The Last Canadian to Fall : A Remembrance Day post
Eighty years ago, on September 2, 1945, the guns of Second World War fell silent — but not before one last Canadian life was lost, only hours before Japan surrendered.
The end was in sight
The war in Europe had ended three months earlier, with Germany’s surrender on May 8, 1945.
For many Canadians, peace had come at last. Mothers, fathers and children were impatiently awaiting the return of Canadian soldiers deployed in Europe. Still, in the Pacific the war raged on. Canadian airmen, sailors, and soldiers who had transferred to the Pacific theatre continued to fight and die in operations against Japan, in a distant, brutal endgame fought across oceans and islands.
That summer, events on the Pacific front moved quickly. The United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6. Two days later, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan. The next day, August 9, the Red Army invaded Manchuria and a second atomic bomb hit Nagasaki. The war’s end was in sight.
The last mission
That same day of August 9, Lieutenant Gerald Arthur “Andy” Anderson, a Trenton-born Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve, was involved in operations over Onagawa Bay. He was flying a Corsair, a powerful, single-seat fighter aircraft equipped with bombs to support operations against ships, airfields and coastal targets. This fighter plane, with its distinctive inverted gull wings allowing it to land on carriers, was feared by the Japanese forces who nicknamed it the “Whistling Death”.
During the operation, Anderson’s plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire. With a badly damaged aircraft and rapidly losing fuel, Anderson had two options. He could ditch the aircraft or try to fly the 150 miles separating him from the safety of HMS Formidable, the home base aircraft carrier. In an attempt to save the aircraft, he chose to try to return to the carrier and radioed in that he would make an emergency landing.
Miraculously and in great part due to his exceptional navigational skills, Anderson made it within sight of the carrier. As he undertook his final approach, it looked like he was going to make it.
Standing on deck, the landing signal officer (known as a “batsman”) started to guide him down. But within reach of the carrier, Anderson’s engine ran out of fuel and quit on him. The 9,000-pound fighter fell like a shot gunned duck, losing the required speed and altitude to make it to the landing deck. Anderson appeared to then angle his aircraft towards the sky in a desperate attempt to reach the landing zone but to no avail: his Corsair slammed the ship’s rounded stern with brutal force.
The Corsair broke in two at the cockpit. The rear section of the plane plunged immediately into the sea, while the forward half, with Anderson in the cockpit, teetered for a brief, agonizing moment on the carrier’s stern, at the very edge of the ship. Anderson was bent forward, unconscious, his head resting against the control panel. Before the batsman and deck crew could do anything, the wrecked Corsair pitched up, slid back, and toppled overboard, falling forty feet into the Pacific’s boiling sea. Anderson was immediately swallowed and never surfaced.
He was 22 years old. He was almost home.
Mere hours later, that same evening of August 9, Japanese Emperor Hirohito met with his cabinet and made the momentous decision to capitulate. War was over. Anderson was the last Canadian to die.
Remembering
Anderson has no grave. He is remembered on the Halifax Memorial, alongside thousands of other Canadians lost at sea. His sacrifice — the final Canadian life claimed in that terrible war, hours before the end, inches away from safety — stands as a haunting reminder of the heavy price of our peace.
As we mark this 80th anniversary, we remember Lieutenant Anderson and all those who served; not as distant figures of history, but as ordinary Canadians who gave everything so that others might live in freedom. Their courage, discipline, and quiet resolve continue to define the best of who we are as a nation.
Lest we forget.
Get your Poppy
You can honour Canada’s veterans and support the Legion’s Poppy Campaign by getting a digital poppy at mypoppy.ca. As we have done over the last many years, we have posted our own Virtual Poppy on the Condo Adviser blog. Click on it to purchase your own.
Check out our past Remembrance Day posts.