My name is Francois Savard, and I was born near Quebec City in July of 1925. I grew up in a big family, with six siblings and my father was a member of the Royal 22nd Regiment, so I was brought up in a military environment.. Like most military families, we moved very often. By the time I went to high school in Montreal, I had been to 10 different schools.
When the talk of war first broke out in 1939, my father was mobilized and sent to England. At the time my mom had six children, and was pregnant with the seventh!
Of course, my mother was worried about his well-being, but us kids didn't worry too much. We knew our dad was an officer, and military life was his business. He wasn't involved in direct combat either, so we looked at it like it was his routine. We were accustomed to my father participating in various military exploits.
In 1942, my father came home from England with 70% disability. He was in his 40s, and at that point the strain of the military experience was just too much for him. My older brother, who was a year older than me, joined the air force and he was sent to be a navigator.
In 1944, just before I finished 12th grade, a recruiting officer came to our school to tell us about military engineer training that the Army was offering boys like us. The training took 15 months, at the end of which we'd come out as lieutenants. I was excited for the prospect. Being from a military family, this was right up my alley.
I went to the recruiting office with a classmate, and we were ushered into the Colonel's office. We told the Colonel we were both interested in the training. He looked at my classmate, who was already six feet tall, then looked at me and said "Actually boy, it's men we're looking for." I turned around and slammed the door.
I immediately went to the air force recruiting office, and they were more receptive. When they asked me what I wanted to be, I said I wanted to be aircrew. So they sent me to pre-flight school in London, Ontario, where we were tested to see what position was best for us. Most of us were destined to be navigators and bombers, but if you were physically fit you got a chance to do pilot testing. We tested on a link trainer, which was a simulator. I had three runs on the simulator, but they didn't go well. The instructors said "This is not for you". They told me not only would I break my neck I'd break her Majesty's airplane.
I did much better as a navigator, so they assigned me to be one. On May 5th, 1944, at the end of the 20-week training, I graduated and got my wings as a navigator.
From there, I boarded the Empress of Scotland, which was headed to England. That ship had been called the Empress of Japan, but once the war broke out they changed the name. It was an eight-day journey that I didn't particularly care for. It was so crowded that the bunks were stacked four high, and you could only have two meals a day.
I was excited, but I had a little reservation. When my brother was being trained as a navigator near Montreal, he used to come home on the weekend, and he'd bring home a sextant, an instrument used to determine positioning and altitude. The sextant was in English, which was my second language. Mastering the art of celestial navigation in English was a tough prospect, but I figured I'd deal with that when the time comes. And the time has finally come.
Once I got to England, I checked in at the reception center in Bournemouth, which was on the South coast. From there, I went into what was referred to as Bomber pipeline. There were different stages of training during this period. My squadron was comprised of six French-Canadian soldiers, and I was selected to be on that squadron. We were a part of the 425 Alouette Squadron. Our crest was a bird, and we would be flying Halifax Bombers. I was excited because my brother also flew in a Halifax Bomber!
From there, I went to advanced flying school in Anglesey, North Wales. That was a one-month course.
In August 1944, I went back to Bournemouth to wait for the next stage, which was the operational training unit, or OTU.
We formed our crew there. The crew was primarily full of sergeants. I was the only officer in the crew. Because of that, I made $2 a day to my comrades' 75 cents. We went through our training and we graduated at the end of November. After training, we were given 30 days leave. The guys decided to go to London and spend the holidays there. We were a group of five French-Canadian Catholics, and most of us were very religious. Every Sunday we'd go to Mass, but one of the guys, our tail gunner, would never go. He always had a tough-guy hat that he put on.
On Christmas night, we decided to go to midnight mass, and he decided to come with us. As we walked into this church, silent night was playing. The scene was so beautiful that even Mr. Tough Guy started sobbing!
Upon returning to base, we had a one-month commander training. There were so many soldiers at this training that they didn't know what do to with us. We spent two months at that place, before we finally reached the last stage of our training.
