More than 17,000 Canadian airmen were killed during the Second World War, including a Moose Javian who received the fifth-highest military medal for his actions against the enemy.
Flying Officer Vernon John (Bud) Bouchard was born in 1919 to Louis and Myrtle Bouchard of Moose Jaw and eventually joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, where he served overseas as a pilot.
Bouchard and his crew served on Lancaster bomber EE139 in 550th Squadron. In early 1944 Bouchard received the distinguished flying cross (DFC), the fifth-highest military medal that the British Empire awarded to military personnel. The announcement of this award was made in the London Gazette on June 2, 1944.
Sadly, Bouchard was killed at age 25 on Dec. 22, 1944, during a training accident in England involving a twin-engine Albemarle transport aircraft and a glider. Bouchard and his navigator, Warrant Officer Arthur Banner, were killed after the glider they were towing went out of position. This pulled the Albemarle laterally and induced a stall on the inner wing of the bomber.
“At low height and speed, there was nothing the pilot could do to recover,” the accident report concluded.
Bouchard was buried in Brockwood Military Cemetery in Surrey, U.K, while his name was added to the Bomber Command Memorial Wall in Nanton, Alta. The black granite monument lists the names of every airman who died during the war.
On the wall is a quote from Father John Lardie, during a speech he made in 1985 at the dedication of a memorial at Middleton-St. George, England, the wartime base of No. 419 and No. 428 Squadrons.
Lardie wrote, “Three thousand miles across a hunted ocean they came, wearing on the shoulder of their tunics the treasured name, ‘Canada,’ telling the world their origin. Young men and women they were, some still in their teens, fashioned by their Maker to love, not to kill, but proud and earnest in their mission to stand, and if it had to be, to die, for their country and for freedom.
“One day, when the history of the twentieth century is finally written, it will be recorded that when human society stood at the crossroads and civilization itself was under siege, the Royal Canadian Air Force was there to fill the breach and help give humanity the victory.
“And all those who had a part in it will have left to posterity a legacy of honour, of courage, and of valour that time can never despoil.”
Bouchard is one of nearly 500 military personnel from the area who fought and died during the two world wars. His story is part of a project that Moose Jaw’s Legion Branch No. 59 has undertaken to highlight every man and woman who served their country during those conflicts.
