Joseph Monteyne was a navigator with the RCAF [Annotator's Note: Royal Canadian Air Force] 425 Squadron, also known as the Alouette Squadron [Annotator's Note: No. 425 (Alouette) Squadron]. There were six squadrons stationed in England. Monteyne was born in Sainte Rose, Manitoba [Annotator's Note: Sainte Rose du Lac, Manitoba, Canada] in western Canada. His family were farmers. There were eight children. They walked to schools after chores and did chores after school too. This was during the Depression [Annotator's Note: the Great Depression was a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States]. They had cattle, hogs, and chickens and they ate well despite not having money. They traveled by horse or and old Model-T Ford [Annotator's Note: brand of American automobile] that did not run most of the time. In those days of farm life, there was not much time to play. That was how life was and it was that way for everybody. Monteyne did not attend high school to a great extent other than through correspondence courses. His father passed away in 1933 when Monteyne was 11 years old. The government said he could not run the farm and they had to sell it. At 14, he was on his own. Some teachers helped in sciences when he could not do it by correspondence. He managed to get to grade 12 which was hard to do unless you were well-off. His first break was joining the Air Force. Before that, every year at fair time, he would watch airplanes take off and land. He got interested in flight. His father had asked him to be the head of the family, so he had not joined the service sooner. He felt he could leave at 21, and joined in 1942. He was recommended for a commission due to his education.

Joseph Monteyne knew all about the attack on Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. He was watching the war's progress at the time. He joined the Canadian Air Force in Winnipeg. He went to Edmonton, Alberta [Annotator's Note: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada] from August to November [Annotator's Note: of 1942]. He volunteered for the precision squadron which allowed him to not have to scrub floors and things like that. He went to initial training school and learned about flying in a simulator. He volunteered to be a pilot and they told him he was to be a navigator based on his scores. They wanted navigators more than pilots. The navigator is supposed to get the plane to the target and back and is basically in charge of the mission. The pilot runs the airplane, but the navigator controls the mission. Monteyne got his wings [Annotator's Note: Aeronautical Rating Badge, also called Pilot Badge or wings] in Edmonton. He learned radio as well in case of emergencies. That usually takes four to six months. He got his wings on 20 August 1943. On 20 September 1943, he was in England via the Queen Elizabeth [Annotator's Note: RMS Queen Elizabeth]. He then went to different schools. He was in Bournemouth [Annotator's Note: Bournemouth, England] as a holding area. His advanced flying school was in Scotland in the winter. He flew Ansons [Annotator's Note: Avro Anson multirole aircraft] there. They were always looking for submarines. From there he went to operational training. He had gotten his crew the week before. He was in the French-Canadian squadron, the 425 [Annotator's Note: Royal Canadian Air Force Squadron 425 (Alouette)]. He spoke four languages then. He and his crew all spoke French. His crew was very good. They learned to fly together on simulated missions. They had a graduation exercise, and his job was dropping leaflets on Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France] two weeks before D-Day [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. He saved one of them that had hung up in the aircraft. The leaflets were American propaganda and said they were coming along with news about the Japanese and Yamamoto [Annotator's Note: Imperial Japanese Navy Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto; Commander-in-Chief, Combined Fleet] being shot down. They also said not to trust the Germans and the Gestapo [Annotator's Note: German Geheime Staatspolizei or Secret State Police; abbreviated Gestapo]. That was his baptism under fire in a Wellington bomber [Annotator's Note: Vickers Wellington medium bomber]. From there he went to learn four-engine flying in a Halifax bomber [Annotator's Note: Handley Page Halifax heavy bomber]. They flew Hali "twos" [Annotator's Note: Handley Page Halifax B Mk II Series heavy bomber] which were dangerous. He then flew his tour in Hali "threes" [Annotator's Note: Handley Page Halifax B Mk III Series heavy bomber].

