Dear Editor
I grew up 30 miles from the Hamlin airport. It is similar to the Brada airport Elinor Florence writes about in her blog, Wartime Wednesdays (www.newsoptimist.ca). Any time we drove to North Battleford from Vawn we passed the empty hangar with its deserted runway.
Not until Florence's blog did I have any idea of the activity that went on in that little airport during the years 1941 to 1945, or of the many Commonwealth pilots who learned to take off and land on that runway.
I'm enjoying her blog and recommending it to friends.
Thank you for making it available to your readers.
Here - in case you wish to reprint all or part of it - is my "Through Bifocals" column for the Jan. 15, 2014 issue of the Terrace Standard.
"Every trip we drove to our nearest city, North Battleford, when I was a kid took us along Highway 4 past an abandoned wartime airport. All that remained was a boxy one-storey building, with five gigantic bay doors, sprawled beside a sparsely grassed runway that disappeared in the distance. Not a rock or a gopher would have impeded the small yellow planes as they practised landings and takeoffs. Gone was the spotlighted anti-aircraft blimp that had been visible in the night sky from our farm near Vawn 30 miles to the northwest.
"During the years 1941 to 1945 this Hamlin airport and a second relief airport at Brada just east of North Battleford were two of hundreds participating in the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan.
"Until I began reading Elinor Florence's blog - Wartime Wednesdays - published weekly on the Battlefords News-Optimist website, I was unaware of the bustling activity that had gone on daily at this airport as some 130,000 servicemen from Commonwealth countries trained in Canada to become pilots and aircrew, many of them in Saskatchewan's open skies at this local airport.
"In 1946 when Florence's father, Douglas, returned from the war following his years in the Royal Canadian Air Force, he took advantage of loans available to returning veterans, to finance a farm. Under the Veterans Land Act he would have been eligible for $4,500 to buy land, $1,200 for equipment, scarcely enough to fuel a modern monster tractor.
"He chose to buy the decommissioned airport three miles east of Brada. The land came with several government buildings including a T-shaped barracks constructed from quality lumber sided with shingles. Florence divided the building in half to turn the T-shaped end into a comfortable farm home.
"Florence attended Brada's one-room school to the end of grade eight when the school closed. She transferred to Battleford Collegiate Institute for high school. She went on to earn an English degree from the University of Saskatchewan and a journalism degree from Carleton University. Stuart Adams was one of her journalism instructors.
"She began her journalism career at Battlefords Advertiser-Post. Positions of increasing responsibility took her to The Western Producer, Red Deer Advocate, Winnipeg Sun, Vancouver Province and Reader's Digest where she contributed feature articles.
"Recently the News-Optimist online edition began publishing her senior friendly Second World War blog each Wednesday. Large font size and big photographs can both be easily read without a magnifying glass.
"Readers can receive each weekly post as an email simply by subscribing with their email address. 'I'm not selling anything,' Florence says. 'Readers are my only reward. I love it when readers write and identify themselves.' Her website enjoys a lively exchange of readers' comments.
"Florence's descriptions of her family life parallel that of many Canadian farm kids growing up in the post-war years.
"Thus far I've read three of her installments: Growing Up with Air Force Ghosts, describing her life on a former airport; My Dad's Best Christmas: 1945, when he was stationed in England; and Brotherly Love, an account of a harrowing experience while her grandfather served in the First World War.
"As an offshoot of her blog research, Florence has written a novel, Bird's Eye View, to be published October 2014. The novel deals with a prairie girl who joins the RCAF and serves as an interpreter of aerial photographs, a wartime assignment new to me.The responsibilities sound far more demanding and useful than being a paparazzi hounding entertainment celebrities like Miley Cyrus or Princess Diana.
"The blog is available at www.elinorflorence.com or by googling Wartime Wednesdays. Her email address is [email protected]. Her phone is 250-342-0444."
M. Claudette Sandecki
Terrace, B.C.
