Joseph Simon Sleigher was born on 12th June 1922 in Drapeau, Province of Quebec, Canada and was the eldest son of Joseph and Marie (nee Savoie) Sleigher. He was known by his middlename of Simon. He had five sisters; Jeanne, Therese, Marthe, Simone and Gabrielle as well as six brothers; Raymond. Jean-Guy, Eugene, Jos, Regis and Edouard. His brother Raymond had also served in the RCAF during WW2. After leaving school in 1937 he attended a commercial collage in Dalhousie, on the northern border of New Brunswick until 1939 having gained a diploma in commercial studies. In 1940 he began working as an office clerk for the large International Paper Company, based in Dalhousie. The company was one of the world's largest newspaper paper mills at the time. He left this job in 1941 and later took up a job with Crawley and McCracken, at Chute a Caron, Quebec in 1942 also working as an office clerk.
He enlisted for RCAF service on 12th October 1942 in Montreal to train as aircrew (R/195216) and after training in Canada he was awarded his Air Gunners' badge on 25th June 1943. With basic training in Canada completed he left Canada on 16th July 1943 and arrived in the UK seven days later to continue his training. He was posted to 23 OTU at Pershore on 3rd August 1943 where he crewed-up with much of what became the "Evans" crew, they were then posted to Dalton on 15th September 1943 to attend the Battle School, and from Dalton they were posted to 1659 HCU at Topcliffe on 28th September 1943. With regular training completed he and the rest of David Evans' crew were posted to 434 Squadron 26th October 1943 and worked up to becoming an operational crew.
The photograph of Simon Sleigher shown above was taken after he had completed his eighth operational flight, the photograph was kindly supplied by 434 Squadron historian Mr Alan Soderstrom.
Joseph "Simon" Sleigher was twenty one years old when he was killed on the North Yorkshire Moors as a result of the crash of Halifax LL178 on 19th March 1944. He was buried at Harrogate Stonefall Cemetery, Yorkshire on 23rd March 1944. At the time of his death all correspondance listed him in the rank of Sergeant though he appears to have later received a back-dated commission to 3rd March 1944 to the rank of P/O.
A memorial in Nouvelle, Quebec, Canada commemorates Simon Sleigher's loss. In 2005 his brother Mr Raymond Sleigher organised a commemorative ceremony in Nouvelle. I thank a number of members of his family for kindly contacting me since this webpage was first created; firstly to his namesake Mr Simon Sleigher in 2008 and to Mr Guy Dugas and latterly to Mr Joe Landry in November 2012.