THE ROYAL CANADIAN LEGION ALBERTA-NWT COMMAND www.abnwtlegion.com 89 Bessent, WilliamW. F. “Bill” Bill, and his identical twin brother Bob, were born in Windsor, Ontario, in 1925. He grew up in Grande Prairie after moving there at the age of two. Their home was located across the street from where the current Legion building in Grande Prairie now sits. Their father, Bert, was a World War One veteran and even served as the Legion’s president for a time. The twins enjoyed playing hockey and played for the Red Devils at the age of 16. The brothers have been described as inseparable, and at the age of seventeen, they would both enlist and enter into training for the Canadian Air Force. Bill and his brother joined the air force after they heard of other boys joining. “It was the thing to do,” Bill recalled. They trained together in Edmonton and Souris, Manitoba, before finally getting their wings in Montjolie, Quebec. Bill wound up in Halifax, where he sawWinston Churchill, who arrived on the Queen Mary as the British Prime Minister made his way to speak to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and other Allied leaders. The Queen Mary would also be the ship taking Bill to England, with another 15,740 soldiers and 943 crew. Bill remembers it being crowded; some historians say people had to sleep on the deck. The Queen Mary holds the record to this day for the most people ever carried: 16,682. The ship was fast, and the journey would take around four days. Bill explained it was so quick that German submarines couldn’t keep up. When he arrived in England, he and his fellow crewman were unaware of where they were; they were put on a train at night and would arrive at their destination. “Nobody seemed to want to tell us where we were going, and that was the first thing we asked when we stopped and got off,” said Bill. They ended up in Bournemouth in the South of England. The twins were able to visit their grandparents while in England during some time off. His brother, Bob, joined a crew as a mid-upper gunner and went on his first bombing mission on December 4, 1943 to Leipzig. On December 16, 1943, Bill saw his brother and Grande Prairie local Gerald Strang off on a mission into Berlin. The next day Bob’s plane crashed when trying to land, killing him and his crew mates; 32 aircrafts were lost in the same mission. The day would become known as Black Thursday in Grande Prairie. “It was a big loss for Grande Prairie,” said Bill. Bill and his grandparents attended Bob’s funeral in England. A mere two weeks later, Bill himself would fly in a mission to Berlin. His commanding officer asked him if he wanted to make his first trip with his crew so soon after his brother’s death. Bill responded, “if they were going, I was going too.” He would fly many more missions, including two operations on D-Day, June 6, 1944. Bill recalled travelling over the English Channel, never having seen so many ships and airplanes pulling gliders. During D-Day, his crew was sent to bomb a bridge with the plane flying at a very low altitude of approximately 10,000 feet, he explained. Bill flew in 30 missions while in Europe with 405 Squadron. He recalls one night flying into Berlin when an incendiary bomb from an allied plane hit the starboard wing. “The pilot told us all to bail out,” he said, but the pilot threw the plane down so fast they couldn’t move due to the G-force. A report in The Herald Tribune on November 9, 1944, says the plane dove 5,000 feet. The pilot’s strategy extinguished the fire, saving the crew’s lives. “It was an awful nightmare as long as it lasted,” Bill told the Tribune in 1944. On one mission over Nuremberg, Bill witnessed the loss of 96 aircraft; he remembered reporting what he saw to his plane’s navigator. “Our navigator, he was the oldest one in the crew, he said, ‘for God’s sake, that’s all I want to hear about that.’” After serving his tours, Bill became a night vision flying instructor in England. When he returned to Canada, he made his way back to Grande Prairie but not before a stop in Edmonton. He arrived there without much to do, he said, so he went to the Beatty Appliances store. While talking to a couple of the workers, a man approached him from behind. “It was my dad, he didn’t know I was coming.” An unexpected but welcome reunion is how Bill remembered it. Returning home, he would go on to work at Grande Prairie Hardware store. According to The Herald Tribune, Bill received a Distinguished Flying Medal in July 1947. He earned many honours, including meeting Queen Elizabeth II during her visit to Grande Prairie inAugust 1978 who she also stopped and spoke to him. In 2013, he received a service ribbon from the Canadian government for his efforts in the war, and in 2014 a park in Grande Prairie was named after him. In 1950, he married Lavina (“Vine”) Louise Allison, and they had three children together: Bob, Bill, and Bonny. Bill was awarded a pin and bar for being a Legion member for 75 years before a standing ovation. “I just love coming into this building (legion); I’ve been here for a long time, and the way that the people are looking after it and building on it; we are going to have this place for a long, long time,” said Bill.
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