Lionel Manley "Elmer" Gaunce

_________________________________________________

CANADIAN AIRMAN IS R.A.F. DAREDEVIL
'Elmer' Gaunce Made Mates Gasp With Feats
and With Tales of Prairies

Edmonton, 19 August 1940 - (CP) - Acting F/L Lionel Manley Gaunce, the 25-year-old Edmonton pilot of the Royal Air Force whose formal award of the Distinguished Flying Cross was announced today, received the nick-name of "Elmer" because of his persistent nonchalance and calm.
He can put on a display of aerobatics - as he did in the 1939 Empire Air Day demonstration - that will make even his flying mates gasp, and still be far from satisfied with it himself. He joined the R.A.F. in 1939.
Elmer is a friend of Paul Malone, staff writer of the Edmonton Journal who returned here a fortnight ago after spending two years as an exchange correspondent in England and Australia.
Malone said that Elmer has his mates believing that when he was in Western Canada he spent his summers roaming on a ranch in the Rockies and his winters trapping Polar bears.
Elmer and his English bride named their first son after Malone and the newspaperman became the godfather of young Manley (Paul?) Gaunce, now about a year old.
Gaunce's flying career appeared to be at an end last July. He crashed and his plane was so badly wrecked his mates thought he was dead when they pulled him out. Everybody thought it was just a matter of time until he would die - everybody but Elmer.
"He made an almost miraculous recovery," said Malone. A few days after the war began he was leading his flight again. He has been in the thick of it ever since.

_________________________________________________

_________________________________________________

GAUNCE, S/L Lionel Manley (37632) - Distinguished Flying Cross - No.615 Squadron
Awarded as per London Gazette 23 August 1940 Specifically listed in AFRO 1292/41
dated 7 November 1941 as a Canadian in the RAF who had been decorated as of that date.
Air Ministry Bulletin 1416 refers:

This flight commander has displayed excellent coolness and leadership since the return of the squadron to England. In July his flight took part in resisting an enemy air attack on Dover when three of our aircraft were attacked by forty Junkers 87s. At least two of the enemy were shot down. Flight Lieutenant Gaunce has shot down three enemy aircraft since returning to England.

NOTE: Public Record Office has an undated recommendation for this award, prepared by a Squadron Leader J.R. Kayll:

This officer took over command of "A" Flight on May 16th, 1940, and his coolness and leadership since return of this squadron to England has ben exemplary. His Flight took part in the Battle of Dover on July 14th when three of our aircraft were attacked by 40 Junkers 87s of which two were definitely shot down and one probably destroyed. Flight Lieutenant Gaunce has personally shot down three enemy aircraft since returning to England quite apart from taking part in numerous patrols whilst in France.

On 8 August 1940, Air Vice-Marshal Keith Park adds his comments:

I understand this officer has already been recommended for an award for his work in France, which recommendation may have been mislaid by his Wing Headquarters (61 Wing).

He is a gallant young Canadian and has personally destroyed three enemy aircraft. He has shown exceptional ability as a leader of his flight; for this in particular as well as for his successes, I consider him well worthy of the immediate award of the Distinguished Flying Cross for which I strongly recommend him.

Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding wrote "Approved" on the form on 11 August 1940.

_________________________________________________

Madcap Airman From Canada “Elmer” Gaunce Now Missing

By Douglas Amaron (Canadian Press Staff Writer) London, Saturday, November 22, 1941 – (CP Cable) – Squadron Leader Lionel Manley Gaunce, madcap Canadian airman who won fame last year as leader of the “Elmer” and “Dutch” flying team, is missing.
The Lethbridge, Alberta pilot, who celebrated his award of the Distinguished Flying Cross at the height of the Battle of Britain by shooting down two German planes in a day, failed to return from patrol November 9, 1941 and is feared lost.
If so, it is the close of a hectic career in the air which began before the war when “Elmer” came to England to join the Royal Air Force. Gaunce was one of the most colorful Canadians in the R.A.F.
Careless in dress and appearance, and not one to take kindly to discipline, his life under air force rules was a story that might have been written of the last war instead of this one.
From the time he went on operations Gaunce was one of the most capable Canadian pilots. He did not care what the odds were against him, so long as he was in a scrap, and it was his aggressiveness, daring and skill that won him the D.F.C. in August, 1940.
Gaunce, dark complexioned, with a scar on his face, sometimes took on more Nazi than he could handle and was forced five times to bail out of damaged planes, but until his most recent flight only illness kept him out of action.
A serious stomach trouble forced him to quit active service and go to hospital last autumn, but he was soon back in harness, this time, however, at the air ministry instead of in the air.
Office work did not rob him of any of his fire, if the story credited to good sources is true. According to the story, Gaunce was handed a list of questions to answer by a senior officer. He read them and sent them back with the penciled inscription: “If you had ever been an airman, you would have been able to answer these yourself.”
A flight lieutenant when he won the D.F.C., Gaunce returned to the air this year as the leader of one of the R.A.F.’s best fighter squadrons and with the rank of Squadron Leader.
He was still the same “Elmer” leading his men in daring sweeps over northern France and chalking up more successes for himself and his squadron.
On one recent flight the bombers his squadron was supposed to escort did not show up, so Gaunce decided to go to France without them, although this was strictly outside regulations. He returned with his squadron intact and four Messerschmitts to its credit.
“Elmer” was disciplined for his “breach” of the rules, but soon was in the air again.
The legend of “Elmer” and “Dutch” grew up during the Battle of Britain when Gaunce formed a sort of flying team with Flying Officer Petrus Hendrik Hugo, 23 year old South African. They were both awarded the D.F.C. on the same day and when the approach of German bombers cut short the traditional ceremony of “drowning the ribbon,” Gaunce went up to shoot down two German aircraft and Hugo one.
But “Elmer” insisted that the count should be one and one half each, explaining, “Dutch ripped in the first burst as the second Jerry I sent spiraling into the channel.”

