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 130 kilometres (70 nmi; 81 mi) northwest of the Queen Charlotte Islands.

[1] Based on the Bolingbroke's report, the United States Coast Guard cutter USCGC McLane (WSC-146), the U.S. Coast Guard-manned United States Navy patrol vessel USS YP-251, and the Royal Canadian Navy minesweeper HMCS Quatsino 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.

[1][3] 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 Ro-32.