Arthur Laflamme
Husband, grandfather, veteran, pilot. Born on March 18, 1917, in Hull, Que.; died on April 30, 2015, in Gatineau, Que., of natural causes, aged 98.
Arthur Laflamme did not have an easy childhood. The Great Depression was difficult for all Canadians under the best of circumstances, but he and his three siblings had the added challenge of being raised by a single mother, after their father abandoned the family while the children were young.
Arthur was the second-eldest child, and from a young age he had to do his part to help his family. He took odd jobs at 10 cents an hour and spent a great deal of time searching for logs along the shores of the Gatineau River because they couldn't afford firewood during the winter.
This difficult period had a silver lining, however, as it instilled in Arthur his lifelong values of self-discipline and hard work. In 1938, these qualities helped him to secure a well-paying job in the Royal Canadian Air Force as a carpenter aircraft rigger. "The air force was the only one hiring during the Depression, and they were the only ones to respond to my application. I joined, and I sure liked it after I joined," he later recalled.
Although he was raised in a francophone household and barely spoke English at the time, Arthur quickly rose through the RCAF ranks and was selected for pilot training in 1942, in the midst of the Second World War. He graduated as a pilot officer and was deployed in 1944 as a Lancaster bomber pilot. He completed 30 mission tours over Norway, France and Germany without ever losing a crew member, aborting a mission, or receiving significant damage to his aircraft. In 1950, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his war service.
Because he had joined the air force before the war began, Arthur was able to continue with the RCAF as a pilot after it ended. He had many deployments in the postwar period, including acting as a Canadian representative on U.S. operations in the Canadian Arctic during the Cold War.
While based in Edmonton, he went to a dance and met Fleur-Ange Lefebvre; he married his "flower" (as he called her) in 1947. Over the next 15 years, as he moved across the country from one military base to another, he and Fleur-Ange welcomed three sons and three daughters. Many of the children never spent more than a year in the same school during this period.
In 1963, after spending a quarter-century serving his country, Arthur left the military. He and Fleur-Ange opened their own business in Gatineau, a fabric store that they ran, with the help of their children, until they retired in 1992.
Throughout his business and retirement years, Arthur was a devoted family man and greatly enjoyed spending time with his 12 grandchildren. He was actively involved with the RCAF Pre-War Club, which held regular meetings and an annual formal ball. He also kept in close contact with members of the many squadrons in which he was deployed.
Lucky are those who find their true passion in life. Arthur, and those who knew him, never doubted that he found his in the skies above North America and Europe. "My 25 years in the air force were paradise," he once said. "I would do it all again."
André LaFlamme is Arthur's grandson.