War fliers revisited

by Barbara Elvy Strate
| November 18, 2004 11:00 PM

Editor's note: At the columnist's request, we are rerunning this article that was previously printed Sept.12, 1990. Its relevance is timely as we celebrate all United States veterans past and present.

Two young men in their early 20s wearing the smoky blue uniforms of the Royal Canadian Air Force met in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada, in 1941, to take primary flight training. This chance meeting bonded them in a friendship that would span five decades.

They were an unorthodox pair at a glance.

Augustine Gallant, a tall, stocky-built French-Canadian schoolteacher from Tignish, Prince Edward Island, had a dark complexion; jet-black hair and brown eyes that snapped with a daredevil glint matching his quick temper. Today he still carries the nickname "Blackie."

Blackie was called into service of the British Royal Crown.

Sherman Strate, a lab technician, volunteered his services to a country at war. He went to school in Darby, Mont., and grew up milking cows, harvesting apples and potatoes on the family farm and haying in the Big Hole during summer vacations.

He was blond, blue-eyed, fair-skinned, tall and lean, with a slow easy manner that reflected an inner calmness.

The United States had not yet declared war on Japan, and American troops were not on European soil when the Montanan voluntarily went into Canada and was accepted into the Royal Canadian Air Force to train as a pilot.

The two men who shared war and peace together were united last month after 47 years when Blackie and his wife visited Bigfork. The two war buddies, who had been in contact only by phone since 1980, recalled escaping Nazi fire during low-level bombing raids over France and filled each other in on their lives after the war.

At the end of two months primary training in bi-wing Tiger Moth aircraft, Sherman and Blackie were sent to Carberry, Manitoba, for advance training in twin-engine Ansons and received their pilot's wings.

They were given 10 days' leave and both returned a day late to Halifax, Nova Scotia, missing the ship that carried their class to the war zone. A few days later this pair who appeared destined to stay together had orders to ride the train to Montreal and board a small Norwegian freighter bound for England.

The journey across the Atlantic Ocean to Liverpool took two weeks. Ten miles from port the captain opened the well-stocked bar. The two men drank away their days and now brag that they didn't miss a meal during the rough crossing.

After numerous qualifying tests they were sent advanced to learn to fly Blenheims.

They were sent to the same airbase on the outskirts of Norwich, Norfolk, where they flew combat with the renowned 88th Operational Squadron that flew raids over Axis territory since the declaration of war in 1939.

By this time, after six months of training together, the two pilots had become close friends.

On the base they shared living quarters, which was a small room and two Army cots.

Sherman, a "Yank" from the wide-open spaces of Montana, was a minority in a squadron of commissioned British, Polish, Australian and Canadian personnel. He and Blackie, a wild French Canadian, found it hard to conform to the rigid rules and long-standing traditions of the British Royal Air Force, such as 4 p.m. tea, smoked kippers or braised kidneys for breakfast, and taking orders from higher ranking officers.

Both reached the rank of pilot officers. Later Sherman was a captain in the U.S. Army.

Their attitude about the food and the discipline got them into many scrapes and an assortment of unrepeatable nicknames.

The American aircraft Douglas Boston Havoc A-20 arrived on the base about the same time they did. The Boston was the first tricycle landing gear aircraft put into service during the war. It was powered by two 1500 Wright Cyclone engines and its primary purpose was low-level flying.

The Boston bombers based in England played a major role in low-level raids over France and Germany, before the American B-17 bombers and crews arrived in England.

The three-man A-20 crews maneuvered their aircraft at 40 feet above the flat English countryside and the English Channel.

Bombs fired by the plane traveled horizontally and slid into the side of the targets, such as factories and railroad yards. With luck, when the bombs exploded, the Boston and her crew had cleared the target and were headed toward the English coast. The low levels of flight and the speed of the Boston frustrated the enemy.

Blackie was best man when Sherman and I married in July 1942 and I moved into a cottage near the base. Shortly after arriving at the cottage my hearing became very sensitive to the drone of aircraft approaching from the base.

I would run into the garden and wave as the squadron, in formation, skimmed the treetops. They tipped their wings in response and I'd watch until the planes were tiny specks on the horizon, flying south toward France.

I knew many of the young men in the squadron and at the 40-foot level could recognize the pilots. I jokingly told my parents they flew so low that I could read the brand name of the cigarette they were smoking.

