Here is one of the reasons they call it The Greatest Generation. Canadian Army veteran Russell Thompson of Seeley’s Bay, Ontario, who will turn 99 in a few months, embodies the values that made this country great. The sons of Russell Thompson, Earle and Steve, collaborated to prepare this blog post about their father, a role […]
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Four long years ago, reader Emily Tucker of North Battleford, Saskatchewan, asked me to find the owner of this Royal Canadian Air Force souvenir bracelet. After an exhaustive search, I located the owner’s brother in Cambridge, Ontario! The mystery surfaced way back in 2013 after Emily Tucker of North Battleford, Saskatchewan sent me photographs of a bracelet bearing […]
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Former naval pilot Ted Davis of Toronto, now 95 years old, will never forget the night of March 17, 1945 when his minesweeper HMCS Guysborough was torpedoed twice by a German submarine. Tony Davis is a former classmate of mine from the Journalism Program at Carleton University in Ottawa. When I learned that his father Ted Davis was still living, I […]
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Ruth Owen Whitelegg of Brantford, Ontario, trained as a photographer for the Royal Canadian Air Force and served at RCAF Centralia, Ontario, during World War Two. Her photo album gives us a fascinating glimpse into wartime history, crammed with snapshots of life on a Canadian air training base. Ruth was born on March 12, 1925 to parents […]
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Violet Milstead of Toronto was a ferry pilot, one of the elite few Canadian women who served with the Air Transport Auxiliary in Great Britain during the Second World War. She flew forty-seven different types of aircraft, including fighters and bombers, from factories to airfields. My guest post about Vi Milstead was prepared by the official historian […]
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Bomber crews who flew toward the end of the war, when there were fewer German fighters in the air, were sometimes considered to have an easier ride. But not always, as told in this hair-raising excerpt from Leo Richer’s memoirs called I Flew the Lancaster Bomber. Before his death I was fortunate enough to interview this very […]
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Richard Fuller of Niagara Falls, Ontario was a Kid Soldier, only seventeen years old when he joined the militia and began to train as a signaller. When war broke out in 1939, he was one of the first men overseas. His daughter Jennifer Maruno drew on his experiences for her Young Adult book titled Kid Soldier. My guest […]
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