Louis Paquette

My first solo mission was a 1,000 plane raid. So we were one of a 1,000, but they don’t all take off at the same time. See, we all flew as individual crews. And we’d have a time on target and they seemed to, your time and maybe five or six other planes were at the same time. And it took actually over two hours for the whole bombing stream to go over the target. It was a troop concentration over Essen [Germany]. They had just pushed them back over the river and they knew they would be disorganized; and they just wanted to keep them that way. That was a daylight [raid], the 1,000 plane raid. I had quite a few daylight trips and a few night trips, you see. On some of them, you had fighter attacks, and it was the same with fighters. They’re coming in on you, but if you happened to see them, take evasion action, they don’t have your name and number, you know, they’re just after a plane and there’s another one in the bomber stream straight ahead, so they’d go for that one. So the gunners had a job watching for fighters. You’re focused on flying at a steadier speed and a steady flight, so that the navigator can have accurate navigation. Like this trip that we got a direct hit on the oil refinery. Everything has to be right on the bomb sight for the bombs to hit the target because you’re flying at over 18,000 feet, which is three miles. And if the plane isn’t absolutely level, then it throws the bombs on the side. So you have your speed and your height and your wind speed, and direction: all have to be accurate for you to get a direct hit. I remember when the Europe war was over, we were converting to [Avro] Lancasters [heavy bombers]. If the war had went on, our next trip would have been on a Lancaster. So we continued our conversion. It was quite a celebration. I put in about 75 hours on Lancs, you see, and then we got to fly a Lancaster back to Canada. So by the fifteenth of June, I was back in Canada, you see. And on leave at home. I don’t think you forget any of this. You live it for a year and a half, and it’s part of your life.