A committee has been formed to track down the family members of the 21 victims of the Plane Crash of 1946 south of Estevan, and their efforts were quickly rewarded.
The committee is comprised of Marie Calder, Lester Hinzman, Angela Clements and Lynn Kindopp of Estevan, Lois Wilson of Regina and Jack Borno, who resides in Alberta. Borno is a relative of one of the plane crash victims.
“The others are doing this because they have an interest,” said Calder. “Which for me, it has been wonderful.”
As of April 1, the committee had only contacted 13 of the families, but so far this month, four have been found.
“I was stuck at eight. I had eight for a long time. And I was fearful that I wasn’t going to have all of them,” said Calder.
The last four victims they are looking for are Robert (Sandy) McRoberts of Winnipeg, Ned Jordan of Winnipeg, Henry (Harry) Cowan of Ottawa and Stanley Wright Proctor or Toronto.
All four were recipients of the Distinguished Flying Cross.
The committee has tracked down a distant relative of one of the victims, but they want someone who is closer to get more information.
Jordan will likely be the toughest to track down, she said.
“There were no children, and ... it sounds like there wasn’t much of an immediate family, but we won’t give up. There will be somebody out there. We can’t leave anyone … without representation,” she said.
Calder has been trying to track down the families for her book Together Forever in the Clouds, which pays tribute to the 21 members of the Royal Canadian Air Force who died in a crash at the former Estevan Airport site south of the city on Sept. 15, 1946.
She doesn’t believe she would have reached 17 of the families without the committee’s help.
“These people have been fantastic. They have put on their thinking caps and they have gone on missions. Lois Wilson went on a mission to find the family of Max Thomas in Yuma, Arizona.”
It’s phenomenal to track down four families in a month because she was searching for families for three years.
“I told the son of one of these boys. I said ‘I’m writing your dad’s book,’ and he started to cry, because his dad hasn’t been remembered by society and he hasn’t been remembered by Canadians at all,” said Calder.
Each one of the pilots has a fascinating story, she said, and when she writes the book, it will be a compilation of those stories. She has been tracking down the airmen’s families because she wants to share their stories, rather than just facts.
Each chapter will include a story on a victim.
“I didn’t want to just present facts and military jargon. I wanted to talk about them as people, and it’s tough to do that when you have no one to talk to about that person. It’s almost 74 years ago that the accident happened,” she said.
There is also a chapter dedicated to Darren Jones, the Alberta chainsaw sculptor who carved the Forever in the Clouds monument at the Estevan Regional Airport that pays tribute to the victims of the plane crash.
Calder believes the sculpture played a big role in creating more awareness locally and elsewhere about the tragedy. When it was at the Moose Jaw Air Show last year, a lot of people stopped to take a look at it and ask questions.
Since the plane crash happened near Estevan, it’s a part of this city’s history, and she hopes people will continue to do their part to remember those who died.
