VETERANS’ SERVICE RECOGNITION BOOK – VOLUME 20 / 9 continued Sam Levine’s ill-fated flight from Summerside to Point Prim on a map of central Prince Edward Island (Cummins Atlas, 1928). The blue dotted line indicates the straight-line route and not necessarily the actual route flown. Sam Meyer Levine, courtesy of the Canadian Jewish Heritage Network. THE LEGION IN THE COMMUNITY Samuel Meyer Levine (1914-1941) Samuel (Sam) Meyer Levine, the third son of Aaron and Ida Sarah Levine, was born in Montreal in 1914. His Russian born parents arrived in Canada in 1905. In 1921 his father was a commercial traveler in the clothing business. His annual income of $1,500 supported his family with five boys ranging in age from twelve to three years old. They lived in a rented apartment in a row house in Outremont. Sam graduated from Strathcona Academy, a school of the Protestant School Board in Outremont. He was a well-known tennis player in Montreal having won the championship at the North Branch YMCA. He also won a championship in Summerside in the summer of 1941. He appears to have been very athletic. When he enlisted, he declared that he extensively engaged in hockey, baseball, tennis, golf, football, basketball, swimming, horseshoe pitching, table tennis, and softball. From his high school graduation in 1931 until 1935 he was unemployed. He started working at Peerless Clothing Manufacturing Company in Montreal in the position of shipping and stock clerk. In 1937 he was the company’s office manager in Amherst, Nova Scotia. From 1939 until his enlistment, he was a travelling salesman for Peerless Clothing. He enlisted in the RCAF in Montreal in February 1941. This 26-year-old was six feet and one and a half inches tall and weighed 175 pounds. He had a dark complexion, brown eyes, and black hair. His brother Thomas C. Levine, also served with the R.C.A.F. He enlisted in December 1941. Sam was trained to be a pilot in Toronto and Oshawa, ON, Victoriaville, QC, and Chatham, NB before he was transferred to Summerside to attend the No. 9 Service Flying Training School. He participated in Course 37 which ran from September 1 to November 21, 1941. Sam was a newlywed. He married Margaret Fullerton in Moncton on June 28, 1941. Margaret was 21 years old and born in Sackville, NB. At the time of their marriage, her occupation was secretary. The RCAF noted in his personnel file that Sam had married without its permission. Margaret joined Sam in Summerside and resided off base with Mrs. Prichard in her home on Duke Street. With the completion of this course, Sam would have received his flight badge. On November 18, 1941, this student pilot was the lone occupant of a Harvard Trainer. He took off from the Summerside airfield and crashed some 70 kilometers to the south-east, off the south coast near Point Prim. That afternoon snow flurries impaired visibility and according to a witness the plane appeared to be in difficulty before it crashed into the water. An extensive search found the plane wreckage but did not find his body. Only in May the following year, after the ice in the Northumberland Strait cleared, did the lighthouse keeper at Point Prim find his body washed ashore nearby. When Group Captain E.G. Fullerton presented wings to the 51 graduates of Course 37 in the Drill Hall at the Summerside base, Samuel Meyer Levine was awarded a Pilot's Badge posthumously. He had died just three days before graduation. According to the Charlottetown Guardian, a funeral for him was planned in Summerside for May 19, 1942. “LAC Levine will be laid to rest in the RCAF plot there with customary RCAF funeral honors.” The newspaper did not realize that he was Jewish and that his family’s wishes were that he be buried in a Jewish cemetery near his family. His RCAF file noted “As this airman was of the Jewish faith, there was no temporary wooden cross erected on his grave.” His body was brought to Montreal for burial. Major S. Gershon Levi, Senior Jewish Chaplain, officiated at the internment at the Baron de Hirsch Memorial Park.
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