PAUL ALFRED ARTHUR SHAUGHNESSY
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Born: Birthplace: Enlisted: Date: Place: Service No.: Tour: Rank: Discharge: Place: Died: |
October 20, 1919 Toronto, Ontario The Royal Canadian Air Force April 1942 Toronto, Ontario J/17715 Two tours overseas Flying Officer August 1945 Toronto, Ontario March 18, 1988 |
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Paul Alfred Arthur Shaughnessy
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“My Dad (Paul Alfred Arthur Shaughnessy) was born October 20, 1919 and died March 18, 1988, so I can tell you a couple of his stories. He did not “glorify” any of it, and I have some of his wartime letters saying so. He moved to Windsor immediately after the war in 1945, and died in Kingsville having lived there from 1971 to 1988. I will tell you two of his stories: He flew into Belsen Concentration camp to relieve whoever they could and drop off emergency supplies, and first they wondered what the “mountains” were, and then what the stench was as they proceeded to land, and then they knew the horror was that the “mountains” were the many Jews and others who were gassed and in piles, that the Germans hurriedly killed because they knew the war was over. Another story, was all the men in the plane, the pilots and gunners, were shot dead, and he was the only one living. He was a bomb aimer, and he had to climb out of the very small area of the Lancaster bomber where he did his work, (the glass part at the front of the plane), up into the cockpit, move the pilot over, and level the plane which was nose-diving, and fly it home to England. He had never piloted a plane. The radar/radio system was out, so he could not idenitfy himself as “friendly” to the British, and the wheels would not lower. He flew into a northern UK air force base, under these conditions, with the Brits firing at the plane, as it was not radio-identified, landed the plane, and was the only survivor. I am his only child, and I saw through the years that he must have been suffering from PTS disorder. All his life he had nightmares, dreaming often of what he experienced in WWII, acknowledging his guilt that many innocent people died (he was a very accurate bomb-aimer), and he suffered from depression (untreated as far as I know). He died a relatively young man, I believe as a result of his experiences.” Submitted by Andrea Shaughnessy |
source: www.rcafassociation.ca
