Getting Coned

Heroes Remember

Getting Coned

Transcript

At night it was very difficult to determine but there was one night when we felt we were coned and we could see the bursts of flak coming closer and closer. Just before the last two bursts, Vic threw it on its’ side and we dropped out and got out of the search light but we felt that we were coned and then that would be attached to the battery of guns. The guns in other words were firing as long as he could keep the aircraft in the cone, that’s what they were firing. It had a big hole in the tail plane where something took a one foot chunk out of the airplane while all of this was going on so it was very close. When we got down we never talked about anything like that. The only thing we talked about was how did everybody react, what worked and what didn’t work and did all the bombs release on time and if they didn’t release, why didn’t they release on time so we talked about the technical parts of it but we never talked about the personal feelings.

Description

Mr. Heather describes the frightful experience of “getting coned.”

Stan Heather

Stanley (Stan) Heather was born in Toronto, Ontario, on June 5, 1923. He began his military service on February 27, 1941, at the Galt Aircraft School as an airframe mechanic trainee and then joined the Royal Canadian Air Force at the manning depot in Toronto as an AC2 (Aircraftman, 2nd class) mechanic in July of that same year. He flew as an air gunner with Royal Air Force 78 Squadron at Breighton, Yorkshire, England. At the end of the war, he had achieved the rank of flying officer, and returned to Toronto to pursue his education in Accounting while working for the Dominion Bank. He worked for the Chrysler Corporation as an accountant, for Dale Carnegie Courses as a sponsor in the West Indies (for 15 years), and for the Mississauga Board of Trade as its general manager. In 1985, he co-founded Heather Child Care Supplies Ltd. with his wife, Hassina which they still operate together. Mr. Heather is a proud father of five, grandfather and great-grandfather.

Meta Data