Description
Donald Wickens
Mr. Wickens was born in Moosejaw, Saskatchewan. Despite the scarcity of jobs during the depression, he took employment with the Bank of Montreal, where he worked for two years prior to enlisting. Although not initially eager to do so, Mr. Wickens decided to join his friends who had preceded him into the service. Unlike many of his friends, however, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force with the intention of becoming a navigator, and completed his training in Portage La Prairie. Once overseas, Mr. Wickens became a member of 434 Blue-Nose squadron and took part in 37 bombing and mine laying missions over Northern Europe. He and the rest of his aircrew were decorated after surviving two air attacks in which their aircraft was disabled. After leaving the service, Mr. Wickens returned to the Bank of Montreal. He currently resides in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan.
Transcript
Another time we were flying north and this was before we got on the squadron and we were doing a little practice flying and it was at night over the Irish Sea and we were flying north at midnight. Well, in southern Saskatchewan in the daytime you’d look for miles and you’d see the grain elevator in the distance and so on. You’d try looking up over the earth to see the sun on the other side and the clouds looked like ... just like a prairie scene ... only it was clouds and looking over from the Irish Sea looking north. Just beautiful. Never saw anything so awe inspiring in your life. So those things were nice things to look back on. But what was happening behind you and underneath you was terrible.