Remembering

In this month of November, people around the world take time to remember those who have been victims of world conflicts – be they family members, friends, colleagues in the military or the thousands of civilians in dozens of countries.

I recently read the book Bird's Eye View by Canadian author Elinor Florence. Set in Saskatchewan and England it is the story of a young Canadian woman who decides she needs to find a role to play in winning World War 2. Since the Canadian Military at that time did not permit women to join up for overseas duty, she travelled to England where she joined the British Air Force, Women's Division. Rose, the Saskatchewan girl, was trained as an interpreter assigned to the reconnaissance photo interpreting section where she became one of their top operatives. Her younger brother, Jack, also joined the Royal Air Force as a pilot, and was lost on D Day. Later, when she discovered he had been buried in a small local cemetery, she travelled there to visit his grave.

Since the airmen were not given formal funerals due to the heavy losses and impact such funerals would have on the morale of the forces, she had a small ceremony of her own. Rose had received Jack's personal effects earlier, and in them was a poem he had saved. She read it at his grave. The poem had been written by an American teenager, John Gillespie Magee, who had joined the Royal Canadian Air Force and been killed in December 1941.

High Flight

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sun-ward I've climbed, and joined the rumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds, -- and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of – wheeled and scored and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,

I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air....

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,

Where never lark, nor even eagle flew --

And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod

The huge unsurpassed sanctity of space,

-- Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

If the first and last lines of this poem sound familiar, they were used by President Ronald Reagan when he addressed the American people after the tragedy of the Challenger space mission.

There are many things to remember in this month, and, indeed, all year round. To those of you who lost loved ones in the war, our sincere sympathy; to those who welcomed home loved ones who were forever changed by what they had seen and done – our hearts go out to you. Please remember, in doing what they did, they changed the course of history, and each November the world remembers and pays homage.

Yours for Home & Country, Ruth Fenner, Provincial Historian, British Columbia Women’s Institute