Blais, Roger

Roger Blais was born September 28, 1925 in Montreal. He grew up alongside his four siblings in the city’s Notre-Dame-de-Grace neighbourhood, attending school and playing baseball and hockey and going to occasional movies at the Monkland Cinema. The start of the war in Canada did not make too much of an impression on Roger, but he does recall the US entry in December 1941 – and FDR’s radio address.  Roger turned 18 in 1943, and he chose to volunteer for the RCAF, just as his older brother had done.  Manning Depot in Lachine was his first stop in the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, followed by Initial Training School in Belleville, where he learned he would not be a pilot.  He decided to become an air gunner, and training for that role took place in Mont Joli, followed by commando training in Trois Rivieres, and then it was time to go overseas. Roger transited the Atlantic on MSS Empress of Britain, a liner converted into a troop ship.  He remembers the crossing was a rough one, but he made it to England and on to Bournemouth for additional training.  Then Roger hoped to be assigned to 425 Squadron – the French-Canadian Alouette Squadron – but the wait was too long, so he went into an English squadron instead.  There he began flying diversions, decoy flights meant to lure German fighters away from other bombers, where he was a tailgunner on a Lancaster. By that time the war was nearing its end, and when the end came Roger recalls that there was a 48 hour party! He volunteered to fight in the Pacific and was consequently on one of the first ships heading back to Canada, and he of course did not have to fight against the Japanese as the atomic bombs obviated that possibility. Roger took advantage of his veteran’s benefits and furthered his education, and in 1949 he married Marguerite, and the two of them would spend the next 73 years together, finding their way in the rhythms of postwar Canadian life.  Roger Blais was interviewed by Scott Masters at his home in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue in March 2026.