During my time in commander training, I found out my older brother died. His plane was shot down right on his 30th mission. He had written my parents that very day, telling them to get all the liquor rations they could because he planned to celebrate upon his arrival back to Canada. My parents received the telegram announcing his death before that letter.
Just a few weeks later, In March '45, we started operations. My parents at home were sick with worry. Our base in England was this small village called Tholthorpe, which wasn't far from York.
Our first target was Leipzig, which was very far into Germany. That was on April 10th, 1945. Over 700-800 heavy bombers flew on this mission. I remember that as we were approaching our target, there was a Lancaster bomber going down in flames 200 yards behind us. Seconds later, another one went down 100 meters behind us.
All of a sudden, we heard a loud kaboom in our air craft. The Germans hit one of our engines! I looked back and saw a huge hole behind me. Our aircraft operator narrowly missed the missile, as he was standing in that spot just a couple seconds before! You know, people wonder how they would react in the imminent danger of death. In my case, I started shaking, but I quickly told myself "Hey, you gotta get a hold of yourself - you've got work to do!" They weren't going to take us like this! I was determined.
There was a lot of noise in the front of the airplane, and the air was rushing in at over 180 miles an hour. Because we lost our oxygen, we couldn't stay at the altitude we were at, so we had to go down to 10,000 feet. Our pilot expertly led us to safety, but in the back of my mind I was thinking "this is going to be a long tour!" It was an eight hour right back to base, and we were thanking our lucky stars for every minute.
A few nights later, we were on a mission to bomb a submarine base in Kiel, Germany. On the way, we were hit in the tail of the airplane, exactly where the turret was. Our tail gunner had his gun turned at 45 degrees, so he was trapped in the turret portion of the plane. I heard him screaming "I can't move! I can't move!" on the radio. Our flight engineer said "who is that?" He couldn't understand the French.
The next thing I heard from the radio was gunner was praying. This was the act of contrition that Catholic children were taught. He was getting ready to die. Luckily, our pilot once again got us out of peril and flew us back to base. Our tail gunner was so thankful that he survived that he went to church every Sunday for the rest of his life.
On the next part of our operation, we were targeting an island in the North Sea. We were loaded with five tons of bombs and two tons of petroleum. As we were taking off, we immediately lost the right engine. Some luck we had!
Normally, that would be a death sentence, but our pilot was so skilled that he managed to keep us in the air. We got down to 10,000 feet and assessed the situation. He told us the plane was too heavy to land, but we could do two things: we could orbit the base, which would burn out our fuel and allow us to land or we could go out to sea and dump the bombs, which would also allow us to land.
We decided to just dump the bombs and chalk the mission up as a failure. A hundred miles later though, as the plane destabilized and we got closer to the target, we reconsidered. Our aircraft was within striking distance, and we wanted to get credit for the mission. So over the island we went, dropping our bombs. But by the time we had gotten there, all the other bombers had left.
As we were on our way back, six German planes came toward us. That was bad news with one engine stopped. Our pilot said: "don't shoot first." Strangely, they never ended up shooting at us!
On our way back, a second engine started to cough. We were prepared to bail, but the flight engineer managed to get the engine started. By the time we got back to base, we were listed as "Missing in action" on the board.
Three days later, the target was Bremen, Germany. The Canadian Army was trying to advance through Northern Germany and was stopped by sturdy opposition. Our job was to bomb the area so our Army could travel more freely. The regiment sent 800 heavy bombers, but our target was just 500 yards ahead of our troops. It was so close that command told us to abort the operation if there were any clouds over our target.
We went into formation in our normal manner: 150 heavy bombers every five minutes, dropping 1,000 tons of bombs. That day the first two waves dropped on the target, but there was a cloud when we were about to drop. We had to abort the mission.
We were disappointed, but there were no chaotic circumstances so we were fine. In our brief time during the operation, we had been through perilous situations, but on the last day of April 1945, we faced perhaps our most dangerous test.