Joseph Monteyne and his unit [Annotator's Note: Royal Canadian Air Force Squadron 425 (Alouette)] had 20 officers in one barracks [Annotator's Note: at Tholthorpe Air Station, or Royal Air Force Tholthorpe, in Yorkshire, England]. Life was not much different for officers or sergeants. They had a central mess hall. They were not a permanent station. When a mission was called, a battle order was prepared and posted on the barracks doors. They had 16 aircraft in their squadron, with two squadrons at the base. They would be told to report for duty. The navigators had to go earlier than the rest of the crew. The legs of the missions were calculated for the least enemy fire. At the briefing, they could eat. The missions were for the darkest parts of the night. The fighters could not hit them as well. After supper, they would get the briefings regarding weather, and more like things to watch for and other raids in the vicinity. The navigator had to record all of this as well as the mission details. They formed up by timing and got over the target about the same time. The planes were stacked in formation with the newest crews on top. Guys on the bottom were often hit by bombs from the top planes. The weather was a big factor at night. They ran into a lot of thunderstorms in winter. They used the Sperry bombsight [Annotator's Note: Mark XIV Bomb Sight, also called the Sperry T-1]. His first trip was to La Pallice [Annotator's Note: deep-water port of La Rochelle, France] on the west coast of France to an oil dump supplying submarines. They got in well and the pilot wanted him to see the flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire]. He had never seen fireworks like that before. They did not get hit but it was a baptism by fire. As soon as the bombs were gone, they got out over the water. His last mission was on an oil dump too.

The Halifax [Annotator's Note: Handley Page Halifax heavy bomber] did not carry quite as many bombs as the Lancaster [Annotator's Note: Avro Lancaster heavy bomber]. It had a lot of power and a metal skin. There was no comfort in it. Joseph Monteyne's [Annotator's Note: a navigator in the Royal Canadian Air Force 425 (Alouette) Squadron] position was closer to the nose than the pilot. The pilot had a seat pack and could flip out through his window. The navigator was sitting on the escape hatch. His job was to clear the way and open the hatch if need be. They trained on it until they could do it in seconds. If they had to ditch in the water, the navigator had to get his charts and radio. Each man had a job. They had to get out within half a minute. The Halifax had a better escape system than the Lancaster. They also could take a battering and often did, but still flew home. The Lancaster had better range though. The Halifax's engines generally performed well. He only knows of one incident where an aircraft blew up on the runway due to an engine seizing. They only found a finger of the crew. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Monteyne what it was like to return from a mission and see the empty bunks of men who had not come back.] Whenever they took off at night, he would imagine which ones would not come back. You never really got close to anybody because a friend might not come back. He had good friends, and some did disappear. You would see a big blast over the target and not know who it was. You also did not really want to know. The aircraft that crashed and exploded due to the engine seizing was only two in front of Monteyne's. It blew off his escape hatch. They thought someone had gotten careless and just slammed it shut. They were told to change runways and thought the mission had changed. Only when they got back did they find out their buddies had been killed. He was always wondering where they were headed for their next mission. They dreaded missions to Berlin [Annotator's Note: Berlin, Germany] and the Ruhr Valley [Annotator's Note: in Germany]. They called it flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft fire] valley. There were always casualties there. The Americans hit those targets in the daytime and had a lot of casualties too but mainly from fighter aircraft. Monteyne never flew to Berlin, even though he was briefed for it a couple of times.

