Latest Posts

Remembrance Sunday in England, 10 November 2019

Peter Usher November 11, 2019

Went to the service in Canterbury Cathedral this morning, as we do each year. The impact of this astonishing space, and what goes on in it between 11 and 12 on Remembrance Sunday, does not diminish on me over time. “A British Subject I was born,” with all the good and the not so good…
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Remembering

Writing Joey Jacobson’s War

Peter Usher August 15, 2018

Joey Jacobson was a personable, athletic, and ambitious young man from upper class Westmount. He was the only Jew on McGill’s 1938 intercollegiate champion football team. He volunteered for the air force in the spring of 1940, and he was buried in Europe before his 24thbirthday – one of nearly 10,000 Canadians who died in the…
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Books

Book

This website is mostly about the experiences of Canadian airmen in the Second World War. Why? Because several of my own family served in the RCAF then, and some did not return. In later life I began to wonder about those men I never knew. Why did they go, what was their experience, what did they think about it? When I started asking questions, I started getting answers. Some from people who knew and remembered. Some from the discovery of letters and diaries that I had no idea existed. Some from reading and research to learn more about the war they fought in.

My first book, Joey Jacobson’s War, about the short but full life of my mother’s favourite cousin, was published in January 2018. Now I am working on more books about Canadian airmen in the Second World War. This website will keep you up to date on my progress. It also tells you what my books are about, how to get them, when and where I will be speaking about them, and how to contact me.

I also write blogs from time to time, mostly about my books and their themes. When the spirit moves me, I may also write about things I have done, seen, and thought about — from my early years in the Northwest Territories to what I see around me now in the forests, fields, and waters of the Canadian Shield here in Lanark County, Ontario.

Follow my journey here.