BORN APRIL 17, 1916
DIED NOVEMBER 22, 1942 ON A BOMBING MISSION TO GERMANY
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA
26 YEARS OLD
William J. Vandervoort, was born on April 17, 1916, the youngest child of Emma and Ernest Vandervoort, in Vancouver, British Columbia. William and his siblings, Harold, Walter, and Margaret were raised at 2596 Cornwall Street, Vancouver where William attended nearby Kitsilano Secondary School from 1928 to 1934. He is memorialized in a plaque at the school. In 1935, after his secondary education, William was employed by Davidson & Company, where he was a floor trader on the Vancouver stock exchange. He played football with the Meralomas and the Knights of Columbus. On his application to the RCAF, he listed “Canadian Football, baseball, tennis, golf extensively – all others occasionally.” He also listed hunting, hiking, and skiing as his hobbies. In family photos, he appears handsome, athletic, and very fashionable.
William enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force on August 2,1940 and was promoted to Flight Sargent on July 1st, 1942. Later that month he was assigned to Squadron 207. He wrote home after the October 17th, 1942 Le Creusot Raid when, as bomb aimer, he was positioned in the nose of the aircraft. His father retold his son’s encounter to the local newspaper:
“Van” Vandervoort of Vancouver Breweries tells a good one about his son. “Van” was a pretty nifty pheasant shooter in his day but apparently his son has him beaten. The boy was in the “nose of a kite” (Lancaster) going over France and suddenly he was stunned by something hitting him on the chest. “I thought sure I was dead. It turned out to be a pheasant. We were doing more than 200 miles an hour at the time. It was splattered all over my compartment, the biggest piece being a leg. Boy, such a mess!”
Among his possessions listed were “skating boots with skates,” a New Testament, a diary, 2 packs of playing cards, 1 silk tie, 1 watch with broken glass, 2 pullovers and 30 socks.
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