Stevens, Flying Officer Clarence Lloyd

Service highlights

  • Service Number: J10551
  • Born 22 April 1919 in St. Marys, known as Newt
  • Royal Canadian Air Force, wireless operator and air gunner, later Flying Officer
  • Served overseas in England, Egypt, and North Africa
  • Posted to No. 608 Squadron RAF and flew a Hudson Mk V, serial AE641
  • Killed 16 May 1943 when the aircraft crashed on landing at an advanced base in Algeria
  • Buried at El Alia Cemetery
  • Remembered on the cenotaph in Rannoch and the World War II plaque at St. Marys Town Hall

A Life and Service Remembered

Clarence Lloyd Stevens, known to many as Newt, was born in St. Marys on 22 April 1919 and raised on his father’s farm at Glengowan. He went to the local school in Blanshard and later attended St. Marys Collegiate Institute from 1932 to 1935. Sports mattered to him. The book notes he was part of a successful St. Marys Junior B hockey team in 1936, playing at the old arena by the Wellington Street Bridge, a detail that still feels familiar to anyone who knows the town.

There was plenty of work on the farm, but Newt was restless and wanted to see more than the fields he grew up on. In 1938 he headed to Malartic for work with Ventura Incorporated, and by 1939 he was working for Inco in Sudbury. That pattern, working hard, then moving on when something called him forward, shows up again in his service story.

He enlisted in the RCAF at North Bay on 5 October 1940 and trained through a demanding sequence that built him into both a communicator and a gunner. After basic training in Toronto, he studied navigation in Manitoba, wireless in Winnipeg, and bombing and gunnery in Saskatchewan. He qualified as a wireless operator and air gunner, was commissioned as a Pilot Officer in March 1942, and later promoted to Flying Officer in October 1942.

Clarence went overseas early, arriving in England for further training that included radar and an operational training unit where he joined a Hudson crew. After that, he and his crewmates were posted to Egypt, and the book notes they spent Christmas 1942 there. Not long after, they moved into operations from North Africa. A small newspaper clipping makes that time feel personal. It says he wrote home that he was on leave in England from North Africa less than a month before word arrived that he had been killed. His parents, Clarence and Mary Stevens, were then listed at R.R. No. 8, St. Marys, and later the family is noted as living on the east river road just north of town. It is an awful contrast, an ordinary letter about leave, followed so quickly by the final news.

In late March 1943 he was posted to 608 Squadron. The squadron was operating from an advanced base in Algeria, attacking German rear area installations. In the early hours of 16 May 1943, his Hudson returned to the base. During landing it struck trees and crashed. The book records that all four crewmen were killed in the impact. A Hudson aircraft record for serial AE641 names three of the four lost that night, including Clarence, along with Roger Wallace Haven and Walter Wilson Nichol.

Clarence was buried in Algiers, far from the concessions roads, rinks, and bridges of home. He left behind his parents, a brother David, and four sisters, Louise, Mary, Beatrice, and Barbara. One more piece of his story reaches across generations. His nephew Richard James Stevens, who was just a little boy when his uncle died, later wrote a book about the Hudson crew and how the loss shaped the families and friends who carried on. The photograph used in St. Marys Remembers was provided by his niece Jane Stevens Humphrys. Those are the kinds of family acts that keep a name alive, not just on stone on the cenotaphs in Rannoch and on the world war 2 plaque on the St. Marys Town hall.

Major battles and operations

  • Born 22 April 1919, raised on a farm at Glengowan
  • Enlisted in the RCAF at North Bay, 5 October 1940
  • Graduated basic training in Toronto, 12 November 1940
  • 1 Air Navigation School, Rivers, Manitoba
  • 3 Wireless School, Winnipeg
  • 5 Bombing and Gunnery School, Dafoe, Saskatchewan, wireless operator and air gunner qualification
  • Commissioned Pilot Officer, 16 March 1942
  • Posted overseas, 18 March 1942
  • Further training in England, including radar training and an operational training unit on Hudson aircraft
  • Posted to Egypt, late 1942
  • Posted to 608 Squadron, 28 March 1943
  • Operations from Algeria against German installations
  • Killed 16 May 1943 when Hudson Mk V AE641 crashed on landing at an advanced base in Algeria

Crew of Hudson Mk V serial AE641, 608 Squadron

  • Pilot Flying Officer Walter Wilson Nichol 
  • Wireless Air Gunner Flying Officer Clarence Lloyd Stevens 
  • Wireless Air Gunner Flying Officer Roger Wallace Haven 

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