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The Way Home

Heroes Remember

The Way Home

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Transcript
We ended up on the Louis Pasteur but it wasn't convoy. We didn't know that. It was a convoy between the Mediterranean and England. That was interesting. We had two old skippers, old captains of merchant ships. They would tell us how deep the water was in the Mediterranean because they'd run from England to India and they had picked them up in India and we were heading home. They were retiring. They were old enough to be our dads and they would tell us what direction we were going, how fast the ships were going in this convoy. But when we left England we were on the old Louis Pasteur and it was meant for the south Atlantic or the Mediterranean and it would bounce around like a cork in a bathtub. This morning they wouldn't let us out on deck because you had to walk at a forty-five degree angle when you weren't on deck and we were five decks out of water. I was, had a commission by this time so we were up with the so called elite. We weren't down below. And this young fella, they had, she was a cruise liner actually and they had boxed out every second piece of glass and this young fella was looking out and the old girl would go down and she'd creek and she'd moan and she'd come back up, and oh what a racket, right. It went down once and it was just like a knife goin' through butter, there wasn't a sound. This young officer was standing lookin' out forward and all of a sudden he just says, "Oh, Oh!" and there was the damnedest crash and that whole corner came out of that lounge. Five decks out of water, and he had a gash here. You could see the bone below his eye and one up here, missed the eye, glass. And there were pieces of glass, they had a bar, it wasn't open of course, there were no, then, and pieces of glass were embedded in the deck head behind. When we got to, we were going to New York. We were two days out of New York when this happened and when we got to New York we looked at the bow. It was crinkled a little bit, oh yeah.
Description

Mr. Doiron talks about his difficult cross-Atlantic journey aboard the Louis Pasteur.

Leonard Doiron

Mr. Doiron was born in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island on January 21st 1923. His father worked in wholesale and retail until he was injured and opened his own shoe repair shop. Mr. Doiron joined the Air Force on February 15th 1941 where he began his training in Chatham, New Brunswick. In June 1941 he was sent to Initial Training School in Victoriaville, Québec. Mr. Doiron was part of the top 10 aspiring pilots and was picked to become one. He was later sent back to Chatham where he was washed out for inconsistent flying. The RAFFC (Royal Air Force Ferry Command) noticed his Morse code abilities and had him transferred to Dorval, Québec. He was then stationed in Bournemouth, England. He did his Operational Training in Northern Ireland where he was assigned to a Wellington air plane crew. He flew many missions over the Gulf of Toranto (Italy) - about 300 hours of Operational Flying Time and was promoted to Warrant Officer Class 1. He then went to Cairo, Egypt and to Palestine for a short time before being sent back home on the Louis Pasteur. Mr. Doiron retired from the service in the 1970's.

Meta Data
Medium:
Video
Owner:
Veterans Affairs Canada
Duration:
02:43
Person Interviewed:
Leonard Doiron
War, Conflict or Mission:
Second World War
Location/Theatre:
Europe
Branch:
Air Force
Units/Ship:
Royal Air Force Ferry Command (RAFFC)
Rank:
Sergeant
Occupation:
Radio Operator

Copyright / Permission to Reproduce

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