Page 5 - RCAF Centenary

PREFACE – CAPSULE VIGNETTES OF A FEW OF THOSE WHO SERVED
Who were these remarkable and dedicated Canadians? They were very much like many of us – typically young men and women from rural areas, cities and towns across this great nation. Farmers, university students, office workers, poets and journeymen. Francophones and Anglos and recent immigrants from nations far away. They all stood together to fight tyranny thousands of miles away in countries many had not even known existed. They came from families, leaving behind parents and siblings, friends and lovers, and for some, leaving behind young children. From our southern border to the Arctic, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, they came. Their unity of purpose was undeniable, their differences inconsequential. CHAA has selected a few short portraits of RCAF men and women familiar to us by circumstance either through our dive team’s efforts to locate long lost aircraft or through our personal relationships. Each serves as a reminder of what they did to secure our future. These are stories of bravery and selflessness in service to our country; profiles of those who trained, flew, fought, were wounded, were captured, escaped, fixed airplanes riddled with bullets and flak, tended to the injured, manned facilities and performed all those other tasks needed to defeat our adversaries. Many suffered grievous wounds but survived. Thanks to skill and luck, most returned home to resume their lives.
But others were never to return home – they died in battle or in accidents, even some captured and executed at the hands of their captors; their graves in distant lands far away, most honored and marked but some, lost for all eternity. Today with the passage of time their youthful voices are now stilled, but their stories of sacrifice and duty echo in the hearts and minds of all Canadians now and in the future. Together, they remind us that they were without a doubt Canada’s Greatest Generation. In the following pages you will meet a few of those among the many we recognize for their valor and selflessness in the cauldron of war. CHAA and all Canadians honour those who stepped up, served and sacrificed.
Join us in remembering these few of the many. We owe all of them so much.