  Flight
Sergeant François Roland Joseph Pilon (R/90867) died
during the
early morning hours of April 17, 1943 when the four-engine Halifax II
bomber
he was flying in was shot down and crashed over the eastern Picardie
region
(Aisne) of northwestern France. On the night he died, he was the
navigator
of bomber BB-343 coded EQ-X of 408 Squadron, Royal Canadian Air
Force. This was only his fourth operational trip, all of them
while he was based at RAF Leeming Station in North Yorkshire, UK (click
here
to learn more about Leeming Station). He had
less than 20 hours of combat experience. In fact, the same was
true of the rest of the crew with the exception of the pilot W.O.
Joseph Jacques Alfred Guay who had flown 14 successful operational
sorties and
Air Gunner
Sgt. Irving MacDonald who had only been on 2 sorties.
Along with other aircrews of the 408 and 419 Squadrons of the
RCAF and aircrews of the Royal
Air Force, Roland's mission was to
help drop more than 130,000 pounds of explosives and incendiaries on
the
Skoda
armaments factory in the Czecheslovakian city of Pilsen. However,
the
raid took place under a full moon and disaster struck. With a
complicated
plan, confusion ensued. Tragedy was compounded. The target
was
missed and a record number of bomber crews were shot from the skies; 36
of
327 aircraft or 11 percent.
 Peter W.
Cunliffe, author of A Shaky Do, The Skoday works raid 16/17th April 1943 (2007), has conducted extensive research
into the Pilzen Raid and shared with us some of his findings regarding
EQ-X: "French local authorities reported to the Ministry of the
Interior (19/04/1943) that in the night of 16/17 April 1943 about
4h45 AM an a/c crashed in a meadow at a place named "le calvaire St
Germain". At 7h00 AM, the bomber was still burning."
Roland's sister-in-law, Madame Marcelle Pilon
née Dignard (follow this link to view the
archive of documents she has so kindly allowed us to share), has
preserved several documents relating to her husband's late brother,
including a 1951 letter from Jacques Guay's brother Edgar who toured
that part of northern France after the war. He met with several
villagers from Lesquielles who witnessed the ferocious air battle in
the early hours of that morning. According to them, EQ-X circled
the valley with great difficulty in order to crash away from the
village. In 2006, this was still the explanation warmly preserved by community elders who had witnessed the aerial battle. Such was their respect for the airmen that the local
population erected a monument to remember the fallen aviators at the
crash site. (follow
this link to view the monument erected at the EQ-X crash site in
northern France). François Roland Pilon's supreme
sacrifice is also remembered in his hometown of Rockland, Ontario (follow this link
to view the memorial to those who fell in the Second World War from
Rockland, Ontario).
 Roland Pilon's story begins far from the dark skies over
Europe in the small franco-ontarian community of Rockland, in the
Ottawa Valley (note that he went by the name Roland and only used one letter "L" in his signature, in spite of double "LL" being used throughout his personnel file). The son of Philias Pilon and Aurélie
Bourgon (click
here
to view François Roland Joseph Pilon's genealogy back to France), he
was from
a family of 7 children. He was a graduate of the University of
Ottawa
and had begun to teach separate school at Cochrane in Northern Ontario when he decided to enlist on June 28,
1941 in North Bay (you can view his personnel file held by Library and Archives Canada by following this link). Following his initial training, Roland
enrolled in Course No.39 given by No.4 Air Observer School at Crumlin,
Ontario, located near London, Ontario. There he would learn the
skills on which a bomber crew would depend to reach their target and
more importantly return to base (follow this link to read the
yearbook that was put together by the alumni of Course No.39).
Today, Roland
Pilon lies in
the Liesse Community Cemetery
along
with his EQ-X comrades (click here
to see a map of France showing the location of Liesse): W/O1 J.
Guay (RCAF), Sgt H. Fill (RCAF), F/Sgt L. Haines (RCAF), Sgt R. Winter
(RAF), F/Sgt
I. MacDonald (RCAF) Sgt A. Gielty (RAF). Several other bomber
crews lie in that same Commonwealth War Grave plot, including the uncle
of Chuck
Jonasson who kindly made photographs of the cemetery available to
us (follow this link
to view the Liesse cemetery and the grave of Roland
Pilon).
  Three
other Halifax bombers from
408 Squadron's 12 Halifaxes were also shot
down that night. One (EQ-D) in northeastern France (Meuse), one
(EQ-W)
in the nearby Ardennes region of southeastern Belgium and one (EQ-R) in
Germany. (Follow
this link
to learn more about the RCAF casualties of that evening's attack on
Pilsen)
In 2006, Jean-Luc Pilon and Thomas Pilon travelled to Lesquielles-St-Germain to pay their respects at the graves of BB-343's aircrew. While visiting the local monument erected by the community in memory of the aircrew, a farmer, Monsieur Arnaud Béthune, was working in the field adjacent to the community cemetery. We spoke with him and he shared all kinds of information about the crash, the nearby crash site as well as a member of the community who had witnessed the crash and placed a marker at the very location. They visited with Monsieur Raymond Bondon. We also visited the graves of the aircrew and presented François Roland Pilon with his service medals that had been sold ebay in January of 2004. This visit is the subject of a short video produced to capture that incredible visit and the memory of the aircrew of BB-343. You can view by following this link.
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