Hi BILL: Thank you for your response. I'm glad you find the thread interesting. There's a lot of amazing info in it. AND... war NEVER ends!

I can't believe that so much info about my Uncle is fairly NEW info! And you know, it may sound silly to some, but my Uncle, for some reason, has always been a very large information gap in my life (and my family's) waiting to be filled with information to replace the `silence'. In a way, it's almost voyeuristic,, but even little things like, gee, he had a tooth pulled, is meaningful :-) Besides, I would imagine that hiring a researcher would cost a lot more because I'd have to pay for the time, as well as the copying. My small disability just doesn't cut it I'm interested in everything that may be in the file because its a very personal family thing I'm doing. Not here to gather data to do a military history, but rather a family history with all of his military history because it was so much a part of his life...and especially his death. In other words, this is personal. It would take a military historian and researcher to do "Rifleman Edward Smith of the Royal Winnipeg Rifles aka Little Black Devils murdered by 12th SS Panzer Division Hitler Youth under orders of Wilhelm Mohnke who was never brought to trial" justice on that level. I've nether the knowledge, nor the talent to pull that off. It's one helluva story (I also know there were a whole helluva a lot of stories to tell from that war alone)

I did a search on `Canadian War Heroes' and a link came up for a plane that was found (Holland? Finland?) along with the bodies of soldiers who had gone down with it in WW2 and had been missing all these years. A `farmer?' had a `recollection about seeing a plane going down in a field (bog) back in WW2 and finally mentioned it. Amazing Grace hey? How good for the families to have closure! I believe the family went overseas for a proper burial and ceremony.

I think the moral of that little story is that if there's a skeleton anywhere, it's bones will rattle loud enough to draw attention to its story, and the story will finally be known.

If I could have a wish filled right now, it just would be really nice to be able to visit my Uncle Eddie...in France. Takehim some flowers and finally say... RIP.

Oh...if I don't shorten my posts I might get kicked out of here (sorr-eeee)