Royal United Services Institute of
Vancouver Island (RUSI-VI)
RUSI Annual General Meeting - 11 March 2009
Report on UVic's Military Oral History Program
Last year's Program suffered a deep loss with the death of Dr. Shawn Cafferky. Shawn had been with the program since its inception and contributed greatly to its success. In memory of his contribution, RUSI made a one-time donation of $1000 to a scholarship fund established by the University in his name. This scholarship has now been endowed by the university.
Under the guidance of Dr. David Zimmerman: 10 students completed the semester, with the assistance of 29 veteran interviewees. Thus, over the past 5 years, 46 students have now participated in this course and have recorded the personal histories of almost 120 veterans.
Special thanks were extended to all those veterans who were involved in the interviews this year as well as the RUSI coordinators: John Eggenberger, Chic Goodman, Barry Phillips, and Wilf Lund. The students have expressed their great appreciation and enthusiasm for the opportunity to meet the veterans, and thoroughly enjoyed their lunch with RUSI members last October.
Dr. Jim Woods , a recent PhD graduate from UBC has been hired to teach the MOH course next September when Dr. Zimmerman is on sabbatical. The university also plans to hold a second MOH Conference in the spring of 2010.
Negotiations are currently underway between the University and RMC, who share jointly the teaching expenses of the MOH professor, to ensure sufficient teaching funds continue in the future.
At this point, it is unknown whether the collaboration that had developed with Dr. Zimmerman and Dr. Cafferky and RMC, will continue.
Under the general umbrella of UVIC's Military Oral History Program, Dr. Zimmerman launched a new Air Force initiative - the Teddy Blenkinsop Memorial Project - at a luncheon held on 6 March.
RUSI VI President, Gene Lake, as well as the Presidents of the two Air Crew Associations, university personnel, students, and other notables, attended the event. A sum of $200 that was held in RUSI following the demise of the Air Force Officer's Association, earmarked for Air Force specific projects, was used to defray costs.
The monies donated to this project, which are considered charitable donations, are to be used to fund historical research expenses about Royal Canadian Air Force involvement in and support to the Royal Air Force during WW II.
In particular, to start the new project, RUSI member BGen John Neroutsos, who is a first cousin of Edward 'Teddy' Blenkinsop, presented a book written by Peter Celis, a Belgian air force officer, entitled One who Almost Made it Back. This book details the remarkable WW II experiences of Squadron Leader Blenkinsop, a Victoria man, who was one of the RCAF Pathfinders, was shot down over Belgium, incredibly survived, and before capture was intimately involved with the Belgian resistance movement. He was ultimately sent to Bergen Belsen concentration camp where he died.
This book, and a donation from other relatives of Teddy Blenkinsop, were presented by John to the university's Special Collections.
