A little more than a year ago, a few people in the community decided to create a tribute to the 21 servicemen killed in the 1946 plane crash that occurred south of Estevan, near the former Estevan Airport site.
These people had been part of the committee responsible for the Estevan Soldiers’ Tree monument, the towering tribute to Canada’s veterans that stands proudly on the west lawn of the Estevan Court House. And the man who carved the Soldiers’ Tree monument using a chainsaw, Darren Jones, would be back to lovingly craft the tribute to the victims of the 1946 plane crash.
Their plan was to carve the faces of the 21 airmen into the monument, named Forever in the Clouds. Photos of 17 of the victims were found quickly, but the other four were tougher to find. And perhaps that shouldn’t be a surprise.
None of the men who died in the plane crash were from Estevan. Photos weren’t as common as they are now. And if you found a photo, it would still have to be clear enough to carve the face into a 500-year-old tree using a chainsaw.
So it shouldn’t be a surprise that it took over a year to find the last of the photos for the monument.
But the committee has it now, and the monument will be complete later this month.
The other challenge is where to place the project. The committee wants it to be on the east lawn of the Estevan Courthouse, opposite the Soldiers’ Tree and the cenotaph. It makes sense. You have two magnificent tributes to the Canadian Forces on the lawn already. It’s in a central and highly visible location in the community.
You don’t want to have a monument like Forever in the Clouds tucked away in a quiet residential park in a corner of the community. You want to have it in an area where people will see it.
Unfortunately, the Ministry of Central Services has said no, so another location still needs to be found.
Royal Heights’ Veterans Memorial Park might be a good site, with the tributes to veterans that have been planned for the park, but it’s somewhat out of the way. The monument has been located at the Estevan Regional Airport, and there is a natural connection with aviation, but the airport is definitely out of the way.
The Eli Mandel Park on the east edge of the city, where the Estevan Art Gallery and Museum is located, is arguably the second-best option, after the court house lawn. Much of the Mandel park has been under-utilized in the past, it’s a high-traffic location and the monument would look great there.
The only downside is it’s not the court house lawn.
Regardless of where it winds up, the monument needs to be in Estevan, and it needs to be somewhere in which people can marvel at it.
Forever in the Clouds has also brought new-found awareness to the plane crash of 1946, and the 21 men who died. While incidents such as the Estevan Riot of 1931 are well-known in the community, and still discussed to this day, there isn’t as much local knowledge of the 1946 plane crash, even though it remains one of the worst peace-time incidents in the history of the air force.
It’s important for local residents to not only know this incident happened just south of the city, but who these servicemen were, the contributions they made to our country, and the bravery they showed during the Second World War.
Since the monument was announced more than a year ago, more people are aware of the crash.
