Name: Elmont Gasper Prest Service number: J/15788 Rank: Flying Officer Service: 619 (RAF) Squadron, Royal Canadian Air Force Date of Birth: March 20, 1914 Place of Birth: Spry Harbour, Halifax Co., NS Date of Enlistment: November 21, 1940 Place of Enlistment: No. 16 RCAF Recruitment Centre, Halifax, Nova Scotia Address at Enlistment: Upper Stewiacke, Colchester County, Nova Scotia Height: 5 feet, 9 ½ inches Complexion: Medium Eye Colour: Hazel Hair Colour: Medium brown Occupation: Woodsman and grocer Marital Status: Single (at enlistment) Religion: Anglican Next of Kin: Melvin Allan Prest (Father) Date of Death: August 18, 1943 (Killed during air operations) Age at Death: 29 Cemetery: Aabenraa Cemetery, Denmark Grave Reference: Allied Military Plot. Row 3. Coll. grave 10. Commemorated on Page 204 of Canada’s Second World War Book of Remembrance Displayed in the Memorial Chamber of the Peace Tower in Ottawa on April 25 Elmont Gasper Prest was the son of Melvin Allan Prest (1884-1945) and Susan Seretha (Hawes) Prest (183- 1978), of Upper Stewiacke, Colchester Co., Nova Scotia. Both his parents were born in Halifax County. His father – in Mooseland on the Eastern Shore, and his mother in Spry Harbour. His siblings were Max Hawes Prest (1916-1978), Spencer Charles Prest (1918-1998), Homer Eldon Prest (1920-1984), Harland Winslow Prest (1922-1965), and Doris Aroda (Prest) Spears (1926-2013). Elmont’s father was a lumberman and a grocer. Elmont’s brother Gunner Spencer Charles Prest served in the Royal Canadian Artillery, Homer served in the Royal Canadian Army Service Corps including service overseas in Italy, and Max served in the Royal Canadian Navy. Prior to the war Elmont was employed as a warehouse clerk with George A Chase General Merchants from 1938-1940. George A. Chase and Co. was a mercantile and fruit export business in Kings County, NS. The company owned two general stores, one in Port Williams and one in Kentville, an apple growing enterprise, and a fruit export business. Chase and Co. engaged in exporting apples to Great Britain through the fruit broker William Hardy and Company Ltd. of Newcastle-on-Tyne. Elmont also worked as a truck driver for 4 months immediately prior to enlisting. Elmont enjoyed hockey, swimming, After enlisting in November 1940, Elmont was completed armament training in Course No. 19 at the No. 2 Bombing and Gunnery School in Mossbank, Saskatchewan from May 26 to July 7, 1941, and advanced air observer training at the No. 1 Advanced Navigation School in Riverdale, Manitoba from July 7 to August 4, 1941. Next, he returned to Halifax and on August 15th, he embarked in Canada to transfer to the United Kingdom. Once there, he was assigned to No. 20 Operational Training (OTU) at Lossiemouth Oct 6, 1941, 115 Squadron on March 25, 1942, No. 16 OTU on Aug 26th, 49 Squadron on April 30, 1943, and 619 Squadron on May 6th, 1943. Elmont originally trained as an observed and remustered as a navigator on July 23, 1942. In 1943, Elmont was assigned to the Royal Air Force’s 619 Squadron. 619 was assigned to Operation Hydra, part of Operation Crossbow, in August of that year. On the night of August 17-18, 1943, three waves of RAF Bomber Command aircraft, totalling 596 bombers, took off from their bases in England to attack the important German scientific research centre and rocket development site at Peenemunde on the Baltic coast of Germany. The raid, codenamed Operation Hydra, was to be of great significance and was very costly to Bomber Command, especially to the aircraft and crews of the third wave. Elmont’s aircraft Avro Lancaster III EE117 (markings PG-L) was shot down by an enemy BF110 night fighter at Ustrup near Haderslev whilst returning from a raid on the Peenemunde experimental station. The Peenemünde Army Research Center was founded in 1937 as one of five military proving grounds under the German Army Weapons Office (Heereswaffenamt). Besides the A-4, other missiles, such as the Wasserfall, and the V-2 rocket was developed there. Elmont was serving as the navigator. Also killed were the following crewmembers: Sergeant Alfred Charles Richard Chapman (RAFVR, RAF, Service No. 1579639), air gunner Sergeant William Arthur Mitchell (RAFVR, RAF, Service No. 1426572), air gunner Flight Sergeant Peter John Horsham (RAF, Service No. 574342), flight engineer Wing Commander Irwin J. McGhie (RAF, Service No. 32201), pilot Warrant Officer Class I Ford Arnold Thompson (RCAF, Service No. R/82736), wireless gunner/air gunner Pilot Officer Victor George Stabell (RAAF, Service No. 413037) Pilot Officer Peter Mylrea Goldsmith (RAAF, Service No. 5105), air bomber Elmont was interred at the Aabenraa Cemetery in Jutland, Denmark. A memorial stone was also erected near the crash site, and Elmont is also commemorated on a family grave marker at the Riverside Cemetery in Upper Stewiacke, Colchester Co., NS. A newspaper piece stated Elmont, “had been engaged to an English girl for some time previous.” Elmont’s grave inscription reads, “He died that we might live.”