From Wales to New Brunswick: Artifact of Second World War crash comes home

David Trafford never met his Uncle Ivan.

He was born almost two decades after Ivan, then a young RCAF pilot, crashed his fighter aircraft and was killed during a training exercise near Cardiff, Wales.

But, David said, he has always felt a connection with the man.

"He was always my hero," he said in an interview from his home in Florenceville-Bristol, his voice cracking with emotion, "So whenever I faced adversity in my life, I would think, you know, like 'What would Ian do?'"

"He wouldn't shirk from his responsibilities. He wouldn't, you know. He would always stand up for those beneath him, you know, so I tried to, I guess, maybe emulate those characteristics, even though I'd never met the man."

It led David Trafford to serve in the navy, and then to continue to serve his community as a paramedic.

So when he received a Facebook message from a man in the U.K. about an artifact found at the site where his uncle's plane crashed, it was an emotional moment.

Raised on a farm in Connell, near Centreville, N.B., Ivan Trafford was in Wales training to fly Spitfires in November 1941.

He had enlisted the year before, and in a letter home had mused about the decision to serve and the danger he was facing.

"If I must pay the big price, it'll be OK," he wrote.

"I'll be happy and feel highly favoured to know that I, just one-fifth of the family, was the one chosen, and I was ready and capable of paying the necessary price for the guarantee of the other four-fifths of the family's future, freedom and happiness."

On Nov. 7, 1941, Trafford lost control of his aircraft and crashed on Caerphilly Mountain.

His remains were interred in a nearby cemetery.

"Unbelievable," said David Trafford. "It's — I don't know how to explain it."