You could not ask for a better enemy than the Germans. The Germans were very efficient, and Joseph Monteyne [Annotator's Note: a navigator in the Royal Canadian Air Force 425 (Alouette) Squadron] had a great deal of respect for them. Most of the time if you were shot down you were very well treated. There was still some old gallantry with the Geneva Conventions [Annotator's Note: standards for humanitarian treatment in war]. Towards the end, a lot of the crews got caught by the Werwolves [Annotator's Note: Werwolf; 1944 Nazi plan to create a resistance force operating behind Allied lines in Germany], Gestapo [Annotator's Note: German Geheime Staatspolizei or Secret State Police; abbreviated Gestapo], and, or the SS [Annotator's Note: Schutzstaffel; German paramilitary organization]. If you were caught by them, you were not well treated. The Air Force and German Navy were better. What spoiled the whole thing was that the Gestapo and the SS got too powerful. Even the German Army was a little nervous about them. The crews were warned about them and told to try and turn themselves into a real soldier who would take the prisoner and protect them. The Werwolves were young people and were quite vicious. Monteyne corresponded with his family. He got parcels with food and cigarettes. He had a girlfriend who wrote him regularly. Monteyne did not fly on D-Day [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944], despite flying a leaflet raid two weeks before it. From there he went for training. His first mission was to La Pallice [Annotator's Note: deep-water port of La Rochelle, France; Monteyne describes this in the clip titled "Typical Mission and Baptism by Fire" of this interview series]. His last mission was eight hours or more long. They were attacking submarines in the Bergen harbor [Annotator's Note: Bergen, Norway]. The weather was bad in England. The Germans must have known and did not think any bombers would come over. They were servicing the submarines out of the pens. Monteyne and the squadrons took off and his navigation equipment went haywire. They were flying under 1,500 feet and it was rough. He had his crew check the white caps. They flew for hours under the clouds. They were aiming for a peak to make their turn to the target. They started climbing and got to bombing height. They were the first one in and sunk three submarines and their mother ship. The target was caught by surprise and the firing started when they dropped their bombs. They had three engines to fly back on, so they had to decide whether to return or try to go to Switzerland [Annotator's Note: a neutral country]. They made it back to England. Even when flying over Germany, they always tried to know where Switzerland was.

The last mission Joseph Monteyne [Annotator's Note: a navigator in the Royal Canadian Air Force 425 (Alouette) Squadron] went on was eight hours and 15 minutes. They had a lot of problems. The winds were 115 miles per hour, but they managed to hit the target. Coming back, they were running short of fuel. They had to take chances and he had to make the choices required. He had to coordinate with the flight engineer regarding fuel. Once they got to the Channel [Annotator's Note: the English Channel], they could break silence. None of his crew were wounded. On the Falaise Gap [Annotator's Note: Falaise Pocket or Battle of the Falaise Pocket or Falaise-Argentan; Battle of Normandy, 12 to 21 August 1944], they lost an engine. Two others had also lost engines and those three were peppered with antiaircraft fire. His aircraft had 65 holes in it. Nothing vital or anyone got hurt. His lamp got hit by shrapnel but went over his shoulder. That was the closest call he had that he knows of.

