IN DANGER
to document and share my experience as a young Canadian soldier serving in Europe during the years 1943 to 1946.
And I would like future generations reading it to know or remember that as a former soldier, I believe my story is worth telling.
I wrote the memoir...
VICTOR HEPBURN SMALL, PhD
CANADIAN WORLD WAR II VETERAN
A proud, but humble man, Victor Hepburn Small had a keen sense of humor and extremely kind nature. A true prairie boy born in Saskatchewan, Canada in 1924, became Lieutenant Small, a Canadian WWII Veteran who served with the Royal Regina Rifles and the Calgary Highlanders. He served in Europe from 1943 to 1946. Prior to his service, Vic was raised on the prairie by a wonderful family during the Great Depression of the 1930’s.
He was a King Scout, an avid lover of the prairie skies, chokecherry berries and jam, blue cowbell blossoms, mixed farming, and the Qu’Appelle Valley. Following his service as an infantryman and flamethrower, Vic returned to North America to earn doctorates in Optometry and Experimental Psychology and made Bethesda Maryland his home. As years passed, he was known as a beloved husband, father, stepfather, grandfather, great-grandfather, and uncle.
Vic lived until a month before his 97th birthday, and left behind a story that, in his words, “Is a story worth telling.”
"Wearing a uniform and Sam Brown belt bequeathed to me by a grieving mother from Harrow, England, that lost two sons between May and June 1944 and photographed in London at her behest that same year."
Scenic view of Highway 35 and the Qu'Appelle Valley. This major landscape feature runs from west to east across souther Saskatchewan and is of vital importance as it provides water storage, farmland, wetland habitat, woodlands, gravel pits, and skit areas, 1940.
Freight train leaving Yorkton, Saskatchewan, on a cold winter's day, about 1939.
My history includes FAMILY LETTERS I wrote, and PHOTOGRAPHS taken during my service (PRESERVED OVER SIXTY YEARS), my biographical FAMILY HISTORY authored in 2013, and eight emails and additional letters created between the years 2009 and 2015, further recollecting my COMBAT EXPERIENCE. This PROJECT BEGAN, however, about eleven years earlier, when my EFFORTS to CONNECT to LIVING WWII VETERANS and MEMBERS of the REGINA RIFLES REGIMENT (RRR) led to my first finding DOLORES HATCH, and eventually KEVIN LAMBIE and J. Walter WALTER KEITH.
