It wasn't supposed to end this way.

"Eye-witnesses to the crash told how F-for-Freddie's rubber dinghy dropped out, inflated automatically and landed, as neatly and naturally as though something had gone wrong over the North Sea" so the local newspapers reported. Except it wasn't over the North Sea. It was in the middle of a cattle pasture and not far from a poultry farm on the prairie near Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It was certainly nowhere near anywhere a rubber dinghy would have been of any conceivable use. It was also thousands of miles away from the hostile skies of Europe where this particular aircraft had flown a record 213 missions before the war there had officially ended just two days before.

A few hundred yards away, what was left of the battle weary de Havilland Mosquito, nicknamed 'F' for Freddie, was still burning while the unimpeded prairie wind scattered the black smoke to nothingness...

Listen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously.)