William James Hogg

Bill Hogg was born in Toronto on April 7, 1919 and was adopted by James Frederick Hogg (born 1870) and his wife Elizabeth Swinson (born circa 1877). James was a descendant of the Hogg family of Hogg's Hollow who in the 1830s established the village of York Mills at what is now Yonge Street and York Mills Road. When James and Elizabeth married in 1905, James was working as a farmer. The next year Elizabeth gave birth to their daughter Audrey and by 1907 they were living in downtown Toronto. James had become an insurance agent for Metropolitan Life.

The family moved to 13 Coleridge Avenue around the time they adopted Bill. Living at 13 Coleridge, one would think that Bill would have attended Gledhill School, practically a stone's throw away. Since his house was in East York and not Toronto, he had to attend Danforth Park. In Bill's RCAF file, he stated that he attended Danforth Park from 1926 to 1934 and continued school in the Commercial course at East York High School (now Collegiate) from 1934 to 1935. The Commercial program gave him some formal training in office and business work. A letter from East York's principal in the RCAF file states that Bill started at East York in September 1933 and left for a job in June 1935, so perhaps Bill's dates for his schools in his attestation papers were inaccurate. Department of Education papers in the file indicate that he did three years of high school, but didn't complete his Junior Matriculation in Algebra, Geometry and Physics. In 1936, Bill returned to East York for four years of night school classes to pass the required courses for his matriculation.

When the Depression arrived in the early 1930s and many people were forced out of work, James became a caretaker at the East General Hospital where he remained until 1938 when he had to retire because of poor health. Sister Audrey worked in the business department of The Toronto Telegram newspaper and married in the mid-1930s.

Although Bill quit school in 1935, he was an intelligent boy. He loved to play baseball and also played some rugby and ice hockey. He was a member of the juvenile division of a fraternal society and belonged to the Woodbine Heights Baptist Church. Upon leaving school, he took a job at Westman Publications, located on Adelaide Street near Spadina Avenue. The company originally built printing presses and had taken the logical step of becoming a publisher. According to a reference letter from L.E. Westman dated September 11, 1940 in the RCAF file, the employer wrote about Bill:

At present time his duties involve such widely different matters as the handling of all correspondence in connection with the maintenance of accurate price records on some 700 industrial raw materials and chemical products. This is original work, as the only place this information appears in Canada or elsewhere is in one of our publications. He meets the public both by telephone and in the office. He has charge of records regarding the circulation of three magazines and has to deal with correspondence arising from circulation matters. (...) He is a very capable, enthusiastic, and most willing worker, with a sense of responsibility, and possesses a natural social instinct that causes him to be very well liked by his associates.

Bill tried to enlist in the RCAF on September 11, 1940, but at the time, unless a man already had a pilot's licence or was a university graduate, the air force wouldn't take him. A month later, on October 9, Bill enlisted with the Toronto Scottish Regiment's army reserve unit and would have spent evenings and weekends learning drills. He also attended the Canadian Legion's Educational Service course to give him the equivalent of a matriculation, which he received on February 22, 1941.

In early 1941, the air force had relaxed its entrance requirements and Bill enlisted on February 28. He stated he wanted to be an air gunner or navigator. Although he signed the paperwork, Bill wasn't required to report for duty until April 22, which he did at 9 am and he remained in Toronto until he was sent to Flight Training School in Dunnville, Ontario to be trained as a pilot. He returned to Toronto for training in June and spent a week at Mount Hope airport near Hamilton.

Bill had a girlfriend, Joan Kathleen Plummer and was happy to remain in the Toronto area with her and his family during this time. He would have had passes so he was able to spend time with them on his days off.

Bill didn't shine as a pilot and was re-assigned to air observer (navigator), spending most of August in Trenton at the Composite Training School there. At the end of September he took the train to Prince Albert, Saskatchewan to No. 6 Air Observers School where he was only an average student in Navigation, and then to No. 5 Bombing and Gunnery school in Dafoe, Saskatchewan for a six week course that started on January 3, 1942. He proved to be an above average bomb aimer and air gunner. After receiving his wing on February 14, Bill was in Rivers, Manitoba for the four week advanced air observers training course. Here he learned astronavigation. When he completed the course in mid-March, he was given the standard two weeks' leave before embarking for Britain.

Knowing that he was going overseas soon, he asked Joan to marry him and like many weddings during the war, it was planned very quickly. The couple married at Woodbine Heights Baptist church on Saturday March 23, 1942. It was Joan's birthday and Bill had given her a string of pearls, which she wore for the ceremony. It was the “something new” and she wore a blue crepe dress which was the “something blue.” The reception was held at the Diet Kitchen Tearoom which was located on Bloor Street west of Bay Street. Bill lavished her with a mink fur and they took a plane to their honeymoon destination. When Bill left for the east coast, Joan continued to live with her parents on Linsmore Crescent.

