THE TERRIBLE WAIT
IT'S OVER
Some relevant entries from
Bill Hillman's TELECASTER Journals
ROYAL CANADIAN AIR FORCE PILOT'S FLYING
LOG BOOK
EXCERPTS
NAME: F/L Wm. G. CAMPBELL NO. 428 SQUADRON
RCAF
GRAND TOTAL FLYING HOURS: 1347 Hrs
...Crane... ... ...Link... ... ...Tiger Moth...
... ...Oxford... ...
...Anson... ... ...Wellington... ... ...LANCASTER...
...Apr. 27/45 Lancaster -
Pilot: Self Crew: 6 Duty: Seq C&L
Apr. 28/45 Lancaster - Pilot: Self Crew: 6
Duty: Seq Xcty F/A
Apr. 30/45 Lancaster - Pilot: Self Crew: 6
Duty:...
[KILLED]
The medals arrived in time for the gala
'war is over and our boys are coming home'
...celebrations...
MY DARLING BOY,
I come again to see and touch your name.
I wonder if anyone stops
to realize that next to your name on this
memorial is your mother's heart. A heart
broken so many years ago when you lost your
life. When I look at your name I think
back to all the times I wondered how scared
and homesick you must have been in far
off wartime England. And if and how it might
have changed you - for you were the
most happy-go-lucky kid in the world - hardly
ever sad or unhappy - and until the
day I die I will see you when you laughed
at me whenever I was very mad at you...
and then we laughed together.
But really I know the answer because I have
often talked to your cousin Gordon who
was with you so much of the time... and to
your friend Mike Spack who was there...
and I know you died suddenly, without suffering,
as your plane lost power coming
home and plummeted - in the last days of the
war.
Gordon told me how you stayed the same happy,
sunshine boy you were
when you first arrived in England -
- and how your warmth and friendliness and
love for fun and pranks drew the
guys to you. How when you died it struck everyone
so hard - you of all people should
never have been the one to die.
O God, how it hurts to write this but I must
face it and put it to rest. I have told
them how I loved them - loved them for being
close and for being there when you
died.... How lucky you were to have had them
for friends... and how lucky they were
to have had you. Ohhhh...But still I'd rather
to have had you for a few short years
and all the pain that goes with losing you
than never to have had you at all.
Love... Mom
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Part I: The Home Front
