Bud Abbott was just twenty-three years old when he strapped himself into his cockpit, took off from the deck of an aircraft carrier, and headed into aerial combat for the very first time. His target: the Tirpitz, one of the deadliest German battleships ever built.
For hundreds of thousands of families around the world, Christmas 1945 marked the first holiday celebrated together after the long and lonely years of war.
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.
Thousands of wartime animals performed valuable work during the global conflict, while others provided love and comfort to servicemen who were far from home.
There’s a reason why it’s called The Greatest Generation – and former RCAF photographer Yvonne Valleau Wildman of Kindersley, Saskatchewan is a shining example.
Nobody remembered the fascinating history of a humble brass pitcher owned by this Canadian family, until Brenda Blair of Calgary discovered that it was once a prized wartime souvenir of Holland’s liberation by the Canadians.
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 mother’s cousin Margaret.
Eugenie Francoeur Turner served at a bomber station in Yorkshire, where she witnessed horrific crashes, dodged bombs, and worked around the clock on D-Day. It was the most exciting time of her life.
My admiration is boundless when it comes to the Canadian wartime nurses who bravely carried out their grim duties — so it was an honour to interview Jessie Middleton of Abbotsford, British Columbia. I was especially keen to meet Jessie because my column has not paid enough attention to wartime nurses — our Canadian women […]
Jack Dye, a brave young bomb aimer from Regina, Saskatchewan, saved everyone on his Halifax bomber but lost his own life.
