Raymond Lloyd recalls most of his time as a rear gunner with Bomber Command in the Second World War, perched several thousand feet up in the night sky during the bombing raids over Germany, watching as incendiary bombs of all colours – red, yellow, blue and green – were dropped as pathfinders to guide the main force.
“They were like huge jewels,” he said, now 87 and living in Maple Ridge.
“It was one of the most beautiful things you could possibly imagine, if you didn’t realize people were being killed there.”
Lloyd served with Snowy Owl Squadron No. 420 of the Royal Canadian Air Force, which was part of the bombing raids that pounded Nazi Germany during the war.
After waiting six decades and seeing commemoration of other services from the Second World War, this week it is the Bomber Command’s turn.
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second unveils the Bomber Command Memorial today in Green Park, London.
Last week, Lloyd was packing his bags in preparation of the trip, courtesy of Veterans Affairs, so he and 40 other veterans could be part of the event.
“It’s going to be quite a deal. The Queen is going to be there,” he says.
“It’s a great honour for me.”
Lloyd was born in Vancouver and signed up with the RCAF in 1943, when he was 18.
Initially, he wanted to be a pilot or navigator, but that would mean two years of schooling. So he took the job of tail gunner, despite the warnings that the life span in that position was seven minutes.
As the guy manning the machine gun at the rear of the plane, Lloyd was responsible for defending his crew and plane from attacking Messerschmitt 109 and Me Bf-110 fighters.
And for a brief period at the end of the war, he even had to deal with jet-powered German fighters.
The propeller fighters attacked from the rear, but the jets would swoop from beneath to blast machine gun rounds into the aircraft’s underbelly.
“We never saw those guys.”
It was a chaotic time with heavy losses as hundreds of aircraft that took off from England never returned.
While the Americans bombed during the day, the Royal Air Force, with squadrons from Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Poland, bombed at night.
Canadians served with RCAF squadrons in No. 6 Bomber Group—the only non-British group in Bomber Command.
According to the Air Force Association of Canada, 55,573 air crew died, and the survival rate was only 56 per cent.
Youth, though, was on Lloyd’s side.
“It was a blast. We were too young to be afraid – too young and too dumb.”
By the time the war ended in 1945, after 32 missions, Lloyd was a flight sergeant, and only 20.
The fact there’s been no recognition so far is a “national disgrace,” says the association.
Lloyd is unclear as to why it’s taken so long for the war efforts to be recognized.
But it’s likely because of the moral debate about bombing of civilian targets.
Lloyd also was part of the massive raid on Dresden, Germany in February 1945, when more than a 1,000 Allied bombers attacked the city, including industrial targets, causing the death of thousands of civilians.
Did he support that action?
“Absolutely not.”
The raid was just revenge, he says, on behalf British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
“Churchill was always pissed off after Coventry [when German planes bombed that English city.]
“We just think it was a hate raid.”
The same thing happened when Hamburg was bombed in 1943 with a mix of explosive and incendiary bombs.
“It was nothing but a sheet of flame. They called it a fire storm. The whole town was on fire.
“War is not a pleasant thing.”
After the war, Lloyd returned to Vancouver and ran meat shops, his most recent being Lloyd’s Gourmet Meats in Vancouver.
He retired early and now spends half the year in Mexico.
But the celebrations in London has revived what happened more than 60 years ago.
“I don’t think about the war,” he says.
“This has started to bring back memories. Some of those memories are not all that pleasant.”