When Sherman and Blackie in the cockpits of the A-20s disappeared over the horizon, I spent uneasy hours until the drone of the returning planes broke the quiet of country living.

I counted each plane as it appeared. Some had fire spewing from an engine, others were hobbling in jerky spurts, and another was gearing for a belly landing because the undercarriage was jammed.

Some pilots were literally flying by the seat of their pants after their instrument panels were shot away.

Sometimes a plane fell into a roll. Seconds later there was an earsplitting crash and I'd see smoke and fire swirl into the air, and then other planes - didn't return.

The "Terrible Two," as Sherman and Blackie were known, flew over the cottage side by side when they returned, dipping their wings in salute to my frantic waving. They'd raise a hand, spreading two fingers apart in a "V" for victory sign. I'd breath a sigh of relief and say a small prayer for one more safe return.

In March 1943 the "Yank" transferred to the American forces and was assigned to the Headquarters Flight Section of the 8th Air Force, based in Bovingdon, Hertfordshire, where he flew with Gen. James H. Doolittle and other high-ranking Army Air Force personnel to bases in England and France.

Blackie remained with the 88th Squadron.

The two comrades continued to meet at air bases and in London when they had leave until Blackie returned to Canada as a flight instructor later that year. It was then that they lost contact with each other.

Sherman and I returned to the States in 1944 and in 1945 he received his military discharge.

The transitional period into civilian life took each of them in many directions. Blackie married his hometown sweetheart and went back to college to study law.

After graduating and while he was in private practice he served four years in Parliament as a congressman and speaker of the House in the Province of Prince Edward Island. He had two heart attacks and then returned to teaching, spending 20 years in Quebec.

Sherman returned to farming and operating a small grocery store in the Darby area. In 1953 he and his family moved to Anaheim, Calif., where he worked in law enforcement with the Anaheim Police Force. We returned to his beloved Montana and from 1956 to 1978 he was a game warden with the Montana Fish and Game Department.

Hardly a year went by that we didn't wonder and talk about Blackie. Our periodic letters to him in Tignish, P.E.I., the only address we had, were returned marked "unknown."

Sherman didn't give up the search for his old friend. One cold, dreary winter day in 1980 he spent hours on the telephone contacting everyone named Gallant living on Prince Edward Island. The search paid off.

Blackie had returned to his home province that year and resumed his law practice in Alberton, P.E.I.

They talked on the phone many times during the next 10 years, laughing and reminiscing about their escapades in London.

Early in August, Blackie called to say that he had retired from his law practice and that he and his wife Marcella were driving to Montana.

The old buddies had 47 years of their lives to backtrack when Blackie visited Bigfork. Some of their tales were hilarious and others were told with a note of sadness when they recalled the names of the men in the 88th Squadron who were shot down over enemy territory.

They agreed on how proud they were to receive their pilots wings when they were young men in their 20s.

Sherman recalled the night the Germans dropped incendiary bombs on the base and Blackie dived into a newly dug sewer for cover.

Typical of England's weather, rain had been falling for days. Blackie crawled along the ditch from the mess hall to their quarters and was covered with mud from hat to boots.

Blackie admitted how frightened he was flying with the squadron during a tragic commando attack on Dieppe in Normandy on Aug. 19, 1942.

"If you had been flying alongside of me," Blackie told Sherman, "I wouldn't have been so scared."

Many men, planes, tanks and guns were lost in that attack.

Sherman, who was on sick leave, didn't go on that raid.

Sherman remembered a frightening tale of his own.

His plane was out of fuel. Thick yellow fog covered the British Isles, making a landing impossible.

The three-man crew baled out and Sherman landed in a plowed field. He could see the blurred outline of men approaching. They all had pitchforks pointed towards him.

The farmers had heard a plane overhead and the crash. When Sherman spoke to the farmers, they realized that he wasn't a German parachutist and escorted him to the local pub where he was treated to tankards of ale.

Blackie remembers his friend returning from a raid and announcing in a slow "Yankee" drawl, "I don't mind flying over France but when they start shooting at me it gets dangerous and I'd just as soon not go again."

Many times throughout their four-day reunion Blackie repeated, "We were lucky. We came home."

As the friends parted, Sherman remarked, "I've never made so many trips over enemy territory, been shot down and shot at, dropped so many bombs on railroad yards and factories and had so many shots of booze as in the last four days."

I hugged Blackie and he quietly told me, "If it's possible for a man to love another man. I love that Sherman."