IN DANGER
The Story Behind the Story
I, Joanne, was a child during WWII. As a result, I under- stood what war meant through a child’s perceptions. I also realize back then how profoundly Hollywood’s post-WWII movies likely coloured those views. Reading Vic’s memoir in 2021 helped me recognize, for the first time, that I still held a child’s understanding of war.
Main Editor: Joanne W. Small
Only then did I come to realize that combat really meant to kill or get killed. That is why Vic’s service alone made him a hero to me, though he did not at all agree with me. This was, however, a topic we never fully
discussed. So, I can only guess that Vic likely considered those of his wounded, missing, and/or dead comrades certified heroes.
I first met Vic in 1960. It was only fourteen years after he left the military. Yet apparently like other WWII veterans, he rarely spoke about wartime. Especially about his combat expe- rience. I may have gained some insight why, however, when Vic used the word “blackout” in an email he wrote to fellow RR of- ficer, J. Walter Keith. As they briefly discussed their shared rec- ollections of the battle of Leer, they each acknowledged having similarly suppressed or ‘’blacked out” elements of combat.
The content of Vic’s memoir roughly divides into four dif- ferent time periods. One period includes a biographical sketch of his early years in Western Canada written around 2017.
Another includes copies of letters he hand wrote to his family on pale blue, lightweight paper that folded into enve- lopes. Soldiers referred to those letters as “blue bombers.” Vic wrote these letters between the years 1943 and 1945, while still in his late teens and early twenties. Hismother, after typing copies of Vic’s letters, distributed them to family and friends. Fortunately, I found several more letters after Vic’s death in 2021 and added them to his memoir. Then, beginning some sixty-three years after his service, Vic wrote a series of emails between 2009 and 2015. They include personal recollections of a WWII veteran then in his mid-eighties, and answers to the Library of Congress WWII Veterans History Project interview I conducted between April 2020 to May 2020, when Victor was 95 years of age.
I owe a debt of gratitude to the Library of Congress WWII Veterans History Project for providing the questions that ul-
timately made Vic’s memoir possible. Without it, I would not have known how or what to ask him about his military expe- rience, or even ask him to elaborate on the little I knew, based on what he had shared with me over fifty-five years of marriage. For example, I knew he had crossed the Atlantic on board the Queen Mary with 15,000.
Canadian soldiers. So, I could take the original interview question, “How did you get to your initial point of entry?” a step further when I said to Vic, “I can imagine the Germans would have wanted to destroy a ship like the Queen Mary car- rying hundreds of soldiers to defend England and defeat Nazi Germany. Did you have any feelings about your safety while on board?” And he said, “A little. We lived in danger.”
Joanne Wolf Small, July 24, 2022
Our goal, when we began this project, was to record and preserve Vic’s WWII experience into a printed memoir for mem- bers of our immediate family, though after his death in April 2021, and upon my discovering additional “blue bomber” letters, besides finding the biographical sketch Vic wrote of his early life in Saskatchewan, the idea of posthumously publishing his memoir took flight and made sense. Especially when friends hearing about Vic’s memoir told me they would like to read a copy, too. And so, I began a labour of love!