Operation: Normandy invasion support

Date: 07th June 1944 (Wednesday)

Unit: No. 198 Squadron (motto: Igni renatus - 'Born again in fire'). 20 Sector. 146 Wing. 84 Group

Type: Typhoon Ib

Serial: MN125

Code: SA-Q

Base: RAF Pembroke Dock

Location: Villers-Bocage, France

Pilot: Fl/Lt. Peter Digby Lewington Roper 132419 RAFVR Age 21. Safe

REASON FOR LOSS:

Information courtesy Stephen Smith, journalist with CBC News who interviewed the pilot in June 2014:

On D-Day, Fl/Lt. Roper was helping coordinate air support for the Canadian landing at Juno Beach. Technically 'on rest', he nevertheless couldn’t wait for a break from his duties to get in on the action.

At first light, Roper joined a Typhoon squadron on a search-and-destroy mission on the eastern flank of the new allied beachhead. The Typhoons came up empty.

His next chance came that evening, Roper convinced a friend to join him for another go, this time to the west of the beachhead. He 'borrowed' the personal aircraft of Group Captain Denys Edgar Gillam.

As they came in low and fast near Caen, Roper finally spotted what he was after - a line of German tanks.

'Just as I saw them and went to get down on them to shoot at them, I was hit [by light anti- aircraft fire] and I had to bail out,' he said.

Above: 198 squadron pilots with Peter Roper fifth from the right.

It happened so fast that Roper never had time to radio in what he saw, a fact he regrets.

'These were the tanks the held up the British army at a place called Villers-Bocage, a crucial spot for the encirclement of Caen', he said. Had he been able to call in their position, it might have helped the allies take Caen as planned by the end of June. Instead, such tanks helped stall the allied advance and the battle for Caen raged until August.

Shot through the ankle by an anti-aircraft round and his plane on fire, Roper struggled out onto the Typhoon’s right wing. His ankle shattered, he tried to find his balance on the wing of the burning plane, which was still going more than 100 miles an hour. With his weight on his good leg, he jumped as high and as far away from the speeding Typhoon as he could in order to avoid the plane’s rear rudder.

'f you hit it, it would be like being cut in two' he said.

The Typhoon’s rudder sped past Roper and the roaring wind helped fill his parachute, allowing him to float safely to the ground only 200 feet below while his plane nose-dived into a nearby field.

He parachuted safely into a farmer's field and was taken in by villagers in Monts-en-Bessin, who snuck him through German lines in a horse-drawn cart to a doctor in a town nearby. Chateau Haute Fecq

A French farmer found the downed pilot and gave him a belt of homemade calvados, which Roper mistook for water and gulped down. A German SS lieutenant arrived soon after.

'He wanted me to tell him things - what plane I was flying and that sort of thing. But I refused to answer. I only gave him my number, rank and name' Roper said.

With his rank the equivalent of a captain, Roper also demanded to speak with a German officer of equal rank. Insulted, the SS officer soon left alone, but not before threatening to execute the wounded pilot.

That the French villagers openly helped him despite the danger of punishment by the SS is something that sticks with Roper to this day.

“They took great risks to look after me. They didn’t hide me because if they did, they would have all been shot.”

Hiding the injured pilot did become necessary at one point in order to get him to a village doctor in nearby Villers. To do so, his French rescuers hid Roper under straw in a cattle cart and ferried him past German sentries.

The doctor plugged Roper’s ankle with bandages, some of which stayed in the wound for more than three months.

After seeing the doctor, the pilot was then taken to the chateau of the local baron, Baron D'Huart, whose family looked after him until the Germans took him into custody.

Roper attributes the fact he wasn’t executed to a German army captain who helped to ensure that he was sent to a prisoner-of-war hospital instead.

Roper was liberated from the hospital by advancing American forces on August 4, 1944.

He returned to England, where he underwent rehabilitation and had a starring role in a propaganda film called Diary for Timothy. (See video below)

He returned to flying Typhoons at the start of 1945 and was with a squadron in Holland when the ended in May.

Roper was never decorated for his courage.

Above: Peter in Holland 1945.

Burial and personal details:

Born on the 08th August 1922 in London, England. Enlisted on the 08th August 1940. Trained in Rhodesia then sent to Aden to prevent a Japanese attack, which never materialised. He then returned to England and in 1943 joined a typhoon squadron.

After WWII, Peter graduated in Medicine at the University of Glasgow (1951) and rowed in their colours at Henley. He served in the Korean War in aviation medicine, later studying psychiatry at the Maudsley Institute, London. In 1957, he became a Member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and moved to Montreal to study and practice. He became a Canadian citizen after moving in 1959 to Montreal.

Above 1944 and 2014.

Over the course of his lengthy career, Peter worked at the Royal Victoria Hospital, the Allan Memorial Institute, and the Douglas Hospital in affiliation with McGill University. He was passionate about his medical research with airline pilots and the use of biofeedback. Very focussed on his patients, he retired at the age of 93 from private practice.

Died 11th August 2017, age 95 at Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal, Canada.

Peter is survived by his loving family from three marriages: his wife, Virginie Louise Roper (née Richer); second wife, Beverlea K. Tallant and their children Margaret and Gillian; first wife Nancy Anderson Roper (predeceased) and their children Christopher, Mark (Eleanor), Gordon (Willa), and Jane (Gary); step children from Virginie Roper, Caroline Blouin (Benoît) and Thomas Blouin (predeceased); daughter-in-law Elaine Roper (Ian McKinnon); and seventeen grandchildren.

Researched and dedicated to the relatives of this pilot with thanks to Dr. Peter Roper, CBC news, Dignity Memorial, Sigma Xi, Herald of Glasgow, other sources as quoted below:

At the going down of the sun, and in the morning we will remember them. - Laurence Binyon
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