James Ernest Gaunt

James Ernest "Ernie" Gaunt

Ernie Gaunt was born on October 25, 1917 in Bootle, England. Today Bootle is a suburb of Liverpool, but during the First World War, it was a busy shipping town with plenty of work at its docks. Ships carrying soldiers and products from North America docked there, making the area exceptionally busy. Ernie's father Edward John Gaunt was born in Liverpool in 1889 to Miles Gaunt, a plasterer. Edward had a sister and four brothers and he worked in a tanning factory when the First World War began in 1914. He married his sweetheart, local girl Elizabeth Connolly on July 7, 1915 and soon after shipped out to France as a Sergeant with The Prince of Wales Own (West Yorkshire Regiment), ultimately achieving the rank of Second Lieutenant. Edward John Jr (“Ted”) was born in 1916, followed by Ernie a year later.

Edward Sr returned safely from the war and the couple had a daughter in 1921 whom they named Eileen. Edward Sr's three older brothers had emigrated to Toronto before the war, all working as plasterers like their father before them. In 1923 Edward moved his family to Toronto and by 1926 they were living in a newly built house at 143 King Edward Avenue in what was then known as the Cedarvale suburb of Toronto. Edward was also working as a plasterer by this time. Ernie and Ted would have started school immediately at Danforth Park, probably in Grades Two and Three, respectively. Both boys were very active and loved sports. When Ernie entered East York High School in September 1932, he soon joined his brother on the junior football team. Ted was a halfback and Ernie shone as the team's quarterback. During his high school career, Ernie was the school's 1934 intermediate champion for the 100 yard dash, he played rugby, he was on the school's basketball team, he was first in the city for the running broad jump in 1937, he was part of the school's one mile relay team and continued to play quarterback on East York's football teams. When he graduated in 1937, he received the boy's cup for Character, Scholarship, Leadership and Games.

Ernie, East York's Senior team quarterback in a game against Etobicoke High School. From The Globe and Mail, November 8, 1935.

At home, his father experienced heart trouble and had to stop working in 1933. The family moved from Prince Edward Avenue to a house at 195 Coleridge Avenue. In July 1936, Toronto experienced its worst ever heatwave, with record temperatures which still hold today (2023). From July 7 until the 9th, temperatures were over 40 degrees Celsius in the shade and since there was no air conditioning, people in fragile health were in peril. On July 8, Edward Sr passed away at the East General hospital. It doesn't appear that the family was left destitute but belts were certainly tightened.

Ernie was accepted into the University of Western Ontario's Arts program in September 1937. He continued his sports participation, as quarterback on the Mustangs football team and on the university's rugby and basketball teams. On October 16, 1939, he was the best man at his school friend John Barclay Hollinger's wedding. Barclay's father ran the Hollinger bus lines at the time, but in the 1920s he started with a bus route on Woodbine Avenue. He sold his routes to the TTC in the 1950s. The Hollingers lived just north of Ventnor Avenue on Woodbine, where the Trillium apartment building now stands.

The University of Western Ontario's 1938-1939 intermediate basketball team. From the John P. Metras Sports Museum, University of Western Ontario.

In July 1940, Ernie gave up his studies and enlisted in the Canadian Navy as an ordinary seaman. He had spent his university summer holidays working on Great Lakes ships and because he had uncles who had been in the Royal Navy in the First World War, he gravitated to naval service. In August he was in Halifax and the next month he was loaned to the Royal Navy and found himself at the Royal Naval barracks in Portsmouth, on England's south coast. Ernie volunteered to join the Fleet Air Arm to learn to be a naval pilot. At the time, the Battle of Britain was raging and the Royal Air Force was suffering personnel shortages, borrowing pilots from the navy.

The Toronto Star. December 7, 1940.

He began flying lessons in England and was sent back to Canada in the middle of 1941 for advanced training in Kingston, Ontario. The majority of the trainees at the airfield were from the Royal Navy. They trained on Fairey Battles, a bomber that had the same engine as the Spitfire and Hurricane but was heavier, with a crew of three and a bomb load. It was a plane that was obsolete by the beginning of the Second World War, but by converting it to a two seater, it became an excellent training aircraft.

Fairey Battle. United Kingdom government photo.

By October 1941, Ernie had won his wings in Kingston and was promoted to Sub-Lieutenant. He was posted to a naval squadron at Lee-on-Solent, 5 kilometres east of Portsmouth. Most naval pilots were either assigned to aircraft carriers or aerial protection of naval bases. At the beginning of December, Ernie was sent to the naval airbase at Yeovilton, Somerset in England's southeast. It was a new airfield, where he continued aerial gunnery training and one of the runways was marked up like an aircraft carrier, so pilots could practise landing.

Ernie was sent to western Scotland, to the Royal Naval Air Station Machrihanish, near Campbeltown on the Kintyre peninsula on March 10, 1942. He joined the 772 Squadron and flew anti-submarine reconnaissance off the west coast. After several months he was sent to Egypt where at the time the Allies in the desert campaign were being pushed east by Rommel and the Axis forces. The base for all Fleet Air Arm units in Egypt and the western desert was in Alexandria. Ernie was attached to No. 775 Squadron here, probably as a pilot on an aircraft carrier.

On September 15, he transferred to No. 795 Squadron, stationed in what was the British colony of Kenya. It was tasked with protecting the naval ships which were providing escort duty off the African east coast. At the time Ernie arrived, the navy was also providing support to the troops who were fighting to take Madagascar from the Vichy French.

On October 1, Ernie and the squadron moved to another airfield near Mombasa and it is recorded that the squadron was flying Fairey Fulmars and Grumman Martlets (later known as the Wildcat), both planes that were used on aircraft carriers. Ernie remarked to a Toronto Star reporter in March 1943 that they slept in tents and there wasn't as much air action there as they would have liked. The biggest enemies were scorpions and snakes. Ernie's index finger was bitten by a scorpion but fortunately the base medical officer took care of him.

At the end of the year, he was called back to Canada and was in Halifax again at the beginning of 1943, promoted to Lieutenant. In March he came home to Toronto for his leave before embarking on a goodwill speaking tour in support of the Fourth Victory Loan drive. The Fleet Air Arm was about to re-equip its aircraft carriers with Corsairs, a gull-winged fighter plane that was ultimately successful in the Pacific theatre of war. On May 12, Ernie arrived in Rhode Island to train at the naval air station at Quonset Point with other pilots of the Fleet Air Arm.

A Corsair of the Fleet Air Arm, training over the United States. From ww2today.com.

June 3, 1943 was a clear day and Ernie was in line for the runway. At 0925 hrs he took off, but the propeller somehow caught the ground and the Corsair crashed, coming to rest at the end of the runway. Ernie was killed instantly. His remains were returned to Toronto, to be buried in the Gaunt family plot in Prospect Cemetery.

Ted had joined the RCAF and after Ernie joined the Navy, their mother Elizabeth moved out of 195 Coleridge. She died in Toronto in 1971.