Oliver Packer quickly put together his heavy diving gear kept on a special raft maintained by his Newport Fire Department and headed north into Lake Memphremagog on what he already knew would be a recovery mission.
The raft was pulled by a United States Customs boat and their task this Sunday afternoon was to find the body of a pilot who had crashed into the lake, on the Vermont side of the border with Quebec.
It was June 28, 1942.
Over the site, about four miles north of town, Packer went overboard and was lowered to around 50 feet where he located the wreckage of North American Harvard No. 3000. Crushed in the cockpit of the yellow craft was Leading Aircraftman Roy Nelson Pate, Royal Canadian Air Force.
Roy Pate grew up in the East York suburb of Toronto as part of large family headed by Erving and Emily, five sons, and a daughter – including James, Alfred, George, Erving, and Irene.
They lived at 73 King Edward Avenue, near Danforth Park School. Finished there, Roy went to East York Collegiate Institute. At 21, he joined the RCAF and entered training with the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan.
He could fly, and was tagged to be a fighter pilot – eventually moving on to No. 13 Service Flying Training School, in St. Hubert, Quebec, just outside of Montreal.
With about five weeks to go before earning his wings, Roy went up solo for practice and headed east to Magog, and the northern end of Lake Memphremagog – a thin body of water that runs 50 km (32 miles) down to Newport.
You could not have a more exciting place for a young pilot in a hot Harvard to fly. It was something of a drag strip that, down low, gave that ultimate feeling of speed and excitement to future fighter jocks.
The only thing we know about Roy’s trip down the lake is he was low, something went wrong and he went in.
Roy Pate’s body was brought home and buried in Resthaven Memorial Gardens, Scarborough.
Per Ardua ad Astra to a brave young man who wanted to serve his country and prove himself in combat.
