Harold Melville Tarver died on Aug. 13, 1943.
This is part of an ongoing series about Birch Cliff residents who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.
The series was inspired by a thought-provoking Poppy Map that honours Toronto’s war dead.
If you scroll around the map, it doesn’t take long to discover the soldiers, sailors and airmen from the Birch Cliff area who died in World War I and World War II.
Harold Melville Tarver
Harold Melville Tarver was an insurance salesman living quietly with his wife Isobelle at 124 Harding Blvd. in Birch Cliff when he heard the call of duty and signed up to fight in World War II.
Tarver was born in Toronto in 1912 to Mr. and Mrs. Francis Norman Tarver and had two brothers, Bert and Norman.
He attended Birch Cliff Public School and then Scarborough Collegiate, now known as RH King Academy.
In 1940, Tarver joined the Royal Canadian Air Force and received his training at the Jarvis Bombing and Gunnery School, near Jarvis, Ontario.
The school trained air gunners, wireless air gunners, air observers, air bombers, and navigator-bomb aimers. These airmen served as aircrew on bombers and maritime patrol aircraft.
From there, Harold attended the Air Observers Course at Pennfield Ridge, an RCAF training base in New Brunswick.
RCAF Station Pennfield Ridge. Air Observer’s Course, Sept./Oct. 1941. Harold Tarver is in the middle row, fifth from the left.
Harold Tarver obituary
Sent overseas Dec. 1941
Flying Officer Tarver was mobilized overseas in Dec. 1941 and the insurance salesman joined Squadron 407, the infamous “Demon Squadron”, who earned their nickname attacking enemy shipping in the Lockheed Hudson aircraft.
In Jan. 1943, The Demon Squadron was reassigned to general reconnaissance and spent the rest of the war protecting allied ships from German U-boats.
On the night of Aug. 12/13, the Demon Squadron was engaged in an anti-submarine patrol over the Bay of Biscay, off the west coast of France.
When it came time to return home, they discovered that their home base at Chievenor was fogged in and they were diverted to Beaulieu, Hampshire.
It was cloudy the next day when they took off to return home and their plane collided with a Halifax bomber two miles southwest of New Milton, Hamspshire.
Both aircraft were destroyed and six members of the Demon Squadron were killed, including 31-year old Harold Tarver.
Tarver is buried in the St. Augustine Churchyard, in the village of Heanton Punchardon, in Devon, England.
407 Demon Squadron memorial in Trenton, Ontario.
Read the stories of other Birch Cliff service members who made the ultimate sacrifice below.
Leonard Lehman – 115 Kalmar Ave
Thomas Davis – 30 Red Deer Ave.
World War I casualties: William Morrison – 226 Blantyre Ave., John Arthur James – 57 Eastwood Ave, Charles Joseph Watson – 57 Kalmar Ave., Frank Williams – 43A Valhalla Blvd., Frank Myers – 44 Queensbury Ave., Alexander Johnson – 214 Blantyre Ave., Leslie Knight Tuck – 1437 Kingston Rd.
