Allan McDougall helped deliver a different type of payload 80 years ago on D-Day.
Sitting in a Lancaster over Holland, the Barrie man’s bomber dropped containers of food, including bread, to a starving population in the Nazi-occupied area.
Meanwhile, Allied forces stormed the French beaches on June 6, 1944, in what McDougall described as the real beginning of the Second World War’s conclusion.
“It was coming to the end of the war,” McDougall said of D-Day, through his daughter Diane Therrien, in an interview at Mill Creek Care Centre on Hurst Drive. “Holland was a mission not to drop bombs, but to feed the people.”
McDougall said his Lancaster crew was not under fire that day, but there was action on the ground below involving German soldiers.
From Glasgow, Scotland, McDougall will be 99 years old this September.
He lied about his age and joined the Royal Air Force (RAF) at age 17.
“I enlisted because I thought it would be exciting and I would be home in a couple of weeks,” he said.
McDougall, nicknamed Jock, was trained as a flight engineer and eventually became a crew member with ‘B’ Flight 100 Squadron, which was almost all-Canadian, in Bomber Command.
The pilot was from Calgary, both the rear gunner and bomb aimer from Ottawa, the navigator from Hamilton, the mid-gunner from Thorold/St. Catharines and the wireless operator from Newcastle, Great Britain.
McDougall was the fight engineer, and he sat next to the pilot. He was expected to know the Lancaster inside and out, and be able to cope with any emergency from any mechanical faults or enemy action.
“If the pilot got injured, in the war, he was responsible to take them home,” said Therrien. “And he had to make sure everything was working (on the Lancaster).”
McDougall and his crew had a busy war.
Before D-Day, they were shot down and McDougall landed by parachute, breaking his two front teeth.
After D-Day, his crew continued the bombing raids on Germany.
Therrien says her father is the last surviving member of ‘B’ Flight 100 Squadron.
McDougall had an Omega wristwatch which he wore on every sortie during the Second World War until August 1946, when he was decommissioned.
“It brought me and my crew members good luck during the three trips to drop supplies to the Dutch partisans and the 27 Lancaster bombing missions,” he said.
This included a mission to Bremen, Germany, when his Lancaster crew shot down a Messerschmitt Me 262 Schwalbe, the world’s first operational, jet-powered fighter aircraft, a confirmed hit.
McDougall was also aboard the Able Mabel on a thousand bomber daylight raid to Essen, Germany on March 11, 1945.
“The Able Mabel was sometimes referred to as The Bad Penny and is the only operational Avro Lancaster in Britain to this day,” he said.
The Second World War came to an end in Europe on May 8, 1945 and McDougall was redeployed to the Pacific theatre, arriving in Bombay (now Mumbai), India to find the war with Japan had also come to an end, officially ending the Second World War on Sept. 2, 1945.
He was then stationed in Lahore, Pakistan to relieve RAF personnel.
During the two years he was stationed there, he met his future wife, June Cowton, who was a member of the Women’s Royal Air Force.
“I married and enjoyed 75 years with the love of my life,” McDougall said.
“When he left the forces, he wanted to become a commercial pilot, but my mom said no,” Therrien said. “She had enough of him flying during the war and said enough’s enough. He wanted to go to British Airways, but she wouldn’t let him.”
He returned to Scotland with June and immigrated to Canada in 1975. They had two daughters.
McDougall worked for a tire company, Firestone Rubber, until 1975. When he came to Canada, he ended up at General Tire in Barrie, where he was a production manager.
“Enjoying the freedoms that we veterans fought for,” McDougall said.
D-Day at a Glance
- D-Day and the Battle of Normandy was one of the most significant chapters in Canada’s military history.
- More than 450 members of the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion jumped inland before dawn on June 6, 1944. They were the first Canadians to engage the enemy on D-Day.
- On June 6, 1944, some 14,000 Canadian troops from the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division and the 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade stormed the beaches of Normandy.
- More than 90,000 Canadian soldiers who had volunteered to serve Canada during the Second World War saw action in the Normandy Campaign.
- The Battle of Normandy lasted for 11 weeks. Fighting through the dust and heat of the French summer, more than 5,000 Canadian soldiers were killed and another 13,000 wounded before the campaign officially came to a close in late August 1944.
- The Canadians who fought on D‑Day and throughout the Battle of Normandy were among the more than one million men and women from this country who served in uniform during the Second World War.
Source: Veterans Affairs Canada
