British Commonwealth Air Training Plan
Pierre Lagacé
Posts about Pilots written by Pierre Lagacé
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British Commonwealth Air Training Plan
1 July 1942

Mont-Joli

PMR75-632 – 130 Squadron, Mont-Joli, Quebec, 1 July 1942

People are still remembering…

Notes

Commanding Officer Jacques Chevrier is posing for posterity on July 1st, 1942. He is fifth from the left. He died five days later on July 6, 1942. Seventy-nine years later, minus five days, how Wing Commander Chevrier died is still a mystery…

Links

https://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/memorials/canadian-virtual-war-memorial/detail/2622524

https://sadp.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/jmsl-17-09-09-6-des-aviateurs.pdf

(in French)

http://www.bbm.org.uk/airmen/Chevrier.htm

Joseph Armand Jacques Chevrier was born in St. Lambert, Quebec, Canada on 7th October 1917. He joined the RCAF on 4th July 1938, travelled to England in 1940 and was posted to No. 1 Squadron at Wittering on 3rd October, moving to No. 1 (RCAF) Squadron at Prestwick on the 21st. Chevrier was repatriated to Canada on 9th January 1941.

He was appointed ADC to His Excellency the Governor-General, the Earl of Athlone on 8th August and served in that capacity until 31st March 1942. Chevrier was then posted to be the first CO of 130 Squadron, taking command at Mont-Joli, Quebec on 1st May 1942.

On 6th July 1942 the squadron was scrambled to search for U-boats after a freighter was torpedoed 10 miles off Ste. Anne-des-Monts. Four Kittyhawks were launched. Several survivors of the sunk ship were located, but no U-boat. Chevrier ran out of fuel on the return to Mont-Joli, and died when his Kittyhawk AK915 ditched in the St. Lawrence just off Ste. Anne-des-Monts.

His body was not recovered and he is commemorated on the Ottawa Memorial.

In 1952, his father was still asking questions about how his son had died…

I found more information on the Internet…

https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/205495

More on the Battle of the St. Lawrence here…

https://www.veterans.gc.ca/pdf/publications/canada-remembers/RS_Battle_Gulf_e.pdf

The official story seems to be this…

Chevrier ran out of fuel on the return to Mont-Joli, and died when his Kittyhawk AK915 ditched in the St. Lawrence just off Ste. Anne-des-Monts.

Hopefully, how he died will one day be known when parts of the Kittyhawk he flew on July 6, 1942, will be found.

Until then, people are still remembering Wing Commander Jacques Chevrier in Mont-Joli…

He never stood a chance…

http://www.luftwaffe.cz/gallandw.html

Wilhelm-Ferdinand “Wutz” Galland

Excerpt

Wilhelm-Ferdinand “Wutz” Galland was born on 23 October 1914 at Bochum. He enlisted in the Luftwaffe in 1935 serving with a flak regiment. Galland participated in the invasion of the Low Countries and France with a flak regiment before volunteering for flight training at the end of 1940. He competed operational training with Ergänzungsgruppe/JG 26 and reported to II./JG 26 on 27 June 1941. JG 26 was under command of his brother Adolf Galland (104 victories, RK-Br). His younger brother Paul Galland (17 victories, killed in action 31 October 1942) was also serving with the unit. Assigned to 6./JG 26, “Wutz” scored his first victory on 23 July 1941, shooting down a RAF Spitfire fighter near Hesdin. By the end of 1941 his victory total had climbed to three. On 5 May 1942, Galland was appointed Staffelkapitän of 5./JG 26. He had eight victories to his credit. On 2 June, he claimed two Spitfires shot down over the Somme Estuary to record his ninth and 10th victories. Galland recorded his 20th victory on 4 December when he shot down another Spitfire near Boulogne. His score had risen to 21 by the end of 1942. Hauptmann Galland was appointed Gruppenkommandeur of II./JG 26 on 3 January 1943. On 13 January he claimed a Spitfire shot down, but, it was, in fact, a 6th Staffel Bf 109G-4 piloted by Unteroffizier Johann Irlinger. The mistaken identification of the Messerschmitt for a Spitfire cost Irlinger his life. The incident was cleaned up for the official records… On 28 January, Galland received the Deutsches Kreuz in Gold for 24 victories. He recorded his 30th victory on 15 February, when he shot down a Spitfire near Ramsgate. Galland was awarded the Ritterkreuz on 18 May 1943 for 35 victories.

Godfrey Alan McKoy was his 24th victory.

I met the kid on the left, but not the one on the right.

Allan Todd had his picture taken with Neil Hammond. It did not take long to find him on the CVWM Website. He was the only Hammond who died in 1943.

Leading Aircraftman

Richard Neiland Hammond

Royal Canadian Air Force

22nd September 1943, aged 20

Beechwood Cemetery

Ottawa, Ontario

Richard Neiland Hammond was born August 8, 1923, on the family dairy farm in Ironside, a village in West Hull that was then four miles north of Hull’s city limits. His parents were Watson and Jane (Barber) Hammond. Neiland, as his family called him, attended the local elementary school and then Hull Intermediate for high school. When he was a child both parents died- his mother in 1930 and father 1935. The farm was then managed by two uncles, who hired housekeepers so that Neiland, his sister and two brothers could stay on the family property.

