Remembering the war experiences of Peter Lewis Stevenson ’40

The thoughts of Old Boys who fought in the Second World War are preserved in letters sent to Barbara Barrow, UCC’s nurse at the time. (She worked at the College for an incredible 42 years, from 1938 to 1980.) Barrow’s diaries, agendas, scrapbooks and correspondence were donated to the school by her sister shortly after her passing in 1994.  

“There were many boys who boarded and for whom the school was their family environment,” says Bee Khaleeli, College archivist. “A lot of students maintained a close relationship with Barrow even in adulthood. After they graduated, they maintained a correspondence with her, giving us a rich narrative of their lives.” 

Barrow exchanged many letters with Peter Lewis Stevenson ’40, who boarded at Seaton’s House. After graduating, Stevenson attended Queen’s University and in 1941 joined the Royal Canadian Air Force and was stationed in England as a bomber pilot. Postmarks indicate that he trained in Kingston and Ottawa.

Early on he expressed eagerness to get into the action. “I am starting to take flying lessons in Kingston next week as I think it will help and also speed up things,” he wrote in a postcard mailed from Gananoque, Ont. Then in a typewritten letter dated March 25, 1941: “The next [letter] you get from me, I hope, will be when I am in the air force. I will be glad to get in.” 

On Feb. 7, 1942, he announced, “Got our wings four weeks ago and are just winding up an additional course they stuck on... Now have over 200 hours on Harvards [training planes] and almost a grand total of 300 logged in the air.”

His keenness was not dampened by the grim realities of war he had already witnessed at Ottawa’s CFB (Canadian Forces Base) Uplands. Further down in the same letter he reported that six fellow airmen died in training crashes. “Very nice chaps and very heavy to carry in their coffins,” he wrote. 

Soon afterwards in England he looked forward to training on the Douglas A-20 Havoc light bomber. He also mentioned that fellow UCC grad John “Johnny” Weir ’38 “got a stomache [sic] full of bullets over Germany, but they think he’s O.K.” Weir, according to his obituary, was shot down in France and became a German POW. He played a key role in building the tunnel dramatized in the 1963 film The Great Escape.   
 

Stevenson suffered his own injuries, including a concussion and gash on the back of his head following a crash-landing after being “received very warmly by our enemies across the Channel,” as he put it.   

The war hardly held him back. On April 20, 1944, he greeted Barrow with news that he had married a Women's Auxiliary Air Force officer named Joyce. “It was all very sudden, being married, but we wanted to before we lost the chance,” he wrote.   

Stevenson transitioned from flying missions to instructing younger pilots to fly heavy bombers. He survived the war and later channeled his writing skills into a career in investigative journalism for publications in the Northeastern United States, where he lived with Joyce. He passed away in Michigan in 2002.