Category Archives: Planes
Luis Perez-Gomez
I found this pilot’s name in a logbook which belonged to a flight instructor at No. 2 S.F.T.S. Uplands.
LAC Perez-Gomez – Killed overseas…
While looking for more information on this student pilot, I found this story written in 2008. Luis Perez-Gomez is on the extreme left of the first row.
Memories a tango through time
The season of remembrance plays memory tricks on those who have lost loved ones to war.
Some experience images, and some say their memories trigger a scent.
By The Ottawa Citizen November 3, 2008
Memories a tango through time
The season of remembrance plays memory tricks on those who have lost loved ones to war. Some experience images, and some say their memories trigger a scent.
Dorothy Pratt hears music. It’s a tango.
In Ottawa as New Year’s 1943 approached, she was 16 and she was in love. Her name then was Dorothy O’Brien, the very proper daughter of a doctor. She was a figure skater, and she loved to dance. She had literally been swept off her feet by a man, little older than herself, who was the best dancer she would ever know.
He was Luis Perez-Gomez of Mexico City. He came to Ottawa to study English at Ottawa Technical High School, and to join the Royal Canadian Air Force. When they met at a community dance, he was in uniform. A little clumsy at first meeting, when they relaxed and let the music guide them, they could fly. He was a master of the tango, and became her teacher.
When he earned his wings, he invited her to be his guest at his graduation. On his last night before leaving for war, he asked her to join him for dinner and dancing. The place for such occasions was the Canadian Grill at the Château Laurier.
It was a fairytale kind of night, with other dancers stepping back and giving them the whole dance floor, and applauding.
Six months later, she would discover he had named her as his next-of-kin. A telegram arrived, saying he was missing in action. It was soon followed by another. Killed in action.
A decade later, she married Denis Pratt, a retired naval commander, and they had three children. He died in 2003. Through a full and rewarding life, she never forgot the dashing young dancer.
She has an interesting theory.
“It’s true, they (war dead) don’t age. In my memory, he’s about 20. And I’m 16.”
We all have pleasant memories we escape to and, when in need of a little recharging, Dorothy Pratt slips back in time and goes dancing at the Grill.
In 2001, Denis took Dorothy on a war graves tour of Europe, and located the lonely grave of F/O Luis Perez-Gomez in a village cemetery in Sassy, in Normandy. He was killed when his Spitfire was shot down 10 days after D-Day. The villagers buried him as one of their own, fearing the Germans would remove all identification.
After the war, Commonwealth War Graves decided it best to leave him there, and gave him a military headstone. There’s a similar marker nearby, for an unidentified Canadian airman.
When the villagers of Sassy heard the story of their foreign resident, they decided to make the story known to the few visitors they get. They invited Mrs. Pratt back in 2004, on the 60th anniversary of his death, and had her do the honours unveiling a plaque on their newly-named village square — Place Perez-Gomez.
They also want visitors to know the unique nature of that war grave. It is occupied by the only Mexican national lying under an RCAF marker from that war.
The story of the dancing fighter pilot and the girl who loved him was told in one of these columns on Nov. 6, 2001. More details appear in the latest issue of Air Force magazine.
Remembrance Day is marked in Mexico City by a gathering of veterans, mainly expatriate Brits. Luis Perez-Gomez is on their honour roll. This year, the service will be on Nov. 9. It’s easier to gather people on a Sunday.
The story of the dancing Mexican reached them, and they have invited Dorothy Pratt to attend. She’s 81.
“I could have said no,” she said. “But there’s a 16-year-old girl in me …”
Most of Luis’s relatives now live in Guadalajara and a delegation of them will attend the service in Mexico City. They know the story of Dorothy of Ottawa, and have invited her to their homes to meet the extended family. She didn’t hesitate to accept. She will take with her some of the mementoes of her first love, and will offer them to his family.
“It’s one of the strange things about getting to my age, that time seems to shrink and memories of long-ago events become much clearer. My husband was a wonderful and understanding man, and I love and miss him.”
She says she won’t hesitate, when she meets Luis’s family, to tell them there’s a part of her that still loves him.
Author
dbrown000@sympatico.ca
You Have to Start Somewhere
Post 25
This blog started small after Nicole contacted me on my blog about RCAF 403 Squadron.