Both Air Forces [Annotator's Note: the US Army Air Forces and the Royal Canadian Air Force] did a good job of destroying infrastructure and fuel supplies. What Joseph Monteyne [Annotator's Note: a navigator in the Royal Canadian Air Force 425 (Alouette) Squadron] and others were doing was having good effect. The fighters were not coming out much anymore [Annotator's Note: near the end of the war]. The American effort in the air, like theirs, was effective. Some of his targets were around prisoner of war camps. Pathfinders would mark the targets and had much better equipment than he had in his Halifax [Annotator's Note: Handley Page Halifax heavy bomber]. Towards the end, the indicators were much more accurate, and the bombing was more effective than it was earlier. Monteyne did not know he was on his last mission until he came back. [Annotator's Note: Monteyne backs up to an earlier mission.] Christmas 1944, Rundstedt [Annotator's Note: German Army Field Marshal Karl Rudolf Gerd von Rundstedt] made his last push at Bastogne [Annotator's Note: Siege of Bastogne, December 1944 in Bastogne, Belgium]. The weather was so bad in England they could not go. When you leave, you have to know you will be able to get back too. On 24 December 1944, they bombed the airport at Dusseldorf [Annotator's Note: Dusseldorf, Germany] and obliterated it. They got hit over the target pretty badly. It got damn cold in the aircraft. They kept up with the other bombers and over the Channel [Annotator's Note: the English Channel] they decided to try and land. Monteyne had the code for the American 8th Air Force base at Sudbury [Annotator's Note: Royal Air Force Sudbury, in Sudbury, England] and decided to spend Christmas [Annotator's Note: 25 December 1944] with the Americans. They said to come on in. They landed, parked, and went to the officer's mess. They were invited to a Christmas party. They were in battle dress and the officers were in their dress uniforms. Busloads of women from the Red Cross [Annotator's Note: Red Cross, an international non-profit humanitarian organization] came in. They had a ball, and everything was free. There was no flying the next day. They spent three days there and had a turkey dinner with ice cream. They were guests of honor. The RAF [Annotator's Note: British Royal Air Force] fixed the bomber, and they flew out. That was his crew's last mission. Monteyne had some missions to make up. He ended up with an American pilot named Charles Lesesne [Annotator's Note: Royal Canadian Air Force Officer Charles Prichard Lesesne] who had not reverted to the American Air Forces when the state joined the war. Monteyne did his last six missions with him. Six weeks after Monteyne left, Lesense was shot down over Hamburg [Annotator's Note: Hamburg, Germany]. He was the only crew member to not make it out and it is believed he stayed in the plane so that his crew could get out. Monteyne often thinks about him. That was the end of Monteyne's flying career, but he was put in intelligence due to his speaking different languages.

Joseph Monteyne worked briefly in intelligence [Annotator's Note: after finishing his missions as a navigator in the Royal Canadian Air Force 425 (Alouette) Squadron]. They were trying to monitor the continent and figure out where Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] was half the time because he was moving so fast. They would try to arrange missions ahead of him but before they could get off the ground, they would cancel because they were not sure where he was. If there was a lot of radio activity, they knew something was happening there. He did that for about three months and then the Tiger Force [Annotator's Note: also called the Very Long Ranger Bomber Force; formed for proposed use against targets in Japan] was being formed in India. They only took crews that had experience, so he volunteered. He got a month off to go home to Canada before going to the group. He was on the Atlantic on 8 May [Annotator's Note: 8 May 1945] when the war ended. He did not get to celebrate the end of war. It was so stormy, and he was seasick on the ship. He got home and got his old job offered to him. He got out of the service and took the job in 1945. It was great to see his family. He missed the comradeship and the feelings developed sticking his neck out all the time. He used to watch the men take-off and wished he was going too. He had various careers, got married, and had five boys. Monteyne is proud of his service. He is a founding member of the Air Force Association of Canada. He regrets losing the names of men he met at a Christmas party [Annotator's Note: Monteyne describes this in the clip titled "Bombing Missions and an American Pilot" of this interview series].

Joseph Monteyne goes to schools with about 15 others to talk about the war. The kids are super attentive. His own children were not nearly as interested in his experiences as his grandchildren are. He has nine of them and they are always asking questions. If this is not done, it will go by the wayside. Every individual has a story, and each family should know it. It should be taught in school. Monteyne had lots of problems over the war but managed well compared to some of his friends. He has had bouts of PTSD [Annotator's Note: post-traumatic stress disorder, a mental health condition triggered by a terrifying event either experienced or witnessed]. Physically he came out well. A lot of them inclined to drink a lot when they first came home. Some of his friends died of it. His wife was a nurse and she helped him. You have to work at it, when you have those problems. It can lead to death. Some are worse than others. He was not as bad as some he knew. In those days, there was no sympathy, and it was called having a lack of moral fiber. He knew one chap who said he could not risk his crewmembers lives anymore and quit. He was then stripped of everything and called a coward. After 20 missions, how could he be called a coward? Something snapped. It is important to keep these stories by all means. Monteyne was at the Museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana] years ago and the interest has not waned. More people are interested now than they were before. That is a good thing. This is important historical history to be kept alive. If the same situation comes up, do the same thing. If you have a good country, it is worth risking your life for.