Ron Moyes, a distinguished member of the RCAF and RCMP, passed away in January of this year at age 99 after leaving his mark on both organizations.

Ron Moyes was born February 11, 1926 in Vancouver, BC. His father was a veteran of the First World War who came back to Canada with a war bride plus a baby daughter, and who built a successful business in 1920s Vancouver before buying a farm. Ron was only 13 and living on his family’s

farm in Coquitlam, BC, when the Second World War began, but as he saw older boys go off to fight, he wanted in on the action too, Ron Moyes was just 17 when he decided to leave school and follow his big brother Horace into the RCAF. It was September 1943, and the air war over Europe was in full swing. Because of his age he needed his parents consent (which they gave), and Ron was off to basic training in Edmonton.

Training continued in Quebec, where Moyes eventually graduated as a sergeant air gunner the following spring. And not long after, in May 1944, he was in Halifax, where he boarded the troopship Empress of Scotland for the overseas journey to England – and the war. Moyes and about 80 other gunners shipped out from Halifax along with 3000 others. It was no pleasure cruise — their quarters were rough canvas lean-tos on the ship’s top deck, where they slept in narrow, stacked bunks. They also had to man the vessel’s anti-aircraft guns, a critical job since the troop ship was to sail unescorted across the Atlantic.

After arriving in England, Moyes was sent to an opera,tional training unit in Notinghamshire, where the gunners were “crewed up” with the pilots, navigators, bomb aimers, wireless operators and engineers with whom they were to spend the rest of the war.

It was Flying Officer Don Walkey who gave Moyes the nickname he’d keep for life. “My pilot was six-foot-two. He said, ‘Hi Shorty,’ and that was it – a nickname that stuck for the rest of his life. The six-man crew trained together in a twin-engine Wellington bomber until September. They were then sent to another base for instruction on “escape and evasion techniques” like how to hide parachutes after bailing out, and other procedures for hiding behind enemy lines.

The crew next began training on the Handley-Page Halifax four-engine bomber and was transferred to No. 429 Squadron at RCAF Station Leeming, near York. On November 16, 1944, they were assigned their first bombing mission to the town of Jülich in the industrial Ruhr region of western Germany.

The tail gunner position was probably the most dangerous and least comfortable position in the heavy bomber. It is commonly said to have been the single deadliest job for Allied aircrew. The rear turret had its Plexiglas windshield cut out for beker visibility, and winter temperatures at altitudes of 5,000 to 6,500 metres could drop to –50 C. To stay warm, Moyes wore an electrically heated flying suit and other layers of flying clothing. Once in place, however, he had to remain in the turret until landing. He was also isolated from the rest of the crew, sometimes for eight hours at a ,me. Every 30 minutes, his skipper would therefore check in over the radio, asking, “You OK, Shorty?”

The crew’s first bombing mission was Moyes’s first experience with an,-aircraft shells, or flak, which he likens to the sound of “somebody throwing stones” at the fuselage. Often, the extent of the damage couldn’t be assessed until they’d returned to base. “You never know how your undercarriage is until you land, so that was always a worry,” Moyes recalled.

That mission was a success and the first of 30 for the crew, half utilizing the Handley Page Halifax and the other half with the Avro Lancaster bomber after their transfer to an elite Pathfinder squadron. There were, however, plenty of close calls along the way.

In late December, on another night raid over the Ruhr valley, the crew was heading home when they were picked up by two German fighters. As the smaller planes worked in tandem to bring the bomber down, Walkey had to employ the standard evasive “corkscrew” manoeuvre, ducking in and out of clouds. This continued for an hour until the bomber neared the English coast and the fighters finally gave up the chase and turned back.

That New Year’s Eve, on a mission to Norway , they’d been tasked with dropping mines with altered fuses into shallow water to confuse the Germans when unseen anti-aircraft guns suddenly opened up from close range.

“… all hell broke loose. You couldn’t see the sky for tracer [fire]. The ships down there were firing like mad, and we got one big cannon hole right between the wireless air gunner and the navigator,” Moyes said.

A young Moyes in the rear gun turret of a Halifax bomber during the Second World War, left, and in the rear gun turret of a Lancaster bomber at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum around 2013, right. – (Photo courtesy of Ron Moyes)

Moyes and the other gunner kept their fingers on the trigger until their gun barrels were white hot. At one point, Walkey was forced to fly just metres above the surface of the fiord to evade the enemy fire. It was dawn by the ,me they finally reached their home base, and Moyes slept through New Year’s dinner — a meal he’d been looking forward to for days.

On a night raid over Nuremberg in March 1945, 29 Allied aircraft were lost. “Aircraft seemed to be going down right and left,” Moyes later wrote. “I’ll tell you now that I sure prayed we’d make it out of there. I imagine the rest of the crew did the same.”

On April 26, 1945, the crew — now with 405 Squadron — embarked on their final bombing mission. The target was Adolf Hitler’s vacation home near Berchtesgaden in the Bavarian Alps, and the German troops stationed there in barracks. The crew later learned Hitler hadn’t been there when they dropped their bombs. Within days, the German dictator was lying dead in Berlin.

As the war in Europe wound down, the last few missions changed. On May 7, Moyes’s Lancaster took part in “Operation MANNA,” dropping food to starving Dutch civilians near Rokerdam. From an altitude of 100 metres, Moyes could see people waving as they ran to pick up those life-saving supplies.

The next day, May 8 — VE-Day — the crew flew to Lübeck, Germany, to pick up Allied prisoners of war. On the return trip, against all rules and regulations, Walkey altered his course to fly over London, opening the bomb bay doors to show the freed POWs Buckingham Palace below. Many of the men openly wept with joy. Back at the air base, the Canadians celebrated with abandon, firing flares into haystacks and setting the English countryside ablaze.

Moyes’s original crew, from left to right with ranks at the time of the photo: Sgt. Ron ‘Shorty’ Moyes, P/O Hugh Ferguson, F/O Don Walkey, P/O Stuart Farmer, Sgt. Alvin Kuhl and Flight Sgt. Jake Redinger. ‘I thank the crew for having the opportunity to serve with such a great bunch, who were like brothers to me,’ Moyes later wrote. – (Photo courtesy of Ron Moyes)

By mid-June 1945, Moyes and his crew were on their way back to Canada. Four of them, including Moyes and Walkey, volunteered to continue fighting in the Pacific theatre, but as they were gearing up to go Japan surrendered and the war ended.

Moyes was discharged that September. He tried his hand at civilian life, but working at a plywood mill was no match for the air force. In September 1946 he rejoined the RCAF, this ,me as an armorer, later specializing in explosive

and bomb disposal. He married Margaret Winters on Valentine’s Day 1948, and they had a son and a daughter. His new career kept the young family on the move, and in 1962 Moyes was posted to the RCAF air base in Zweibrücken, Germany, which was home to a squadron of nuclear-armed CF-104 Starfighter aircraft.

In 1974, Moyes was discharged after 31 years with the RCAF and the family returned to Okawa. Ron then began a new career as a firearms technician with the RCMP’s forensic crime lab from which he finally retired in 1989. Eventually, the couple moved from their home in Ottawa’s Carson Grove neighbourhood into an independent living unit at Perley Health, known until recently as the Perley and Rideau Veterans’ Health Centre. Margaret Moyes died in 2024 and Ron Moyes spent his own quiet last days with his beloved bichon “Tiffany.” He passed away in January of this year.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ww2-veteran-witness-to-history-1.6239830