Ajijic resident Raoul Schreiden passed away on July 15. He was 88 years old.
Schreiden, a member of the Canadian Air Force 904 Wing, was born in the Belgian Congo on July 18, 1923 and grew up in Belgium. He was 17 years old at the start of WWII and fled occupied Belgium to be captured and made prisoner by the Vichy government in the south of France. He escaped them and worked for a year for the French Resistance before relocating to Spain and then Gibraltar.
A Polish boat took him to England where he volunteered for the Royal Air Force. He took his pilot training in Canada before becoming a B-25 bomber pilot flying missions over Normandy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany.
He joined the Sabena Belgian Airline in 1946. He retired in 1981 when he was the chief pilot on a B-747. He became a Canadian citizen and retired on Vancouver Island.
He and his wife Claudia, a former stewardess, settled in Ajijic in 2007.
Schreiden is survived by his wife and a daughter, Inez Schreiden, of Belgium.
A tribute to Schreiden was held at the Alta Vista Club House with friends and a delegation of the 904 Wing on Thursday, August 2.
According to those who knew him, Schreiden was a gentleman in every sense of the word and will be sorely missed.