Royal Canadian Air Force

Ottawa, Canada, January 24, 1949.

Mrs. Pauline Patzer,

3066 Albany Road,

Victoria, B.C.

Dear Mrs. Patzer:

I would like to refer, please, to my letter of December 9th, 1948, and the information contained therein that your son, Flying Officer Edwin Frederick Patzer, and the two members of his crew who had been buried with him, had been moved to the British Military Cemetery at Rheinberg, Germany. A final report has now been received, and according to this report, your son and Sergeant C.I. Grant (R.A.F.), your son’s Flight Engineer, are resting in Collective Graves, registered in their names, and numbered 10 and 11, Row A, Plot 17. I deeply regret that it was not possible to establish individual identification. Pilot Officer W.G. Mendenhall (R.C.A.F.), one of your son’s Air Gunners, is resting in an adjoining grave No. 9.

I realize that this is a very distressing letter, and that there is no manner in which such news can be conveyed to you which would not add to your heartaches, and I am fully aware that nothing I may say will lessen your great sorrow, but it is my earnest hope that you will be comforted with the knowledge that your son is resting with his comrades, and that his resting place will be permanently maintained, and I would like to take this opportunity of expressing to you and the members of your family my deepest sympathy in the loss of your gallant son.

Yours sincerely,

(W.R. Gunn)

Wing Commander

R.C.A.F. Casualties Officer,

For Chief of the Air Staff.