Americans who died for Canada in WWII finally get their due

[CWOJackson]

WASHINGTON—Richard Fuller Patterson was a strapping young flyer with a world of promise when he died, alone and forgotten, almost 72 years ago in the cockpit of his Spitfire.



Shot down over Belgium at age 26, with a Canadian insignia on his arm and his American citizenship in doubt. That’s how the end came for this graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law School.



Patterson was an heir to a name that still means something in Virginia: the Pattersons of Richmond founded the iconic Lucky Strike tobacco brand that the whole world, it seemed, was smoking during the Second World War. “Fuller,” as the charismatic fighter pilot was known, was the golden boy.



He was also a gun-jumper: one of the more than 840 American volunteers who would not wait until their country joined the war against Hitler. Instead, they put their passports on the line, joining, training — and, eventually, dying — as members of the Royal Canadian Air Force.


Why are they forgotten?

Read the rest of this story at...http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/10/22/the_americans_who_died_for_canada_in_wwii.html

[SSI01]

Once, when I was a young man in high school, I was present when my dad ran into another man who had been stationed with him in the Army in San Francisco from January, 1941 to late 1942. While they were renewing their friendship and swapping stories about guys in their battery whom they both knew, the other man mentioned one of their fellow soldiers who, one night well before Pearl Harbor, stole off the post and somehow managed to thumb rides or sneak them on trains until he crossed the Canadian border and enlisted in the Canadian Army. Dad's friend said this man just couldn't wait to get into the war against Germany and was willing to desert the U.S. Army in order to do it. They knew he made it because they received a post card from him, postmarked from eastern Canada, saying he did. There were many "foreigners" in the WWII Canadian military who entered it under various circumstances; it would make a fascinating read if someone managed to compile their stories for review.

[Skyhawk_310R]

The reason they are forgotten is because the US is often unaware of their actions. Ironically, it is more likely that there was an unanswered letter of draft posted against them, which would technically make them a criminal. To the extent they are remembered at all it would be through the actions of Canada or Great Britain, whom they fought for. To the extent that they were not eventually prosecuted for draft dodging, it would be because they resigned their positions with Canada or Great Britain and joined the US military, often in the same type of position, or given their service against the same enemy, it was decided to drop all charges against them.

Ken