Operation: Armed Recce in the Flers Area, France

Date: 13th August 1944 (Sunday)

Unit No: 440 (City of Ottawa) Squadron, RCAF, 143 Wing, 2nd Tactical Air Force

Type: Typhoon Ib

Serial: MN720

Code: I8:W

Base: ALG B-9 Lantheuil, France

Location: Le Haut Des Vers, France

Pilot: Fg Off. Roger Eugene George McCurdy J21517 RCAF Age 23. KiA

Above Fg Off. McCurdy from his Service Record

Above: Courtesy of The Ottawa Citizen, dated June 25th, 1946

From left to right in the front row: Fg Off. Roger Eugene George McCurdy (This report), Fg Off. James Hughes Beatty J14471, Unknown, Unknown.

Standing second row: Fg Off. John Fraser Dewar J28180 (KiA 12th August 1944), WO2. Richard Arthur Watson R135831, Fg Off. Ronald William Doidge J26406 (KiA 20th October 1944), Sqn Ldr. Harold Orville Gooding DFC J10608, Flt Lt. Clifford Waldron Hicks J26912 (KiA 8th August 1944), Fg Off. Donald Claude Campbell J28170.

Seated on the wing third row: Flt Lt. Donald Edward Jenvey J11309 (Evader/Killed 25th March 1944), Fg Off. John Spencer ‘Sandy’ Colville J29167 (KiA 18th August 1944), Fg Off. R.J. Currie Gardner J36788, Fg Off. Gordon Douglas Russell J13714.

REASON FOR LOSS

On the 13th August 1944 at 17:45 hrs two flights of four Typhoons took off from B.9 Lantheuil in France on an Armed Recce mission in the Flers and Athis-de-I’Orne area.

Flt Lt. Delbert Francis English J11057 RCAF described the loss of Typhoon Ib MN720 and the loss of Fg Off. Roger McCurdy 18:30 hrs:

‘The formation took off on a strafing trip, target area between Flers and Athis. Fg Off. McCurdy was Blue 4 and I was Blue 2. Arriving at the target area we went down to strafe MT and ran into a flak trap. The formation broke and started for base. I had lost the formation. On the way back I sighted a Typhoon trailing smoke, up sun and in the haze. Before I got close enough to recognize the letters on the aircraft it nosed over and went straight in, behind enemy lines. No parachute was seen. I returned to base and reported the accident. It was then I learned that Fg Off. McCurdy was flying Typhoon Ib MN720’.

On the 17th January 1945 an officer from the Missing Research and Enquiry Unit (MREU) was obtaining information regarding aircraft crashes in the départements (counties) of Calvados and Orne. His investigations determined that Typhoon Ib MN720 crashed in the garden of a house in the hamlet of Le Haut Des Vers. The body of Fg Off. McCurdy was initially buried in an adjoining field.

The crash site of MN720 was within 200 yards of Typhoon MP122, Fg Off. John Fraser Dewar which crashed less than 48 hrs earlier in the neighbouring hamlet of Le Pont des Vers.

Burial details:

Above Bayeux War Cemetery

Fg Off. Roger Eugene George McCurdy. He was recovered and reinterred at the Bayeux War Cemetery, Grave XV.M.25 on the 27th March 1946. Born on the 19th February 1921 in Haileybury, Ontario. Son of William and Cordiana (née Lavigni) McCurdy of Haileybury, Ontario, Canada.

Researched by Ralph Snape and dedicated to this pilot and his family.

Other sources as quoted below:

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