Hi,
My name is Nicole Morley and my Great Uncle Arthur James Horrell was in the 443 squadron. I don’t know if my Great Uncle ever knew William Irvine Gould but I imagine he probably did. I’m doing some research on my Uncle and was wondering if there was anyone who had pictures or information about the 443 squadron or anything related to my Uncle. You can reach me at my e-mail address.
Thanks
You have to start somewhere. So I started looking and looking, and looking.
This Website has a lot of information about RCAF 443 Squadron. This is where I got this picture from.
Not many names…
Until Nicole went to see Ivor Williams a former Spitfire pilot who flew with RCAF 443 Squadron.
Ivor Williams gave Nicole this picture. He is posing in a Hawker Hurricane training at RCAF Bagotville, Quebec, in the fall 1942.
This picture is also found on this Website.
Ivor Williams tells part of his story.
I joined the RCAF on the day after I was 18 in Windsor, Ontario. My parents lived at that time in the place called Tilbury which is very close to Windsor and so I joined the Air Force at Windsor, the very day after I was 18. Well everybody was doing it. We were all joining up, and I suggested that I was would be an air gunner, and I went to the recruiting office, and the sergeant in charge of the recruiting and saw my papers and that I was wanting to be an air gunner, and this man happened to be a man who my father had married a few days before, and he said, “You’re old enough, you’re smart enough you can be a pilot,” and I said, “well that’s just fine,” so I became on the stream to be a pilot.
I remember my very first flight I had about nine hours, and my instructor let me fly solo and I remember going down the runway and shouting and cheering and clapping my hands, so happy to be in the air by myself.
We were posted to a place called Digby in northern part of Yorkshire [England], and we went from there, we learned to fly the [Supermarine] Spitfire. Up to this point we had only learned in training planes, but the Spitfire was pretty up to date. And the squadron was changed around and it became 443 Squadron instead of 127 Squadron. It was, the wing commander was Johnnie Johnson [highest scoring Western Allies flying ace]. Johnnie Johnson was the top scoring Canadians; he was a Brit, but he liked to fly with Canadians. And we learned to fly the Spitfire in about three or four weeks, and then we went down to the south part of England and we were ready to go on operations.
In England I had a mid-air collision one day. I was doing en engine test and I had my head in the cockpit, checking the instruments and I looked up and in front of me was this Spitfire coming like this straight, and it went over my head, it took the radio antenna off, and I was underneath this other Spitfire, kind of hairy. Johnson was playing Rummy, a card game with the other squadron commanders when I came in and I said, “Sir, I’ve had a mid-air collision,” and he said, “Well congratulations Williams, I have never known anybody to survive one.”
It was amazing, I flew the last patrol at night on June the 5th [1944], and we were, in the south of England, and in five minutes we were over the [English] Channel. It was the most fantastic sight that I will ever see, all these boats coming out of little harbours and around the south coast of England and they were in formation. And we saw this, all these little arrow heads coming over the Channel, we knew that the beach invasion was on, and so we were not allowed to go over the German lines, because obviously reasons, but we had the aircraft were painted with black and white stripes at that point, so that there were no mistaking the Allied aircraft. And we did a recce and returned late at night, and then had a few hours’ sleep and took off the next morning, that was, and then we knew the invasion was on.
And the sky was full of airplanes of course. We were circling back and forth over the beachhead, we didn’t go back, we were making sure that the German aircraft didn’t get to strafe our own troops, so it was a recce to make sure the sky was kept clear of enemy aircraft. We were back and forth, we could see there was fighting on the ground, we could see tanks blazing and trucks, we really knew the invasion was on at that time.
He gave her more than a picture.
The names of the pilots in the group picture with the original.
I will tell you more tomorrow.
To contact me, please use this form or write a comment.
Profile Publications Vickers-Armstrongs Warwick Variants
Profile Publications Supermarine Walrus
More Pictures from Brian
Brian sent me these pictures which have no copyrights.
Warwick BV502 ZE-N. Location and Date unknown. Web picture
Warwick HF955 ZE – A of 293 Squadron
Warwick Pomigliano BV447 293 Squadron Unknown date or photographer.
