A Time to Remember

November 12, 2020

This article was done in partnership with the Lac du Bonnet & District Historical Society. It appeared in the November 12, 2020 edition of the Lac du Bonnet Clipper.

November is a time of reflection on those who lived through war. Hello Soldier, a 1974 book of letters published by Lac du Bonnet’s Aileen Oder (nee Small) commemorates her time as the town’s special war correspondent during the final years of WWII.

During the summer of 1943, local Cigarette Fund Committee president, Frank Waters, approached twenty-seven year old Aileen to write messages with town news, which would be included with the packages of cigarettes sent to the Lac du Bonnet boys overseas. Aileen, a teacher in Winnipeg’s East Kildonan area, had grown up in Lac du Bonnet. She came home each weekend to gather news. Once Al Stuart, owner and driver of Stuart Bus Lines, found out Aileen was writing the letters, he waived her fare until the end of the war. Her first newsletter was sent on August 10, 1943.

Aileen’s brother, Fred, joined the RCAF in 1941. He had worked with the Manitoba Government Air Service in Lac du Bonnet from 1937 until he obtained his private pilot’s licence in June 1940. In 1943, the twenty-six year old was based in Yorkshire, England piloting Halifax bombers. These heavy bombers, a precursor to the Lancaster, were primarily flown by Canadian seven-man crews on night operations.

In an October 4, 1943 letter, Fred wrote: “Don’t worry about me too much, Ai. It isn’t as bad as it’s painted. Although you can get a false sense of security in these big kites when you are four miles up. But it sure is a thrill of a lifetime flying one.” Four days later, on the night of October 8, during the heaviest raid on the production center of Hannover, Germany, Fred was reported missing after his plane went down during the operation. By July 1944, he was presumed dead.

Aileen continued the monthly newsletters to “her soldier boys” In the many letters, Christmas and Valentines cards, they sent their sincere thanks, asking that she “please write again.” She described pieces of home: the sparkle of the sun on the river and Bing Crosby on the Lakeview Café jukebox. They told her of the beauty of the English countryside and old-fashioned French villages, and of meeting friends from home in the most unlikely places. For one soldier, her words gave comfort as he “read them to the flashes of the guns.”

Just before the flags flew for VE Day, Aileen expressed her gratitude of the soldiers’ letters, saying “they’ve helped assuage the loneliness of not being able to write to or hear from…Fred. …We are still hoping that by some miracle, somewhere he’ll turn up.”

In July 1945, Aileen heard what happened to Fred’s bomber from flight crew member, “Turk”: while going in on their bombing run, they were attacked by a German fighter plane, who the rear gunner shot down. With the port wing on fire, Fred thought he could make it back to base. Bullets from a second German fighter set the four engines on fire. Fred gave the order to bail out. The bomber entered a dive and “Turk” was the first one out. Fred couldn’t regain control. The bombs were still aboard. “Turk” became a POW and the only survivor.

The Hello Soldier booklet is dedicated in loving memory to Aileen’s brother, F/O Fredrick G. Small, of the 434 Squadron. In her final letter, August 5, 1945, she told her soldiers, “it will be good to see you home again.”

References:

Aileen Rebecca Oder. Hello Soldier. Winnipeg, MB: North Star Press, 1974.

Aileen Oder, ed., Logs and Lines from the Winnipeg River: A History of the Lac du Bonnet Area (Steinbach, MB: Derksen Printers, 1980), 143, 237-240, 396.