Bill sailed from Halifax on April 30, 1942 and arrived in Britain by May 13 where, like all newly arrived aircrew, he waited in Bournemouth, England for deployment at the Personnel Reception Centre. On June 16, he was sent to No. 25 Operational Training Unit (OTU) at RAF Finningley in South Yorkshire where he was taught on a Wellington, the prime night bomber of the Allies at the time. It was at the OTUs where crews would choose each other and would remain together through training until deployment to an operational squadron. Bill joined the crew of pilot Flying Officer David Power from British Columbia and like all crews, they would usually spend their time off with each other. Depending on the model of Wellington, it carried a crew of five or six. On September 21, the crew was transferred to a conversion flight and finally to the newly formed 1660 Conversion Unit at RAF Swinderby in Lincolnshire. Bill and his crew were now learning the new heavy Lancaster bomber which was replacing the Wellington as the workhorse of the Allied night bombers. It was powerful enough to carry 5,400 kg bombs and had a crew of seven. Bill was a bomb aimer in the nose of the aircraft. He would lie on the floor to look through the bombsight and release the bombs. Directly above him was the front gunner whose hot shells would sometime rain down on the bomb aimer.

Lancaster bomber. Photo from The Imperial War Museum collection.

A Lancaster bomb aimer's position in the nose. Photo from The Imperial War Museum collection.

Once Bill and the crew were proficient in the Lancaster, they joined No. 50 Squadron of the RAF on October 28. It wasn't unusual for RAF squadrons to be multinational and Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders worked among the British. No. 50 Squadron had also just converted from Manchester bombers to the Lancaster. The squadron was housed at RAF Skellingthorpe, located in the town of Lincoln in Lincolnshire. For the first month, Bill and the rest of pilot Power's crew weren't sent on any operational missions, as they were still getting used to the Lancaster, no doubt practising flying during the day. However, Power flew as second pilot on two sorties, bombing the ports of Hamburg one night and Genoa on another during November.

The crew's first mission was on the evening of December 6, to drop mines into the sea around the Frisian Islands off the Dutch coast. Pilot Power was second pilot, being shown the ropes by an experienced pilot and the mission was successfully completed in three hours. The crew had two more sorties in December, but both were incomplete, one due to radio failure and the other because the mission for the entire squadron was aborted after takeoff.

Christmas was quiet for the squadron with no missions between December 23 and 28. January was a busy month and Bill, on Power's crew, flew nine missions. Four were successes, bombing Essen, Berlin twice and Dusseldorf. The other five missions were aborted mainly due to the guns freezing at the high altitudes. Bombs were dropped during these missions from between 16,000 to 20,000 feet. Throughout the month, the crews would sleep into the morning and be briefed in the late afternoons before taking off after 5 pm. They would usually return by 2 am or earlier, depending upon the distance to the target. Throughout the month, the crew would switch out the occasional crew member and Power flew one extra mission without Bill. As Power had, a new pilot would sometimes join the trip to get some extra training.

On February 2, Bill and the middle turret gunner were given the night off and replaced in Power's crew. The night's target was Cologne, Germany and 161 Allied aircraft were taking part. Power's Lancaster took off at 1826 hrs but it did not return. It was later determined that the plane had been successful in bombing its targets in Cologne, but on its return trip it had been shot down by a night-fighter plane near Eindhoven in The Netherlands. The German plane killed the middle turret gunner and the tail gunner. The plane caught fire and Power told the crew to bail out. Four of the crew parachuted safely into Belgium but became prisoners of war. Flying Officer Power was killed. Although there is no record of Bill's thoughts, there is no doubt that he would have felt the loss and the hand of Fate in the mission. In January, the squadron lost four planes and in February, almost every week, one plane failed to return. To the airmen, it was an unfortunate part of the job. To put things in perspective, a tour of duty for a World War II bomber crew was 30 missions. Only 25% of them completed a tour of duty.

The next night, Bill flew with Flight Lieutenant Evan Davies on a successful mission to Hamburg. It was one of only two aircraft from the squadron to reach the target out of five planes deployed. The night after that, Bill flew with another crew who successfully bombed Turin, Italy. On February 11, Bill joined a different crew on a six hour mission to bomb Wilhelmshaven on Germany's north coast.

Bill was assigned again to Davies' crew on February 13. The destination was Lorient, France, where the Germans had a U-boat base. Eight Lancasters from the squadron were taking part and Bill's plane left at 1910 hrs. Pilot Evan Davies was a 32 year old Welshman. Along with Bill, there were two other Canadians – 22 year old gunner Lloyd Peterson from Saskatchewan and 22 year old gunner Keith Hodgson from Westmount, Quebec. There was an Australian, radio operator John McCarthy, 24 and the rest of the crew were Englishmen: navigator Maurice Steward, 34; flight engineer Donald Bishop, 20 and Warrant Officer John Bailey, 31. Bailey was joining the crew that night as a passenger. The plane was never heard from again and it is presumed that it was hit by enemy action near Lorient and it crashed into the sea. Only three bodies were ever found – Peterson's, Davies' and Bill's. Bill and Evan Davies are buried side by side in Gavres Cemetery which is on a peninsula near Lorient.

Bill's grave in Gavres Communal Cemetery, Morbihan, France. From The Canadian Virtual War Memorial.

James Hogg passed away in his house on Coleridge on June 29, 1945. Elizabeth moved out of the house soon after and passed away in 1959. Bill's widow Joan lived with her parents until the late 1940s when she bought a house on Roe Avenue near Avenue Road and Wilson Avenue. In 1969 she was still living in that house and worked as a secretary. She hadn't remarried.