No. 115 Squadron RCAF
No. 115 Squadron was a Royal Canadian Air Force Canadian Home War Establishment Squadron that operated during World War II.
Operational history
No. 115 Squadron flew anti-submarine patrols along the coasts of British Columbia and Southeast Alaska as part of Western Air Command.On 7 July 1942, Flight Sergeant PMG W. E. Thomas and the crew of Bristol Bolingbroke maritime patrol aircraft No. 9118 sighted a target breaking the surface and emitting white "smoke" in the Pacific Ocean northwest of the Queen Charlotte Islands. At first thinking it was a whale, they quickly concluded that they could see the underwater silhouette of submarine at least in length and attacked, dropping a single or bomb from an altitude of which landed just forward of the submarine's conning tower. They claimed to have damaged the submarine. Based on the Bolingbroke's report, the United States Coast Guard cutter, the U.S. Coast Guard-crewed United States Navy patrol vessel, and the Royal Canadian Navy minesweeper proceeded to the area on 9 July 1942 and began a search for the submarine, which McLane and YP-251 claimed to sink later that day. The Bolingbroke crew shared credit with McLane and YP-251 for the sinking, and in 1947 the Joint Army-Navy Assessment Committee identified their victim as the Imperial Japanese Navy submarine. In 1967, however, the U.S. Navy retracted this assessment because Ro-32 had been inactive in Japan at the time of the sinking and was found afloat in Japan at the end of the war. The submarine reportedly sunk on 9 July 1942 remains unidentified.
No. 115 Squadron disbanded at Tolfino, British Columbia, in August 1944.