Suitcase of wartime letters reveals Sask. families' plight

It was a small suitcase, about the size of a large laptop.

What was inside thesuitcase was a glimpse into the wartime hope and anguish for seven Canadian families, including three from Saskatchewan, during the Second World War.

The correspondence nearly ended up on the auction block earlier this year, but it was saved by a man named Frank Moore. It eventually made its way to the hands of Canadian historian and authorTedBarris.

And now he's talking about the letters he's found inside that suitcase.

The letters were sent to a Montreal woman, CatherineMcCracken. She was the mother of Alex, a navigator on a Halifax bomber.

The earliest correspondence is a letter toMcCrackenindicating that Alex's plane had been shot downand he was missing in action in July 1943.

A similar letterwould have also been sent to six other families, including the Saskatchewan mothers of MarcelTomczak, MichaelSmythand AlexSochowski.

The other crew members included, CliffKettleyJr. and Edward White of British Columbia.The last member of the crew was Albert Wood. He was a British flight engineer.

For months, the mothers didn't know the fate of their sons.

The Royal Canadian Air Force shared the names and addresses of all the crew members with the families. The mothers of those missing airmen began writing to each other.

"There is this interesting circle of conversation going on among the mothers," saysBarris. "It was waiting, waiting, waiting like suspended animation, for the other shoe to drop to find out what happened to their sons."

He adds, "these women were drawn into a moment in history by circumstance, and it's clear from the letters they have a wonderful rapport. They care about each other and each other's families."

After some time, it was discovered that AlexSochowskiwas alive and a prisoner of war inStalagLuftIII,where The Great Escape occurred.

BarrissaysSochowskiwas able to write to his crew member's families from the POW camp. Sadly, he didn't know if any of his crew memberswere alive.

It took about a year, but eventually word came that the Halifax bomber had been found. It had crashed in Ten Boer, Netherlands.The six remaining crew members had died in the crash.

Barrissays the townspeople of Ten Boer actually hid the bodies from the downed Royal Canadian Air force plane for a time.Eventually, they were buried in the town'scemeteryin 1943.

Ceremony in Holland

Frank Moore, who saved the suitcase full of letters, was part of a ceremony in Ten Boer earlier this week tocommemoratethose six airmen.

He took some of the lettersand some of AlexMcCracken'smedals to the event.Moore toldBarristhe entire town turned out for the ceremony.

Barrissays there's a strange irony to this story about the correspondence between mothers.It was the name of the airplane the crew flew in. Every bomber had a special name attached to it and everyone had the call letters, for example,JP-Zfor Zebra

"In this casethe bomber was calledLQ-Mfor Mother. The [crewreferred totheir planeas] 'M for Mother'," said Barris.

In his research, he found that earlier one of the six airmen,Kettley, makes note of that.

"With our bomber we pay tribute to our mothers who always take care of us when we needed it," Kettley wrote.