Our next target was the German naval gun batteries that were keeping the Allied forces from going into Wilhelmshaven and Bremerhaven, They sent about 1000 of us, each with 5-6 tons to hit those guns in broad daylight. As we were approaching the target, our engineer said "look up!" There was another bomber directly over us! Our pilot managed to lean over to the left with his wing tip below the right wing of the plane next to us while the plane above us was dropping bombs. Our engineer saw six tons of bombs go between our plane's tail and wing. He said that it took 10 years off his life, and I don't blame him for feeling that way.
During that mission, we lost seven aircrafts. I personally saw four of them try to parachute, but none of them were rescued.
During our operations, every six weeks we'd get a week off. The break was referred to as "Operation relief." During one such relief, we traveled to London. That day turned out to be V-Day! The town was going wild, as there were many American soldiers in London at the time.
In a crew of six people, you tend to hit it off with one or two guys better than others. In my case, I got really close with the gunners. Whenever we had our relief period, we would travel and party together. We were together during this D-Day hoopla, but I told them I didn't want to party just yet. Inside, I was sort of in a contemplative mood. I had very close to death multiple times, and my older brother died during his last mission. I was happy it was over; I just didn't feel like party.
We later got back to our squadron and one morning, a Captain of our regiment gathered us in the briefing room. He told us that we have been selected as part of the Tiger Force, which was Canada's contribution to the war against Japan.
The Tiger Force would be made of volunteers, who would learn how to fly them. He told us whoever volunteered would be led in a formation of 15 Lancasters over to Montreal. I decided to go along because I didn't have any other prospects at the time.
By mid-June, 1945, we were in Montreal. From there, I took the train back home, and my family was waiting for me. They were gracious to see me, but a little upset that I was volunteering. Two of us brothers had went overseas and only one came back. My mother was particularly brokenhearted. She asked me, "how could you do this to me?" Later on, I figured out only 20% volunteered to go.
After a month's leave, I went to the base in Nova Scotia to begin training. I was surprised to see that there were much more female volunteers than men. Not even a month into training, the US had dropped the Atomic bomb in Japan and the whole war was over. So much for that mission. I was sort of happy I wouldn't have to go to Japan.
Then I though about my future. I faced the prospect of not being an officer anymore. The pay was $7 a day, tax free. Where could I make that kind of money? What would I do? Not only that, I was proud of my uniform. Plus the girls used to love it, and I used to love that fact. Because of those reasons, I decided to stay in the air force. I hung in there until January 1946, when they told me they didn't need me.
Soon after, I ran into my old friend from High School who had been invited to that engineer's course. He told me he was only a private in the Army! Secretly, I thanked that Colonel for rejecting me way back when.
Anyways, I figured the smart thing to do with my life was go back to school. I registered in McGill, and chose Geology. Well, after some deliberation. I met a couple ex-Air Force guys who knew something about geology, and they influenced my choice.
To be honest, I was quite bored with geology and thought about alternative careers. One day I saw an old squadron friend of mine. He told me he had just got back from Tokyo, where he was stationed with the 426 squadron that was on a Korean airlift.
It sounded pretty exciting. I visited the recruiting office, but the officer told I should finish my degree and get a permanent commission. After graduating from McGill, I went back into the Air Force. I bounced around for years in various positions throughout the world, recruiting and teaching.
While recruiting in Neuville, Quebec, an old Air Force buddy told me to meet a lady friend of his. I was 28 at the time. We went on a double date, and we ended up marrying both of our dates. I was married to my wife for 60 years! Soon after, I had two children. Our family loved camping, which we did for over 45 years, all over the world.
Though I never got to the 426 squadron, I enjoyed my second tour in the Air Force. My last job was management engineering in France. At 45, I finally retired from the Air Force.
I got a job in civil service, where I worked for 15 years before retiring in 1984. Since then, I've spent my time vacationing, camping, and spending time with friends at the veterans home. Every morning, I get about seven miles of walking exercise. My wife isn't in her best health, so I spend a lot of time taking care of her. I don't mind it at all though, it's still a wonderful life.
