Red Deer has lost a quiet, unassuming hero.
Roger Fink died on Friday at age 88 after a battle with cancer. He leaves behind a wife, five daughters and a son.
Fink, one of only 77 Canadians to receive the Commonwealth’s George Medal for exceptional bravery, co-piloted a helicopter in a daring rescue of 21 crewmen off a shipwreck below sheer 900-foot Cape Breton cliffs in 1955.
“The only way they could get on the ship, was they had to do a three-point landing, where you kind of put a couple of wheels on the deck and the other wheels aren’t,” said Michael Dawe, a longtime family friend to the Finks and curator of history at Red Deer Museum and Art Gallery.
“At some point the rotor blades of the helicopter were only about two feet away from the cliff in the high wind. How they didn’t smash against the cliff, I don’t know.”
Fink never really spoke of the incident with Dawe, even when questioned, other than joking that they even got the ship’s dog and cat out of the wreck of the SS Kismet II, and saying he was “just doing my job.”
“I guess that’s what happens,” said Dawe. “If you’re a true hero, generally you don’t feel the need to brag about it.”
After the international media publicized the rescue, Fink and the other pilot were given the non-wartime George Medal by Queen Elizabeth II, when she visited Canada in 1959.
Fink was born in Menaik, near Ponoka, and served in the Second World War and in the Korean War.
After he left the navy, he flew mostly commercial helicopters in the north. He then took a business administration degree from Red Deer College and worked as an accountant and legal administrator for a local law firm for about 10 years before retiring.
Dawe said it’s important for Red Deer residents to recognize individuals like Fink.
“I think fortunately in the last few years, we’ve become more and more aware of people who have served their country and did really remarkable things. Here’s an unassuming person from our community who did something of historical significance, and I would hate to think that their passing would go without comment.”
mgauk@www.reddeeradvocate.com