By Kayla Bruch

La Ronge man honours WWII soldiers

Nov 8, 2014 | 3:33 PM

Through woodland aerial photography, flying, research and writing Doug Chishom has been honouring soldiers who fought in World War II (WWII) , in a very unique way.

On Saturday, the Prince Albert branch of the Saskatchewan Genealogical Society, invited the La Ronge resident to share his story.

Chisholm said he has been following detailed provincial maps of Saskatchewan in his float plane, marking off geo-memorial sites as he goes. At each memorial he takes a photograph and researches the soldier who was being commemorated.  

According to Chisholm, these geographical sites are named by the province in honour of servicemen and women who lost their lives in active service during the Second World War.

The geo-memorials were set up based on a list of around 3800 names of WWII soldiers. Chisholm said this was a beautiful idea. However, the problem was the province didn’t tell each family the location of their loved ones memorial site.

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Chisholm said he was inspired to help these families after someone asked him, “I lost a brother, they didn’t name anything after him, did they?”

“Through my research over the past 15 years I’ve learn a lot about those warriors of 1939 to 1945,” he said.

Being that 15 years ago there was no database or online resources like there are today Chisholm had to do a lot of the leg work to get the information he needed.

The only resources he could use were causality lists, names from cenotaph memorials and honour roll lists from local legion branches. Which he says was a challenge because there were details missing and spelling mistakes.

He said roughly 91,000 young people from Saskatchewan, roughly ten per cent of the provinces population, enlisted in WWII.

“Each enlisted for his or her own reasons but those were compelling times, the depression years had been tough, the future seemed most uncertain, and recruitment posters called on everyone to do their bit,” he said.

kbruch@panow.com

On Twitter:@KaylaBruch1