Service Life:

Campaigns:

• The Second World War 1939-1945, World-wide.

Detail :

Pilot Officer Arthur Francis Le Maistre, of Number 210 Squadron, Royal Air Force, Service Number 41033, died when his aircraft was shot down in Norway on 4 September 1940. In 1935, he was a Royal Canadian Mounted Police Constable and later a Royal Canadian Air Force Pilot in Halifax NS. He is the son of of Frederick Francis Le Maistre and Edith Harriett Wolhaupter of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

"Constable Arthur Francis Le Maistre, Reg. No. 12558, was born on January 22, 1914, at Winnipeg, Manitoba. He attended Fort Rouge and Earl Grey schools in the city, and joined the Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve. In 1928 he went to England to train at HMS "Conway." He was the first Manitoba sea cadet to be sent for naval training. After training he left England on the steamer "Empress of Japan" as a cadet seaman, for training to become a bridge officer. He continued this training for three years and also served for a short period of time on a tanker. On April 8, 1935, he joined the RCMP at Halifax, Nova Scotia, and was assigned to the Marine Section of "H" Division. While serving in the RCMP Constable Le Maistre obtained his pilot's license and then, wishing to be able to fly, was discharged from the Force on April 7, 1938. In June 1938 he was accepted into the British Royal Air Force (Service No. 41033) with the rank of Pilot Officer and was assigned to No. 210 Squadron, based in Pembrokeshire in Wales in the United Kingdom. Pilot Officer Le Maistre was undoubtedly assigned to this squadron due to his maritime experience. When the war with Germany broke out in September, 1939, the squadron was immediately involved in patrolling the sea lanes over the Irish Sea, and, with detachments at Invergordon in Scotland and at Sollum Voe in the Shetlands, the North Sea and the Norwegian coast. On April 8, 1940, the fifth anniversary of his joining the RCMP, Pilot Officer Le Maistre with nine other crew of Sunderland L2168 took off and flew north from Pembroke Dock on the south west tip of Wales to Holyhead in north Wales and overnighted there. The next morning, Tuesday, April 9, 1940, they flew to Invergordon in Scotland where, for what was believed to be a mechanical problem, they changed planes to Sunderland L2167. They took off at 1 pm and opened sealed orders to learn of their destination: Oslo, Norway for general reconnaissance. The crew had no knowledge that the Germans had invaded Norway on that very day. The Sunderland flying boat arrived over Oslo around 5:30 pm and was hit by anti-aircraft fire from German ships in Oslo Harbour. There were already German Luftwaffe fighters on the ground at the nearby Fornebeu airfield with their crews sunning themselves next to their aircraft. The Luftwaffe crews at first thought it was a German aircraft approaching but were stunned when they realized it was British. They quickly scrambled two fighters. The Sunderland turned north-west to escape but was pursued and fired upon by two Me110 fighters piloted by Luftwaffe Lieutenants Werner Hansen and Helmut Lent. The lumbering Sunderland was outgunned and defenseless against the speedier fighters and it exploded in mid-air and crashed in the mountains of Overskogen north of the village of Sylling."

See also: Canadian Virtual War Memorial.

Masonic :

Source :

The project globally acknowledges the following as sources of information for research across the whole database:

• The Commonwealth War Graves Commission
• The (UK) National Archives
• Ancestry.co.uk - Genealogy, Family Trees & Family History online
• ugle.org.uk - The records of the United Grand Lodge of England including the Library and Museum of Freemasonry

Additional Source:

• Founder Researchers : Paul Masters & Mike McCarthy
• Researcher : Bruce Littley
• Researcher : Stephen Smith - Royal Standard Lodge