Blair Everett Vipond

This story is shared by the Trust with kind permission from Pete Colley, Curator, Wickenby Museum. Additional information and photo from the WWII Records and Service Files of War Dead, Libraries and Archives, Canada

Remembering Blair Everett Vipond, Warrant Officer, navigator, Royal Canadian Air Force. He was killed on his 2nd mission attacking the railway yards at Orleans. The cause of loss was not established but the aircraft crashed at 02:00 on the 5th July 1944 onto the Rue Barriere St-Mark at Orleans.

Blair was born at Edmonton, Alberta on 29 December 1923. His father, deceased, was born in Oshawa, Ontario and worked as a decorator, and his mother was born at Fergus, Ontario. He had siblings, David Myron and Gordon, as well as sisters, Margaret Myrtle and Jean Thomson. Another brother, Jack Russell had died in 1921.

The schools he attended were Islay, Alberta, 1931-1939 (grade 8) and Victoria High 1939-1941 (grade 11). Blair enjoyed boxing and skating. Between 1941-1942 Blair worked as a Shipper for Safeway Stores, Edmonton, before enlisting on 5 June 1942.

When he had finished his training in Canada, Blair was posted to the U.K. and embarked from Halifax on 16 May 1943. He arrived at 3PRC on 24 May and then went to 10 (0)AFU on 3 August 1943, 30 OTU 31 August 1943, 11 Base 10 December 1943, and 12 Squadron on 15 June 1944. It was from there that Blair, still only twenty years old, sadly lost his life on 4th July 1944.

The RCAF Casualty Officer wrote to Blair's mother on the 7th June 1945 to inform her that further information had been received about him from M. and Mme Michel. It stated that the aircraft had been hit by anti-aircraft fire and crashed in the commune of Fleury les Aubrias, Orleans. Mme Michel stated that the organization, of which she was president, was caring for his grave.