GRILL LAKE – A Canadian flag stands at attention at a cairn near Grill Lake, 17 miles south of Unity on Highway 21, and 1/2 mile east on the Revenue Road. Ken Dresser maintains the site as a formal tribute to soldiers who died nearby.
In 1945, on a pilot training mission, the soldiers’ flight crashed in the field near this cairn’s location, killing both occupants. They flew out of the training base north of North Battleford as part of a low-level cross-country training mission to prepare more pilots for overseas battles being undertaken by Allied forces, including the Royal Canadian Air Force.
LAC P.J. Haley was the student who perished in the crash along with flight instructor J.D. Douglas.
The cairn includes photos of the crash site and pictures of the deceased, along with a plaque that includes their names, flags and identification numbers.
Little was discovered about where these men hailed from, the date or cause of this aviation tragedy or any other details pertaining to the crash.
Ray Herzog was involved in this memorial and says, “I remember my dad telling me as I grew up, it was Feb. 12, 1945, when two planes came over our yard during WWII. They were flying high, and it was a foggy morning.
“Dad said he could see the controls of the plane when he was in the hayloft. After a short period, the phone rang with six long rings, meaning a general ring where everyone listened on a party line and it announced that there was a plane crash at Grill Lake, which was two miles from our place.”
Herzog said his dad took a horse to see for himself and when he got there, he saw the crash and both people in the plane were deceased. It appeared the plane had crashed into a sharp incline and the wing hit the ground.
Neighbours helped pull what was left of the plane into one of their yards that was close the crash site.
Herzog says, “As I grew up, mom and dad would go and visit there, and I would go play in the plane for hours and that stayed in my mind for years.”
In 2009, Herzog ran into Bill Frey of Luseland, and he started talking about the crash and how something should be done in remembrance of the two fallen soldiers. Herzog then offered to make the cairn and enlisted Aubrey Wood of Ruthilda to help.
Permission was grated from the government to set it up by the government pasture, 3/4 mile east of Highway 21 south, on the Revenue grid.
The cairn, complete with a Canadian flag, reminds residents young and old of this this moment in history.
