people of Sarnia. John had been intent on getting into the air force. When war was declared in 1939, he went on his own initiative to Camp Borden under the impression that it might be possible to enlist there. However he was told there, as he had been earlier at London, that there were 25,000 men already on the waiting list, and all that could be done was to take an examination and await a future call. He was not called until a year later.
John Hallam was single when he enlisted and recorded his residence as Sarnia Riding Club. He departed enroute to the manning pool in Toronto of the Royal Canadian Air Force in mid-July 1940, along with fellow Sarnians John Murray and William Clark (William Clark is included in this project). John Hallam then continued his training in Trenton and then Regina, Saskatchewan, where he attained his classification as pilot by October of 1940. His intensive study and a natural talent for flying enabled him to attain exceptional proficiency in the air. In a letter to his parents from Regina, John mentioned Fred Houston, “Bunt” Murray, Gordon Bracken, Harry Turnbull and Doug Wilder, all Sarnia boys who were in the air school with him. In March 1941, John left for overseas service.
John would become a member of RCAF #82 Squadron “Super Omnia Ubique” (Over all things everywhere), attaining the rank of Sergeant-Pilot. Two days after he arrived overseas from Sarnia in April 1941, he was flying over the English Channel where he was engaged in active aerial warfare until his death. On July 12, 1941, approximately one year after having left Sarnia, John was part of a crew aboard Blenheim aircraft V6524. Their aircraft went out of control in sea fog and crashed in the North Sea, killing John Hallam. Two of the crew, not Canadians, were also reported missing and believed killed. On July 15th, John’s parents Cyril and Marjorie in Sarnia would receive an official cable informing them that their son John was reported missing overseas, and that a letter would be following. In the newspaper story of John Hallam’s missing status, the Canadian Observer reported that, “In the case of a missing flyer, there is the possibility that he might be a prisoner or that he escaped in some other way and had not been able to report to headquarters.”
In late August 1941, Cyril and Marjorie received another letter, this from the R.C.A.F. records office giving some details relating to the previous official report that their son was “missing”. According to the letter, his squadron reported that the last they had seen of “Jack’s” plane, it was flying “inverted” or upside down over the North Sea. It also pointed out that this did not rule out the possibility that the flyers had not perished even if the plane fell into the sea. It was probable that the squadron had been over Germany and was returning. Whether John’s plane was damaged before it began the trip, or whether it was damaged in the attack over Germany or the Low Countries, or it had been assailed by fighter-planes at sea, was not disclosed. Both Britain and Germany maintained floating first aid posts in the North Sea and many fliers, first presumed lost, had reached one of these floats and were rescued.
In early September of 1941, Sarnia Collegiate teacher Miss Mae Burriss received a letter that awaited her when she returned from her summer vacation. It was from John Hallam, the former student of Sarnia Collegiate, who at that time in September, was still reported as missing overseas. The letter was dated July 10, 1941 (two days before he was shot down). The letter was in acknowledgment of the receipt of copies of “School Daze,” the Sarnia Collegiate periodical, concerning which John wrote,
They seemed to bring back many pleasant memories of the times I had at the Sarnia Collegiate…. I am very comfortable here. Our squadron is living in a country mansion. Our hours are not as when I was training in Canada. The food is very good and we get plenty to eat. We have a garden here and we grow lettuce, carrots, beans, etc., which we use in the officers’ and sergeants’ messes. The garden is worked by us, in some of our spare time, so you see that flying is not our only task. I am not flying fighters as I had hoped to, but then someone has to fly the bombers, don’t they?
On September 17, 1941, Cyril and Marjorie Hallam received a letter from the officer in charge of records at the Royal Air Force headquarters in England. The letter stated that no further word had been received concerning their son who was first reported missing in mid-July and whose plane might have fallen into the North Sea. There had been a report recently that a resident in the Sarnia district had heard a German short-wave broadcast in which a name which sounded like “Halsam” was mentioned as a prisoner in Germany, and Sarnia, Ontario was given as the place of origin of the prisoner. Enquiries at Ottawa only elicited a response that this broadcast was not transcribed by the intelligence service there.
Any hope that John Hallam had survived was dashed when he would later be officially listed as, Previously reported missing during air operations overseas, now for official purposes presumed to have died, overseas. Twenty-one year old Sergeant Pilot John Hallam is buried in the Kiel War Cemetery, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, Grave 3.B.3.
SOURCES: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, J, L, M, N, 2C, 2D