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By Officer Cadet Jeff Noel

15 WING-McEWEN AIRFIELD, SK -- On Tuesday June 20th, some fifty-two years later, on the “Mall” adjacent to Moose Jaw’s Lieutenant Colonel DV Currie Armoury that tragic event was remembered.At 10:03 a.m. on the morning of 8 April 1954 two aircraft, one a Royal Canadian Air Forces Harvard trainer and the other a Trans-Canada Airlines North Star, collided in the skies over the City of Moose Jaw.

As spectators and invited guests looked on, the Commanding Officer of 15 Wing-McEwen Airfield Colonel Alain Boyer and His Worship Al Schwinghamer, the Mayor of the City of Moose Jaw, unveiled the “Like A Falling Leaf” Memorial, the long-awaited tribute commemorating the thirty-seven individuals whose lives were lost as a result of that tragic mid-air collision so long ago.

“When the sun rose on that prairie morning I am sure no one could have known that within the span of a heart beat so many lives would be altered forever,” said Colonel Boyer in his address to those gathered.

“Many have grieved, and continue to grieve what transpired on that day,” he said, “but none more than the families and loved ones of those who lives were lost.”

The memorial honouring those who were lost in what was at the time Canada’s worst aviation disaster was the result of an outpouring of recollections and interest generated by a joint exhibit put on by the 15 Wing Military Aviation Museum and the Moose Jaw Museum and Art Gallery in 2004 to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the tragedy.

“This is long overdue,” said Larry Shaak, a local author who is writing a book about the collision. “It brings closure for many involved with the events of that day.”