_________________________________________________

Squadron Leader Feared Dead

Derwent, Alta., 23 November 1941 - (CP) - Mr. and Mrs. E.H. Gaunce of Derwent, Alta., received word from the Air Ministry Thursday that their son, Squadron Leader Lionel Manley Gaunce, is "reported missing and believed to have lost his life.” His wife lives in England and a brother, Ronald, is a druggist in Montreal. His father is a Canadian pacific Railway station agent here. One of the most thrilling chapters in the career of Gaunce was told in Canada recently by Wing Commander Ernest McNab of the Royal Canadian Air Force after his arrival from Britain. A handful of British fighters attacked more than 100 German planes over the English Channel. Gaunce's plane was winged. He bailed out. To prevent Germans from attacking him with gunfire as he floated to earth, Gaunce plummeted through the entire Nazi formation before opening his parachute. A Royal Air Force speedboat rescued him from the Channel.

_________________________________________________

One Dead, Two Missing On Overseas Air Duty

Ottawa, January 6, 1942 - (CP) - The Royal Canadian Air Force's 154th official casualty list today reported one man killed on active service overseas, two missing after air operations overseas and one killed on active service in Canada. The list brought to 1,240 the number of air force dead and missing reported officially since the war started.
With next-of-kin:

Missing, Believed Killed in Action
Lionel Manley Gaunce, Acting Flight Lieutenant, born in Lethbridge, Alta., wife lives in Catherham, Surrey, England.
The Canadian half of the famous team of "Elmer and Dutch" was broken up with the loss of Gaunce, 26, who grew up in Edmonton.
Gaunce, awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross Aug. 19, 1940, for gallantry and "excellent coolness and leadership," was listed last Nov. 22 as "missing, believed killed in action."

Fought With Advance Force
Gaunce's decoration came after his return to Britain from France, where he had fought with the advance British striking force. In one of his encounters with the enemy he was forced to bail out when his plane, one of a small R.A.F. group, was struck by fire from one of more than 100 German planes over the Channel. To prevent the Germans from shooting him as he descended, he dropped through the Nazi formations before opening his parachute. He was pulled out of the water by the crew of an R.A.F. rescue boat.
Gaunce received his decoration at the same time as Flying Officer Petrus Hendrik (Dutch) Hugo, a young Afrikaner from South Africa, who flew with him. After being notified of the award the pair went aloft and shot down three German aircraft to celebrate.
In November 1940, Gaunce was taken to hospital, seriously ill of a duodenal ulcer, but he returned to active service as soon as he was cured.
Gaunce's parents, Mr. and Mrs. E. H. Gaunce, live at Derwent, Alta., where Mr. Gaunce is Canadian Pacific Railway station agent.

_________________________________________________

Victories Include :

5.5 / 3 / 6

Score from Aces High (2nd edition) by Chris Shores

_________________________________________________

Name Mountains After War Heroes

Edmonton, July 16, 1949 (CP) — Seven mountains in the Moberly Creek area of Jasper National Park are to be named after Alberta war heroes, Mrs. Edith Gostick, provincial librarian, announced yesterday.
The decision to name the mountains after the Alberta heroes was made by the Alberta Geographic Board and approved by Dominion authorities.
The war heroes are: Brig. F.M.W. Harvey, who won the Victoria Cross in the First World War and now is living in retirement in Calgary; Cpl George Champion, of Edmonton, killed in Italy; S/L, Lionel M. Gaunce, D.F.C., of Lethbridge and Sylvan Lake, lost after a raid by the R.A.F. on St. Lo; Lieut. Edmund de Wind, former Edmonton bank clerk, killed with the Royal Irish Rifles; S/L Ian B. Bazalgette, V.C.; D.F.C., of Calgary, killed while serving with the R.A.F.; F/O Stanley Powell Swensen, of Brooks, killed in 1940; and W/C A. Lout, killed in a flying accident at Sydney, N.S., in 1943.

_________________________________________________