Service highlights

• Service number: J6495
• Born 12 November 1923 in St. Marys
• Enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force at Toronto on 12 November 1940
• Trained at 4 Bombing and Gunnery School, Fingal, then through the RCAF flying training system
• Commissioned Pilot Officer and sent overseas to England on 14 August 1941
• Joined No. 33 Squadron RAF on 26 March 1942, serving in Egypt
• Killed 16 July 1942 in a landing accident at Desert Air Strip No. 154 in western Egypt
• Buried at Alexandria (Chatby) Military and War Memorial Cemetery
• Commemorated: on the World War II plaque at St. Marys Town Hall

A Life and Service Remembered

Erle Walter Ollen-Bittle grew up in St. Marys with the kind of ordinary routines that feel especially precious in hindsight. He was born in 1923 and lived with his parents on Water Street South. He attended St. Marys Central School and later St. Marys Collegiate Institute, then went on to school in Toronto and found work as a draftsman with Canadian Controllers Ltd.

He was excited to serve and enlisted on his seventeenth birthday. He wanted to fly and within months he was in uniform, waiting for his training slot, doing the unglamorous work that keeps a station running. Then everything accelerated. Courses, promotions, airfields, new expectations. By the summer of 1941 he had earned his fighter pilot qualification, and by 1942 he was overseas, far from home, flying with a front line squadron in North Africa.

A wartime newspaper notice shared the news with the community under a blunt headline: an airman killed in the Middle East. It told neighbours what his family already feared, and it did what these clippings so often do, reducing a full life to a few lines. The fuller picture is that Erle was only 18 when he died. He had moved from school and drafting tables to operational flying in less than two years. In St. Marys, we remember him not only for how he died, but for the speed and courage of the path he chose, and for the family who carried that loss back home.

He was survived by his parents, Walter and Vera Ollen-Bittle, and two younger brothers, Jack and Donald. He is buried at the Alexandria (Chatby) cemetery in Egypt and is commemorated in St. Marys on the World War II plaque at Town Hall.

Major battles and operations

Training and posting overseas

• Enlisted in Toronto on 12 November 1940.
• Posted 29 November 1940 to 4 Bombing and Gunnery School at Fingal, Ontario, working as a security guard until a training vacancy opened.
• Began basic training at 1 Initial Training School in Toronto on 9 February 1941.
• Graduated 16 March 1941 and was promoted Leading Aircraftman.
• Completed primary flying training at 7 Elementary Flying Training School in Windsor.
• Completed service flying training at 1 Service Flying Training School at Camp Borden and graduated as a fighter pilot on 31 July 1941.
• Commissioned Pilot Officer and sailed for England on 14 August 1941 for further training with an operational training unit.
• Posted to 33 Squadron on 26 March 1942 and deployed to Egypt.

Operations in North Africa

33 Squadron operated Hurricane II fighters and was tasked with close air support for ground troops. That work meant flying near the front lines where danger could come quickly from ground fire, dust, and the pressures of operating from forward airstrips.

Final flight, 16 July 1942

On 16 July 1942, Pilot Officer Ollen-Bittle attempted to land at Desert Air Strip No. 154 in western Egypt. A Spitfire landed ahead of him, and blowing sand obscured the landing strip. In the confusion, he misjudged clearance, collided with the Spitfire, and was killed in the impact.

Learn More

• Canadian Virtual War Memorial
  https://www.veterans.gc.ca/en/remembrance/memorials/canadian-virtual-war-memorial/632382
• Richard Holt, The Fallen, J6495 Pilot Officer E.W. Ollen-Bittle