MEMORIAL: Family visits site of accident

When the family of Tore Kjus were told more people die from car accidents than by flying fighter jets, they were comforted.

That is until they got the call 30 years ago telling them their 20-year old son had been killed in Canada in a car crash.

Kjus, a Norwegian, was training at Centralia, a Canadian airforce base. He was going to be a pilot and he loved it. He came from Norway, leaving behind a brother and two sisters.

"He was so clever and I looked up to him," said his younger brother Ola, through his wife Turi, at the crash site outside Grand Bend. Tore had been in Canada only three months when the accident took his life.

Ola has never forgotten that Aug. 7, 1959 night when they were called with the bad news. Although the adults whispered about the accident, the children were never permitted to talk about it. Ola has always wanted to come to Canada to see where his brother died.

The Kjus parents died in 2005 and the family found many photos and documents. It was at that time the couple decided to come here so they would finally have closure.

In May of this year, Ola and Turi met Jostien Lindal, one of the men who was not only a friend of Tore's but was in the car that night. He is now 69 and told them how the car he and some NATO student pilots were pushing was struck from behind. The car battery died near the corner of what is now Crediton Road and Highway 83.

The boys got out and began to push and were rear-ended by a car driven by a 24-year old Exeter man.

Ola and Turi said Wally Fydenchuk, of Crediton helped make this experience better than they could have ever expected.

MP Ben Lobb sent a Canadian flag to be issued to the family by South Huron councillor George Robertson.

MPP Carol Mitchell sent a letter to the couple and an RCAF DeHavilland Chipmunk did a flyby while the couple was leaving memorials at the site.

They did a tour of the area and were going to Goderich.

Article courtesy of the Sarnia Observer - Sarnia,ON,Canada
By LYNDA HILLMAN-RAPLEY, SUN MEDIA
Article ID# 1614579