麻豆传媒AV

After 52 years, the family of a Saskatchewan airman who was killed in a 1942 training accident will dedicate a permanent memorial to him June 17.

It will take the form of a donation of a painting to the Fred Light Museum in Battleford, whose benefactor was the airman's uncle.

Light family members are coming from far and wide, and the public is also welcome to attend.

The painting dedication will be held at 2 p.m. and a public come and go tea will be held at the museum, located at 1-20th St. E., from 2 to 5 p.m.

The story began back in 1998 when the painting of an RCAF Cessna training aircraft was displayed at City Perks Coffeehouse in Saskatoon.

Leona Friesen from Castlegar, B.C. was writing a local history book about Osler, which served as a relief airfield for RCAF Saskatoon during the Second World War.

Friesen spotted the painting and recognized the subject: a Cessna aircraft belonging to RCAF air trainee Alan Light of Battleford, just seconds before it struck a ferry cable over the 麻豆传媒AV Saskatchewan River.

On June 5, 1942, Alan was only a week away from getting his wings at RCAF Service Flight Training School Number 4 (now the site of the Saskatoon International Airport), when his low-flying aircraft struck the ferry cable at Hague. The Cessna broke up and plunged into the river.

Aboard the ferry was assistant ferryman Jacob Bergen and passenger Jacob Buller of Hague. When the cable snapped, the ferry broke loose and began to drift downstream, but was anchored 200 yards farther down by the winding cable. The two men rowed ashore and notified the local RCMP. Although the RCMP dragged the river, the airman's body was never found.

More than 50 years later, Saskatoon artist Marvin Swartz travelled the length and breadth of the province, painting a series of Saskatchewan ferry crossings.

When he arrived in Hague, he spoke with residents who recalled the aircraft crash. Swartz was so struck with the tragedy that he decided to create a painting of the bright yellow training aircraft.

Swartz planned to compile his ferry series into a history book, but was unable to find a writer to collaborate with him. The ferry paintings have since been displayed in various venues around Saskatoon.

Last summer, journalist and author Elinor Florence, who grew up on a farm near the Battlefords, stumbled across an email written to her mother by Leona Friesen in 2004, describing the painting she had seen six years earlier.

"I had no idea where the painting was, or even what it looked like, so I contacted the StarPhoenix for help," she said.

Reporter Hannah Spray came to the rescue by locating the painting and identifying the artist. Florence called the artist, who was surprised to hear from a family member, as he had no idea who Alan Light's family members were or where they lived.

"I visited the artist in Saskatoon and immediately realized that this painting, although unconventional, was just what we needed to create a permanent memorial for my uncle," Florence said.

Because Alan's body was never found, his parents did not have a funeral for him. Instead, they held a memorial service at St. George's Anglican Church in Battleford, not only for Alan, but for every family member in the town who had lost a loved one.

"There were so many people at the memorial service that the church overflowed and people had to stand outside in the yard," recalls Alan's only surviving sibling, June Light Florence of Invermere, B.C., who is Elinor's mother.

June was just 17 years old, and about to write her final Grade 12 provincial exams when her brother died.

"I couldn't study because we were all crying so much, but Mother said I should try to write my exams so I wouldn't lose the whole year. So I took my exams and passed them, barely."

Alan, who had just turned 20, was the eldest child. The Lights also had an older daughter, Peggy, and two younger sons, Jim and Colin.

"My father was especially broken up because he said if Alan had gone overseas, his death might have counted for something."

Alan's tragedy was not unusual. The British Commonwealth Air Training Plan was in full swing, with airports opening across the prairies to train newly-arrived recruits. Altogether, the plan trained a total 130,000 men.

Saskatchewan alone trained tens of thousands of airmen in Saskatoon, Regina, North Battleford, Yorkton, Swift Current, Estevan, Weyburn, Moose Jaw, Prince Albert, Assiniboia, Caron, Mossbank and Dafoe. Because of the pressure on these airports, many of them also had relief airfields in neighbouring communities.

Hundreds of these young men died in training accidents. Estimates vary, but the RCAF alone reported 867 deaths due to training accidents from 1941 to 1945.

Without Alan's body, there could be no grave in the Town of Battleford cemetery, where most Light family members are buried. Aside from his name in the Book of Remembrance on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, along with 44,000 other Canadians who died in the Second World War, there is no memorial for him.

When Florence discovered the painting, she decided it would be a fitting way to honour her uncle's memory, by purchasing it and donating it to the Fred Light Museum in Battleford.

Fred Light was the uncle of both Alan and June, and he was a lifelong collector of historical artifacts. After his death, they were either sold or donated to the Town of Battleford, which acquired a former school and turned it into a public museum.

"My great-grandfather Frederick Walter Light was a Northwest Mounted Police staff sergeant at Fort Battleford, and my grandfather and his siblings grew up at the fort. When my great-grandfather retired from the police, he became Battleford's postmaster, followed by my grandfather Charles Light," says Florence. "So naturally everyone in our family sees the Fred Light Museum as an appropriate repository of family history. Many of the items inside came from the Light family, including my grandfather's World War One uniform. He served in Lord Strathcona's Horse in France."

She put the word out to her 10 first cousins, Alan's nieces and nephews who are now scattered around the continent, and they donated funds to purchase the painting.

It will be presented to the Fred Light Museum at a dedication ceremony June 17, a date chosen because it is close to the anniversary date of Alan's death on June 5, and it is also June Light's 90th birthday.

"I think my grandparents, Charles and Vera Light, would be happy to know that their eldest son hasn't been forgotten. The painting will be on public display as a permanent reminder of a bright young soul whose life ended far too soon."

Florence has fictionalized her uncle's accident in her first wartime novel titled Bird's Eye View, about a young woman from Saskatchewan who joins the air force and goes overseas.