A short time after finishing high school, Neiland started work at the Electric Reduction Plant in Buckingham, Quebec, but gave up this job to enlist in the RCAF in 1942. He went to Belleville Training School, and then on to elementary flying at Pendleton, Ontario (east of Ottawa). After his graduation from Pendleton, he came back to Uplands (Ottawa) for his service flying training. Here he had to learn to fly the Harvard, a powerful, heavy, single-engine aircraft. On the night of September 22,1943, he was assigned to practice night take-off and landing at a relief field near Carp, Ontario, the present site of Carp Airport. During take-off something went wrong, and he crashed into nearby bush. The authorities listed the cause as “obscure.”

Left to mourn were his girlfriend Frances Copping, his sister Jean and brother-in-law William Brisenden, brother James and sister-in-law Mabel (who still live in Chelsea), and brother Felton. Jim Hammond recalls that the news of Neiland’s death was delivered to him on the family farm at Ironside on the night that his wife Mabel was in labour for the birth of their first child, Barbara.

Neiland was doing well on the course and would have graduated in a few weeks. He is buried in Beechwood Cemetery’s Veterans Section.

Source: http://www.gvhs.ca/publications/utga-chelsea-cenotaph.html

I had never heard about Sid before finding his name in a logbook and on the back of a picture.

This is what you will find on Airforce.ca about Sid Seid.

Mosquito Fighter/Fighter-Bomber Units of World War 2 (page 58)

Martin W. Bowman

SEID, F/O Sidney Platt (J22036) – Distinguished Flying Cross – No.418 Squadron – Award effective 20 December 1944 as per London Gazette dated 2 January 1945 and AFRO 471/45 dated 16 March 1945. American who enlisted in the RCAF. Born 28 April 1921 in Santa Rosa, California; home in San Francisco; enlisted in Vancouver, 24 October 1941 and posted to No.3 Manning Depot. To No.15 SFTS (guard), 5 December 1941. To No.2 ITS, 31 January 1942; graduated and promoted LAC, 28 March 1942 but not posted to No.2 EFTS until 9 July 1942; graduated 28 August 1942 and posted next day to No.2 SFTS; graduated and commissioned 18 December 1942.

To No.1 Flying Instructor School, 4 January 1943. To No.13 SFTS, 13 March 1943. Promoted Flying Officer, 1 June 1943. To No.36 OTU, 11 November 1943. To “Y” Depot, Lachine, 29 January 1944. Taken on strength of No.3 PRC, Bournemouth, 14 February 1944. Repatriated 3 December 1944. To Western Air Command, 19 January 1945. To No.7 OTU, 22 January 1945. Promoted Flight Lieutenant, 18 March 1945. To No.8 Release Cengtre, 22 August 1945. Retired 29 August 1945. He was pilot to F/O David N. McIntosh, and thus figures prominently in the latter\’s book, Terror in the Starboard Seat. Award presented 24 June 1947.

Credited with the following victories:

21/22 June 1944, one V-1 destroyed;

6/7 July 1944, one V-1 destroyed;

11/12 July 1944, one V-1 destroyed;

13/14 July 1944, one V-1 destroyed;

30 August 1944, one FW.190 and one Bf.110 damaged on ground;

15 October 1944, one Bf.109 destroyed plus one Bf.110 destroyed plus five Ju.88s destroyed plus two Bf.109s damaged plus two Ju.88s damaged plus one unidentified enemy aircraft damaged, all on the ground.

RCAF photos are PL-28420, PL-28424, PL-32823, PL-34590, PL-40220, PL-40221 and Pl-40800. In particular, RCAF photo PL-32823 (ex UK-15082 dated 20 September 1944 shows arrival of parcels from sponsoring city of Edmonton; mascots Butch, Rufus and Tony with F/O George Drew, RAF (trained at Port Albert, Ontario), F/O Chuck Redecker (Windsor, Ontario), F/O E. Gent, RAF, and F/O Sid Seid of San Francisco. RCAF photo PL-40220 (ex UK-15891 dated 18 October 1944) shows P/O D.N. McIntosh (left), Stanstead, Quebec and F/O S.P. Seid (San Francisco) discussing sortie into Germany which resulted in destruction of eight enemy aircraft with no damage to their aircraft. Photo PL-40221 (ex UK-15891 dated 18 October 1944 shows Seid on left, McIntosh, and CBC interviewer F/O R.R. Mackness (Vancouver).

Flying Officer Seid has successfully completed a large number of operational sorties. He has attacked the enemy’s road, rail and water transport and destroyed at least eight enemy aircraft on the ground and damaged others. In September 1943, while enroute for an attack on a German airfield, this officer encountered an enemy convoy on the Zuider Zee. In the face of heavy anti-aircraft fire he made repeated attacks and obtained hits on at least three of the vessels. The long hours spent by Flying Officer Seid in careful planning and studying of tactical situations have been reflected in his outstanding record of achievement which has been an inspiration to all in his squadron.

I wish I had all those PL- pictures from RCAF files to show you…