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Edwin Canner - B-24 pilot - passes away
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08/05/2008 04:39:41 PM
 Edwin Canner, 84; WWII pilot
By Bryan Marquard Boston Globe Staff / August 5, 2008
Edwin M. Canner was piloting a B-24 back to England one night in 1945 after dropping leaflets over Cologne, Germany, when a red light flashed on the instrument panel. This particular light meant a German plane equipped with radar had locked onto the bomber, and Mr. Canner knew his options were few.
"Ed headed for the clouds, and we got a night fighter on our tail," said Reuben Hill of Forest Lake, Minn., who was one of two waist gunners onboard. "He went into evasive action, and he couldn't shake this night fighter and went into one hell of a dive. The plane had rivets pop out of the wings, and we were lucky to make it back, but he pulled it out. He was a first class pilot."
Mr. Canner, whose skills as a second lieutenant in the Army Air Corps kept him and the other nine members of his crew safe during that World War II mission, died in his Marblehead home Sunday of cancer. He was 84 and in retirement had divided his time between Marblehead and Venice, Fla.
Dropping steeply that March night, Mr. Canner wrestled with the controls as the B-24's speed topped 350 miles per hour and then banked out of the dive at an angle of 70 degrees or more, according to those onboard.
Because of fighting on the ground, Mr. Canner was unable to land safely en route to their home base, so he and his copilot flew back to their airfield in Cheddington, England. Over the next two days, the bomber was repaired, though not completely, it turned out.
The crew and their B-24 were being transferred to another air base in England. Unlike their nighttime missions dropping leaflets over areas controlled by the Germany military, the flight from Cheddington to Harrington began in brilliant daylight on March 14. "It was a beautiful day," Hill recalled.
Moments into the flight, no one was paying attention to the weather. The B-24 had barely risen to 1,000 feet when problems began to develop, apparently related to the damage incurred during the steep dive and sharp bank two days earlier. Mr. Canner kept the bomber aloft, but when he reached the air base, the landing gear on one side didn't lock and collapsed as he touched down.
Breaking into pieces, the B-24 splintered across the Harrington airfield, but of the 10 men onboard, only the navigator died.
"The pilot compartment broke off, and the wings broke off and we barrel rolled," Hill said. "Ed survived it, but he fractured a vertebrae. Three of them walked away, and six of us ended up in the hospital. I woke up the next day."
Always modest about his wartime service, Mr. Canner wasn't awarded a Purple Heart until 55 years later, after the military ruled that the crash was due to damage the bomber sustained in battle two nights earlier.
He had enlisted in the Army Air Corps after graduating from Winthrop (MA) High School, and later used the GI Bill to attend the University of Michigan, from which he graduated with an engineering degree. He married Merna Kostick a few years after the war ended. That marriage ended in divorce.
Mr. Canner worked for two companies in Connecticut and then moved to Marblehead in 1967 and founded his own engineering firm, Canner and Associates.
Eleven years ago, Mr. Canner met Suzanne Hennessey on a blind date, and they remained companions for the rest of his life. They married Wednesday in a bedside ceremony.
"We've had, besides the sadness, unbelievable joy, too," she said.
In addition to his wife and son Glenn, Mr. Canner leaves another son, Gary of Kailua, Hawaii; two grandsons; a granddaughter; a step-granddaughter; and a step-grandson.
A memorial service will be held at 4 p.m. today at Stanetsky-Hymanson Memorial Chapel in Salem. Burial is private.
CPT(VT) W.P. Sullivan
SGHQ - G-3 Special Projects
Camp Johnson, VT
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