First Destroyed Enemy

Interviewer: Tell me, Mr. Sager, can you also describe the first time that you shot down an enemy aircraft? Clearly, definitely, yes, yes. Again it was my eyesight that enabled me to see aircraft taking off, this was again with Chad, taking off from an aerodrome and we were protecting bombers, Mitchell's I think, and on the way back I saw these, these flashes of light, like light, white, of aircraft taking off, there was some cloud, and I reported, I reported this to the CO and he told me to take my flight down and, and investigate, and the CO came with me so we had the two, one squadron stay above, and my CO followed but he didn't know where we were going, I was leading and I was going very fast because I knew we'd have to go fast to catch up to them. And so when I got down to the ground where I'd seen, I went screaming across, screaming across tree-top level and I saw aircraft two ahead of me, and my number two was with me and we went fast as we could and I got up, this time I realized, as I said, I had to get up the aircraft's bottom. So I got about 50 feet, and shot my cannons and it, the aircraft blew up. Unfortunately I lost my number two because he was too close to me and parts of the German aircraft flew into his radiator and he had to crash land and he was killed in crash landing. The, I remember very clearly because the flaming mass of aircraft in front of me went over on it's side and went screaming across, into a railway embankment and along the railway, and the streams of, of flames behind it, it's sort of shaking when you realize there is a human being on the, in what you've just done.

Mr. Sager describes the experience of shooting down his first enemy and how he lost his number two man as a result of flying debris from the exploding plane.

Arthur Hazelton Sager

Mr. Sager was born in Hazelton, BC, where his father was working as a medical missionary. He was the eldest boy in his family, growing up with two brothers and four sisters. He and his family were pacifists (against war). Mr Sager quit school at age seventeen and went to work in a gold mine. At the outbreak of war Mr. Sager was living in London, England, working as a professional actor, as well as a reporter and had the opportunity to interview Jews and other people that had fled mainland Europe. The stories he heard from these people led to the changing of his pacifist attitudes. Mr. Sager also had two brothers who served, one in the Royal Canadian Navy and the other in the Royal Canadian Air Force. Mr. Sager joined the RCAF and flew many combat missions over Europe. He had a very successful career earning the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) with bars, and his flying record at the end of the war stood at six destroyed, two probable and five damaged. By the end of the war, Mr. Sager was made a commanding office After the war Mr. Sager also had a distinguished career as a private citizen. Among his many jobs, he spent twenty years working for the United Nations as Project Manager for developing countries, as well as a member of the Executive of the Royal Canadian Air Force Association.

Medium:: Video
Owner:: Veterans Affairs Canada
Duration:: 02:23
Person Interviewed:: Arthur Hazelton Sager
War, Conflict or Mission:: Second World War
Location/Theatre:: Europe
Branch:: Air Force
Units/Ship:: 416, 421, 443 Squadron
Rank:: Flight Commander
Occupation:: Pilot

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