More Warwicks on the Internet
Warwick Bomber/ASRs, of the Warwick Training Unit (later the Air Sea Rescue Training Unit), on the ground at Bircham Newton, Norfolk. The nearest aircraft, BV277 T, subsequently served in the Mediterranean Theatre with Nos. 284 and 293 Squadrons RAF.
Warwick ASR Mark I, BV502 ZE-N, of No. 293 Squadron RAF with its crew, in a dispersal surrounded by spring flowers at Foggia, Italy. BV502 was a redesignated Stage C aircraft.
More Walruses on the Internet
From the Imperial War Museum Website
Supermarine Walrus Mark I, R6547 of ‘C’ Flight, No. 293 Squadron RAF Detachment, taxying to its dispersal at Nettuno, Italy, following a search and rescue sortie off Anzio. Behind it is parked a Supermarine Spitfire Mark IX of No. 93 Squadron RAF Detachment.
Supermarine Walrus Mark Is of ‘C’ Flight No. 293 Squadron RAF Detachment, on the ground at Nettuno, Italy: X9506 C is parked in front of R6547 X. In the foreground an American water bowser is sprinkling the surface of the landing ground in order to suppress the dust. Behind the Walruses, Supermarine Spitfire Mark IXs of No. 93 Squadron Detachment undergo repair and maintenance.
Warrant Officer J R Berry (wireless operator) and Flight Sergeant E J Holmes (pilot), an experienced air-sea rescue crew, stand in front of their Supermarine Walrus Mark I, X9506 ‘C’, of ‘C’ Flight, No. 293 Squadron RAF Detachment at Nettuno, Italy. Berry and Holmes were both recipients of the Distinguished Flying Medal for their work with No. 284 Squadron RAF, and flew several more successful rescue sorties after transferring with their aircraft to 293 Squadron in April 1944. The rescue tally on the X9506’s nose shows 23 aircrew extricated from the waters around Italy.
Lots more on FlickR.
About RAF 293 Squadron
Charles Stanley Horrell was a wireless operator air gunner with RAF 293 squadron.
All the information about his military service is in his logbook. This is why it is so precious and no airman will give it to anyone.
Nicole told me her grandfather was with RAF 293 Squadron. This is a link to know more about that squadron.
Not much to go on.
No.293 Squadron was an air-sea rescue squadron that served in North Africa and around Italy from 1943 until early in 1946. The squadron was formed around ten Vickers Warwicks taken from Nos.283 and 284 Squadrons. The aircraft left the UK in October and flew to Algeria, where the squadron was officially formed on 28 November 1943.
For the first month of its existence the new squadron operated along the North African coast, but in January the first detachments were moved to Italy, and in March the squadron officially moved to Pomigliano. In April 1944 it gained a number of Walrus amphibians from No.283 Squadron and another batch arrived from No.284 Squadron in September. The squadron provide air-sea rescue cover around the Italian coast until it was disbanded on 5 April 1946.
Aircraft
November 1943-April 1946: Vickers Warwick I
April 1944-April 1946: Supermarine Walrus I and II
Location
November-December 1943: Blida
December 1943-March 1944: Bone
March 1944-March 1945: Pomigliano
March-June 1945: Foggia
June 1945-April 1946: Pomigliano
Squadron Codes: ZE
Duty
1943-1946: Air-sea rescue, North Africa and Italy
This is a Warwick I
As I was searching the Internet, I found this forum where someone has many pictures of his father who was also with RAF 293 Squadron.
To contact me, please use this form or write a comment.
The Last Plane He Flew
While waiting for Nicole’s pictures, here is a drawing of the last plane Arthur James Horrell flew.
This drawing is taken from this Website. I stumbled on this site while looking for information about this other pilot.
Richard Cooper’s father-in-law is Theodore Griffiths who flew with 23 Squadron. Rich is doing the same thing as Nicole sharing someone’s memories from WWII. Theodore is 92 and he is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. He can’t remember the present, but he can still remember the past.
Rich is doing the same thing as Mark White who is sharing his father’s memories about Erks with 403 Squadron.
To contact me, please use this form or write a comment.
RCAF No. 443 Squadron 