Lou Marr called herself “the original turnip who fell off the back of the truck” when she joined the Royal Canadian Air Force Women’s Division and became a photographer. The job demanded hard work, but it also allowed her to fly right along with the men in training. For this farm girl, it was the thrill […]
Read More
August 19, 2014 marked the 72nd anniversary of the Raid on Dieppe, a bloody fiasco in which thousands of Canadians were killed, wounded or captured. Journalist and historian Rob Alexander of Calgary, Alberta joins Wartime Wednesdays today with this gripping description of his grandfather’s experience on that terrible occasion, based on journals and letters. Pictured […]
Read More
When you read these two letters from France written by Robert Burns Florence in 1916, you will notice the dramatic change between a young man shortly after arriving, and the same young man just one month later, after doing battle at The Somme. In honour of the World War One centenary, I want to share with you these […]
Read More
My godfather Colin Greener stood five foot three in his boots, but he had the heart of a lion. In World War One he fought in the trenches, was wounded twice, and decorated for bravery. He always joked that if he had been taller he wouldn’t have survived. When Britain entered World War One on August 4, […]
Read More
Canada’s greatest living fighter pilot, Stocky Edwards, is a legend in aviation circles. But when I visited him and his wife Toni at their home in Comox, British Columbia, this humble gentleman still attributed much of his success to simple luck, and prayer. Stocky Edwards passed away on May 14, 2022 at the age of 100. […]
Read More
This band of EIGHT Ballendine brothers served in the Canadian Army during World War Two, following the path laid down by their father John Ballendine and his brother James, both crack snipers in the Great War. Pictured here are James on the left and his younger brother John on the right. They are wearing pre-war […]
Read More
Seventy-two years after my uncle RCAF pilot trainee Alan Light died in a training accident, I discovered a dramatic oil painting that shows the last moments of his life. It was a lovely summer evening on June 5th, 1942. At seven o’clock, the sun was still high in the sky. RCAF Leading Aircraftsman Alan Scott Light was taking his bright […]
Read More
For five long years during World War Two, meat, sugar and other products were rationed in Canada. But there were few complaints. Not only were we feeding the desperate British population, we were shipping enormous quantities of food to our own armed forces, and our prisoners of war. Why was food rationed? For Canadians, it […]
Read More
It’s still puzzling why so many prairie boys went to sea in World War Two – including George Crewe of landlocked Lethbridge, Alberta, who had never even seen the ocean until he joined the Royal Canadian Navy at age seventeen to train as a Boy Telegraphist. Written by Anne Gafiuk (My guest and fellow writer […]
Read More
When Janet Mears of Australia started searching for information about her great-uncle Maxwell Cassidy, killed in a 1944 training accident in Canada, the results were astonishing. Not only did she discover that Max had been in love, she found the Canadian girl he left behind – alive and well, and eager to share her memories. […]
Read More