SUBMITTED BY
LISA CHRISTENSEN
Until a month ago, Flt. Lt. Peter G. Christensen did not have a final resting place. Although he had flown across Canada and around the world as an RCAF pilot, there was no gravestone anywhere to mark his passing in Brooks, Alberta after January 31, 2010.
A native of Jenner, born to Danish farmer Hans Peder Christensen and nurse/midwife Blanche Gilfillan, Dad enlisted in the RCAF in 1944. He re-enlisted after the end of WWII and was posted across Canada, lastly at CFB Trenton, before moving to Brooks in 1964, near his Christensen and Brodie family. (Daughter Linda Redelback still resides there, with husband Garry).
One day, while still training in Alberta, he swooped low over the family farm in Jenner, dropping this cheery navigational map to his folks. His sister, June Edwards, later signed it and gave it to him as a keepsake. Sixty years later, a neighbour’s daughter contacted niece, Pat Block, daughter of Walt Christensen. Eleanor MacArthur, 89, and now living in the Hat, recalled the day that big plane flew over Richard and Cora Hansen’s farm too, and waggled its wings at them all.
Dad met Mom – it was over the air. She was a wireless operator AOS#2 Edmonton transmitting to pilots. They met and married in Montreal that same year.
2024 is the 100th anniversary of the Royal Canadian Air Force. Peter’s daughter, Lisa, son-in-law Bruce and grandson Brendan Logan attended the commemorative airshow at Trenton, before touring the National Air Force Museum of Canada. On September 28th they returned to the Museum for its 40th anniversary Ad Astra Dedication Ceremony. The Ad Astra Stone Program celebrates the service and sacrifice of the over 12,000 air force personnel whose legacy is preserved in the RCAF Memorial Airpark. But Peter’s stone, unlike nearly everyone else’s, was still not in place. Instead, it was front and centre at the ceremony, in front of the podium, where tributes were paid to the lives and sacrifices of the thousands of Canadian air force personnel whose contributions still resonate within their families and communities. A formation of C-130 Hercules then roared over the gathering in a fitting tribute by pilots now based at Trenton.
Last month, F/Lt. Peter Christensen made a last symbolic flight back to Trenton, His stone joined others from 436 Squadron in the museum’s airpark, amongst 28 aircraft, the best place of all for a man who loved to fly.
* The next day, sixty years after our fathers were “retired” from the RCAF, I met the daughter of Dad’s fellow pilot, Bill Palidwar, who flew with Bomber Command in WWII, for the first time. and posed together with our fathers’ photographs.
