Name: Edward Raphael Gaudet Rank: First Lieutenant Service Number: 11032554 (enlisted), O-686738 (officer) Service: 514th Fighter Squadron, 406th Fighter Group, 9th Air Force, United States Army Air Force Awards: Air Medal with 2 Oak Leaf Clusters, Purple Heart with Oak Leaf Cluster Date of Birth: 1921 Place of Birth: New York Date of Enlistment: December 12, 1941 Place of Enlistment: Boston, Massachusetts Address at Enlistment: Somerville, Middlesex County, Massachusetts Age at Enlistment: 20 Height: 6 feet, 6 inches Occupation: Semiskilled warehousing, storekeeping, handling, loading, unloading Marital Status: Single Religion: Roman Catholic Next of Kin: John E Gaudet (Father) Date of Death: June 29, 1944 Age: 23 Cemetery: Lorraine American Cemetery, St-Avold, France Grave: Plot C, Row 17, Grave 73 Edward R. Gaudet was the son of Jean (John) Ernest Gaudet (1899-1985) and Mary Irene (Doucette) Gaudet (1898-1991), and the brother of George Paul Gaudet (1923-1944), Phyllis Irene (Gaudet) Mullins (1927-2023), Elizabeth (Gaudet) Alliot, David Alvin Gaudet (1931-2017), and Gregory Ernest Gaudet (b. 1936). Edward’s father was born in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, and his mother was born in Argyle, Yarmouth County, Nova Scotia. Edward’s brother George Paul Gaudet also served in the USAAF in WWII and was killed October 29, 1944. Edward’s father Jean Ernest Gaudet served in the Canadian Army in WWI with the 47th Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force. Edward enlisted in December of 1941. Having trained in the United States, including flight training in Texas at the Waco Army Flying School, Edward was later stationed in Bodney, a village and former civil parish now in the parish of Hilborough, in the Breckland district of the Norfolk County, in England. On D-Day, June 6, 1944. Edward flew air cover for the Normandy Landings. Edward’s story is published across American in as many as 25 papers, detailing his missing over Normandy even though there wasn’t much to report, in ‘Pilots Report Little Opposition – Returning Fighters See Light Resistance in Early Stages’. It reads, “2nd Lt. Edward R. Gaudet, 22, Somerville, Mass., said, “we flew along looking for trouble but there was nothing in that area of France – not even a single train. We sighted one two-engine bomber, but it ducked away” (Berwick Enterprise, p.3, Berwick, Pennsylvania, Tuesday, June 6, 1944). Twenty-three days later, Edward, serving as Pilot of P-47D Thunderbolt #42-8682 code T-PZ, nickname “Little Evie”, was shot down by a FW-190 German fighter while on an armed reconnaissance in the Mantes-Cassecourt area, and crashed 1 mile south of Dreux, in the Eure-et-Loir department of northern France. Lt. Levitt C. Beck, Jr., another pilot of the mission recounted: “We were to fly the early one that morning on June 29th. We dashed down in the murky dawn, that only England can boast about, for breakfast and a briefing. Both very satisfying, we took off and headed for our target, just a few miles south-west of Paris, along the Seine River. My flight carried no bombs, as we were to be top cover for the squadron on their bomb run. It was a group (three squadrons) mission. Just before we reached the first target, a bridge, the flak opened-up and we did some evasive action to go around it. None of it came very close to my flight, but we were not giving them very much of a target to shoot at, I guess […] We lost the rest of the squadron for a while, and then I spotted them to the west being shot at.” First Lt. Edward Gaudet’s P-47D Thunderbolt was shot down during the engagement. Edward R Gaudet was interred at the Lorraine American Cemetery, just outside the town of St. Avold, France, near the border with Germany. It is the largest American World War II military cemetery in Europe.

Sources: American Battle Monuments Commission – Edward R Gaudet findagrave