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Canada's Bomber Command Memorial
Memorials



    by Josh Skapin
    Editor - Nanton News
    Thursday August 25, 2005


Nanton News - Former gunner Father Harry Schmuck shared his personal account in Bomber Command and how the Bomber Memorial Wall effected him Aug. 20.
Schmuck was one of 100 young men posted in a gunnery school in Prince Edward Island in 1943.
Everything was done in alphabetical order said Schmuck.
So he and his two new pals Shulka and Siewert did everything together - including being stationed together when sent to serve overseas.
"One morning after a heavy night raid," said Schmuck, "Shulka approached me and said 'Did you hear about Siewert?'"
That powerful raid took the life of Schmuck's good friend.
"I stood before the Memorial Wall and I saw his name," said Schmuck, "Siewert - Robert Lloyd - from Alberta. His young face of 60 years ago passed before my eyes, and I remember." Schmuck's story inspired Ontario-based singer/songwriter Jim Blondeau to compose a song dedicated to the wall, the lives it honours and the lives it will touch. Blondeau performed the song at the ceremony.


The Wall at Nanton
Soundtrack

When I was a young man
I flew with my best friends
We took to the blue skies
And followed our captains
The times called for fighting
But we knew that our missions
Were standing for freedom
Again and again

There's a wall in the town of
Nanton, Alberta
There's a wall in the town
with the names
Of the men who have fallen
while fighting
For freedom
In our memories, they'll
always remain

If they could look back
In a time travel moment
They'd be sitting again in
the planes
Dancing like eagles in the
winds of the starlight
Flying again and again.

   Jim Blondeau







Jim Blondeau performed the song he wrote
dedicated to Canada's Bomber Command Memorial Wall.






Jim Blondeau performing at the Bomber Command Museum's twentieth anniversary celebration August 26, 2006.




Bomber Command Museum of Canada