Forgotten Veterans: The Americans who died fighting for Canada in WWII

Nearly 9,000 Americans volunteered to fight for Canada before the U.S. had officially entered the Second World War. But many say their sacrifices have been forgotten.

STAFFORD, Va. — Growing up in a family of aviators, Michael Parkyn found it hard to believe the lore about his father’s cousin, Alfred.

As the story went, Alfred Parkyn was an American, who enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force, and went missing aboard a British Lancaster bomber off the Dutch coast in 1942.

“That was impossible, right?” Parkyn says. “But it wasn’t.”

Alfred Parkyn was one of nearly 9,000 Americans who volunteered to fight for Canada before the U.S. had officially entered the Second World War.

More than 850 Americans like Alfred never returned home.

Even though the U.S. supported their cause, families and historians say many have been forgotten or ignored because they were killed in service to a foreign country.

“These people saw some reason to leave safety and go do something difficult, something dangerous, something risky,” Parkyn says.

At the time, American enlistment in the RCAF was hardly a secret.