I have a personal connection with one of the oddest events in wartime history, when the German navy deliberately sank its own fleet at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands of Scotland. My husband’s grandfather was serving on one of those ships!
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My husband was a twelve-year-old boy living in a peaceful suburb when the Berlin Wall went up almost overnight, just two blocks from his home. Thankfully, his family lived on the western side. Here are his memories of growing up in the shadow of the wall.
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Dear Friends: After five years and more than 100 best wartime stories, this will be my FINAL Wartime Wednesdays blog post. But since I’m so eager to stay in touch with all you lovely people, I have an entirely new blog titled Letters From Windermere. My monthly blog will be just that — a chatty update […]
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My Dear Friends — This year has been one of mingled joys and sorrows. We never know what the future holds, but from my house to yours, and with all my heart, I wish you the very best surprises in the mysterious new year that awaits us. (Note: This wreath on my front door is artificial. We can’t […]
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Fred Sutherland of Rocky Mountain House, Alberta, is now Canada’s last surviving Dambuster — one of only two left in the world. He’s also a member of my extended family because he was married to my cousin Margaret. I interviewed him about his wartime past. (Note: Fred Sutherland passed away at the age of 95 in January 2019. Rest in […]
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One of my best Christmas gifts this year came from an old and dear friend, Leslie Vass of Kelowna. B.C. She ran across this collection of brass buttons that the owner no longer wanted. Knowing my fondness for military memorabilia, she had them strung into a bracelet for me! I was thrilled to receive this […]
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Nothing represents hope and optimism like the New Year’s Baby – in my case, my first and only grandchild Nora, born in August 2014! It’s been a great pleasure to bring you stories about Canadians at home and overseas during the Second World War. I launched this blog (such a dreadful word — I prefer to think of it as an […]
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I had two personal reasons for visiting the museum at Peenemünde in Germany, where the Nazis invented their deadly V-weapons during the war: the first because it plays a role in my novel about aerial photo interpretation, and the second because my father-in-law Kurt Drews worked here during the war. (My wartime novel Bird’s EyeView is fact-based fiction, the story of […]
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Today I’m departing from my usual format to bring you a chapter of my newly-released wartime novel, Bird’s Eye View. Briefly, it’s about a farm girl from Saskatchewan who joins the air force in the Second World War, travels to England, and becomes an interpreter of aerial photographs, searching for bomb targets on the continent. […]
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My mother-in-law Gerda Drews was a teenager living in Berlin during World War Two. In this interview, she describes her family’s tragic experiences after the battle of Berlin, when her city fell to the Soviet Army in May 1945. Note from Elinor: My husband was born in Berlin after the war and emigrated to Canada as a young […]
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