Thomas Orval Wilson grew up in Regina, Saskatchewan. At the age of 18 he enlisted in the RCAF. From 1942 until 1944 he wrote regular letters home to his family. He died on his first operational mission when his airplane was shot down over Berlin, Germany.

01/11/42 - Dear Mother:
We have been flying here every afternoon for 4 hours going all over the country and I believe it is a worse looking country than Sask. from the air and it sure is cold up there I pretty near froze today and we had to come down the pilot got so cold. I think that I have gained about 8 pounds since I have been here and I should put on a few more pounds in the next couple of weeks so I will be in good condition.

April 25/42 - Dear Mother:
Well here goes another week. Boy the days sure fly by. I have been here three weeks today and it hardly seems like it at all, We were moved from "A" Squadron up to "B" Squadron on Tuesday and it sure is different up here. The beds are a lot closer together and there are twice as many men too. We are now waiting to be drafted out of here but I don't suppose it will be for another month as we still have about 10 days training to do. Our new sergeant told us we could have a 48 about the 15 of May so I guess I will be home for a few hours anyways.

June 16/42 - Dear Mother:
Well here I am at Mossbank again and what a place it is. We haven't done a thing yet but I guess we will start in on Monday. We won't be going up for two weeks so I guess we are going to take classes all day long. They only give you two forty eights while you are on course here on the third and sixth weeks so I guess I won't be home until then. They have improved the station a little but the food is still just as bad. We hitch hiked into Mossbank last night but there wasn't a thing going on there so we came back early.