Calgary WW II pilot to be reunited with lost medals

A former Calgary police officer and Second World War pilot will soon be reunited with his lost war medals.

Hank Jackson was awarded six decorations — including the prestigious Distinguished Flying Cross for excellence in combat — for successfully completing 31 missions in Europe between 1943 and 1944.

"No one, no bomber crews were finishing 31 missions at that time. They were all getting shot down," said Karl Kjarsgaard, director of the Bomber Command Museum of Canada in Nanton, Alta.

"So for that crew to have survived … that's like saying they went to heck and back three times."

• MORE ALBERTA NEWS | No money to fix Red Deer hospital space crunch, health minister says
• MORE CALGARY NEWS | Fall colours and crowd dodging in the Alberta Rockies

'A big part of his life was missing'

The veteran lost track of his cross and several other decorations 12 years ago, when a do-gooder relative in Saskatchewan offered to mount them for him.

"She died of cancer and after clearing her estate, the medals went missing," said Kjarsgaard, who learned about the missing items while interviewing Jackson for the museum.

"A big part of his life was missing."

Calgary Eyeopener5:36WW II veteran gets his medals back

A 95-year-old Calgary veteran will have his lost Second World War medals returned to him this weekend at the Bomber Command Museum in Nanton, Alta. Museum director Karl Kjarsgaard joins us to tell us the story.

The 95-year-old had given up on finding them, so Kjarsgaard offered to track them down.

"We had to go through the son-in-law, the grandsons, and the cousins, and we finally found out where they were," Kjarsgaard told the Calgary Eyeopener on Thursday.

One of Jackson's relatives in Manitoba had them in storage and didn't even realize it.

• WW II medal stolen from 91-year-old veteran's car
• A peek inside a vintage B-17 Flying Fortress WW II bomber

Halifax Bomber recovery mission

The medals have been polished and will be returned to their rightful owner on Sept. 17 during a ceremony at the museum saluting the 75th anniversary of the Halifax bomber.

Kjarsgaard will also do a talk about the crew Jackson flew with during the Second World War and the museum's ongoing fundraiser to recover the airframe and engine of a Halifax bomber discovered off the coast of Sweden.

With files from the Calgary Eyeopener