My visit to Danesfield House Hotel in England was truly a dream come true. Not only is this white chalkstone mansion the setting for my wartime novel Bird’s Eye View, it was also the location for a very special event on May 8, 2022 — the seventy-seventh anniversary of VE-Day, Victory in Europe.
They say every picture tells a story. Among the thousands of photographs stored in my albums and on my computer, some of them are very dear to my heart. Here is the story behind the photo, for ten of my favourite historical pictures.
A treasure trove of photographs has fallen into my hands, showing RCAF women, members of the Royal Canadian Air Force Women’s Division, performing their wartime duties. Although women weren’t allowed to fly or to engage in combat, they filled many other valuable roles. “WE SERVE THAT MEN MAY FLY” was the motto of the Women’s […]
RCAF photographer Ruth Owen Whitelegg of Brantford, Ontario, served at an air training base at 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. RCAF Photographer Bio Ruth was born on March 12, 1925 to parents […]
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.
Georgina Harvey’s RCAF photo album reveals a fascinating slice of life in the wartime air force, compiled by a young woman from a well-known family in Kelowna, British Columbia who joined up in 1943 and trained as a photographer. Georgina Harvey was born in Kelowna to the distinguished Harvey family, still a well-known name in that community. […]
I had two personal reasons for visiting the museum at Peenemünde in Germany, where the Nazis invented their deadly V-weapons: because it plays a role in my wartime novel about aerial photo interpretation, and because my father-in-law Kurt Drews worked here during the war.
Back then they were called V-weapons, but today we call them cruise missiles. In the German language, the V stood for Revenge. Hitler promised that his revenge weapons would punish the Allies for their bombing of German cities. These jet-propelled missiles almost won the war. Even before the war, the Nazis realized that the land, […]
Danesfield House is now a luxury hotel, but during the war it was requisitioned by the Royal Air Force, renamed RAF Medmenham, and served as the headquarters for aerial photographic interpretation. It has personal meaning for me, too. I visited this lovely place in 2022, when I was invited to be the guest speaker at a […]
A career in photography was the goal of Lou Marr, who called herself “the original turnip who fell off the back of the truck” when she joined the Royal Canadian Air Force Women’s Division.
