We Lived In Danger: From True Prairie Boy to Royal Regina Rifleman (ePub)

"We Lived in Danger" is a deeply personal and straightforward story about a small-town Canadian boy from Saskatchewan, Victor Hepburn Small, and a salient and fascinating slice-of-life glimpse into the World War II era. "Vic's" formative years in the Big Sky country, and his love affair for early 1900's prairie culture, prepared him for an extraordinary life event: to serve his country during WWII. Ensuring his membership in Canada's greatest generation, "Vic" enlisted in 1942 at age 18, "to fight the Germans. Every living body did the same thing."

Published by his wife after his death in 2021, this memoir is not only a labor of love, but also a remarkably unique anthology. Vic's transcribed "Blue Bombers" leave letters (how soldiers stayed in touch with family by airmail) are both gripping and eloquent, and reveal with intimate, authentic, and genuine curiosity, vivid details of his experience as a young man serving in the European Theatre from 1943 to 1945. Not unlike many Canadian soldiers, Vic carried his film camera with him - all the way from solider training in Alberta and British Columbia, across the pond on Cunard Line's Queen Mary - to England, Scotland and Germany. Lovingly preserved by his family for over 75 years, Vic shares a collection of snapshots from his time, taken from an album he put together of over 150 captioned photos of life and wartime.

Vic's story is truly a tribute to the undeniable resolve of his generation, a rare, historic fingerprint of an analytical, yet curious young Canadian man extending his view of the world around him, and finally, an insight into the heart-breaking reality for veterans of war back then, and the few survivors left now.