Students in Mr. Masters’ senior history classes had the opportunity to meet Al Wallace this past week. Born in 1920, Al grew up in Depression-era Toronto; when the war began he enlisted in the RCAF, where he was trained as an air gunner. On his fifteenth-and-a-half mission, Al’s Halifax bomber was shot down over Germany. The students listened transfixed as Al described sitting at the edge of an escape hatch, looking at the darkness in front of him. He jumped, landing in a field, where he was taken prisoner, ending up in Stalag 3, site of the famous “Great Escape” of World War Two.
Please stay tuned to the Crestwood Oral History Project for Al’s full story .
