DOUGALL o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-11-08 published
Tales of derring-do
By Rod MICKLEBURGH,
Saturday,
November 8, 2003 - Page F6
Thunder Bay -- In a senseless war that lasted four years and
took millions of lives, it was rare for individuals to stand
out amid the carnage. But some managed.
Meet
Hector
Fraser
DOUGALL, a corker of a Canadian with more
tales of derring-do attached to his name than you could shake
a First World War riding stick at. You think Steve McQueen's
motorcycle ride was heroic in The Great Escape? After his shelled
Sopwith Camel was shot down behind German lines and he was taken
prisoner, Mr.
DOUGALL made at least three dramatic escape attempts.
During one dash for freedom, the story goes, he saved the life
of fellow escaper William
STEPHENSON, who later became the legendary
spymaster Intrepid, by tossing him over a stone wall as the pair
fled a furious, gun-firing farmer who didn't appreciate his ducks
being pilfered. When their capture appeared inevitable, Mr.
STEPHENSON
impersonated a German officer and ordered Mr.
DOUGALL returned
to prison. As he was marched away, Mr.
STEPHENSON made good his
own escape.
It was a typically audacious
DOUGALL stunt that yielded the largest
and most vivid of the First World War artifacts sent in by Canadians
to The Globe and Mail -- the huge German flag that flew over
the grim, fortress-like PoW camp at Holzminden, where guards
did their best to contain the fighter pilot.
Mr. DOUGALL pinched the flag on Armistice Day, November 11, 1918,
the day the Imperial German Army surrendered.
"The prisoners woke up that morning and the guards were all gone,"
said his son, Fraser
DOUGALL. "
Some of the prisoners went down
to the village to cause a bit of wrack and ruin. But dad wanted
the flag. He knew how to get to the roof from one of his escape
attempts. So he picked a few locks, went up there, took it down,
and kept it."
Mr. DOUGALL then managed to lug the bulky flag all the way through
Germany, back to England and finally to Canada. When he died
in 1960, it was found at the bottom of a trunk full of souvenirs,
including grenades, bayonets, old muskets, bombs, diaries, photos,
old German money, helmets and his thin, black flying cap.
"This is a piece of work, this is. It went right through the
war," Fraser
DOUGALL said as he unfurled the old flag across
his dining room table in Thunder Bay. The edges fell over the
side like a table cloth.
The flag is dominated by a fierce black-and-gold representation
of the imperial German eagle, with an iron cross in the top left-hand
corner -- the state flag of Prussia from 1892 to 1918. Eighty-five
years later, the colours are still bright. A red tongue flickers
menacingly in the eagle's open beak, on its head a red-and-gold
crown topped by a blue cross, while a mace and a bejewelled orb
are clutched in its dark talons.
"It was really meant to convey a sense of power. You can see
that, even now."
It has become his son's passion to recount, preserve and even
relive Mr.
DOUGALL's wartime experiences. Mementos are prominently
displayed in the downstairs recreation room, and scrapbooks have
been put together meticulously.
Fraser DOUGALL even organized a trip to Europe three years ago
to revisit as many of his father's prison stops as possible.
To ensure that the lore remained in the family, he brought along
his wife and children, enticing them with newsletters, quizzes
about his father that brought cash rewards and tapes describing
what they could expect to find there.
More than once during the expedition, he knocked on the doors
of unsuspecting Germans, asking if they knew that the places
they lived were once PoW stopovers. (Few did.) And on his return,
Fraser DOUGALL had a 23-minute video, which he will show this
Remembrance Day to the local Rotary Club, and the experience
of a lifetime.
"The war. The war. The war. The aura of it has always been with
me," he said. "When we found the first place where my father
was incarcerated -- prison from Napoleonic times -- the others
found it interesting. But for me, it was incredibly emotional.
It was my first face-to-face meeting with the dirt and filth
that my father endured.
"I felt a real sense of closure, of fulfilment."
His father, a tough, intimidating Winnipegger from a family of
carriage-makers and blacksmiths, signed up for the war while
still in his teens. Hector Fraser
DOUGALL had spent 14 months
in the trenches when he was wounded. While recuperating in hospital,
he decided the infantry was not for him. According to his son,
he told them, "There are too many people with missing arms and
legs. I want out!"
He learned to fly and joined the Royal Flying Corps. "I once
asked him why he became a pilot," Fraser
DOUGALL said. "He said
it was simple: 'I could shoot back.' "
Even in the trenches, however, Mr.
DOUGALL was no pussycat. Once,
his father kidnapped a piano player so "the boys" could enjoy
a bit of a sing-song. Mr.
DOUGALL noticed one of the soldiers
singing much louder than the others, so he took out his pistol
and shot him in the face. Mr.
DOUGALL believed the man was a
German spy, trying too hard to fit in. He turned out to be right.
In his diary, Mr.
DOUGALL nonchalantly recorded a close call
on a patrol, 10 days before he was shot down: "Went eight miles
into Hunland.... Came back about a foot off the ground with machine
guns blazing after me, three bullet holes thru my machine. Froze
my nose."
As a prisoner, Mr.
DOUGALL was forever getting into trouble,
whether for insubordination or for his actual escapes. One time,
he and flying mate S.G.
WILLIAMS jumped from a train transporting
them between prisons, a 500-kilometre trek from Holland. For
17 days, they travelled only at night, swimming rivers to escape
pursuers and raiding farms for food. At one point, Mr.
WILLIAMS
reported, "
DOUGALL jumped a six-foot fence with a half-dozen
eggs, basin of milk, jam, large pot of honey and many other articles.
Everything was intact."
When the two were finally nabbed just short of the frontier,
Mr. WILLIAMS bolted again. As a guard prepared to shoot, Mr.
DOUGALL tussled with him and ruined his aim. His friend lived
to make it back to England.
Mr. DOUGALL's last escape effort at Holzminden was typically
brazen. He rounded up two ladders, bound them with rope from
the camp's flagstaffs, and was just about to project himself
on the end of the ladders out a second-floor window and over
the barbed wire to safety when he was discovered by guards.
At war's end, he hid the flag from his desultory German captors
until arrangements finally were made to have the prisoners sent
home. He was no slouch after that, either. He earned money stunt
flying for a while; was the first pilot to venture into Northern
Ontario; captained an early version of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers
started CKPR, the first radio station in Port Arthur, Ontario
took a leading role in training pilots for the Second World War
and, in 1954, opened the Lakehead's first television station.
Today, DOUGALL
Media owns four radio stations, a community newspaper
and both television stations in Thunder Bay.
Mr. DOUGALL accomplished all this in spite of permanent leftover
pain from his war wounds, according to his son. "He had a brace
on his back. His ribs hurt. He was always ill." Mr.
DOUGALL was
eventually worth millions, but could never get life insurance
or a pension because of his injuries.
After all his research, Fraser
DOUGALL, a trim, athletic 61-year-old,
said he feels closer than ever to his larger-than-life father,
who was in his late 40s when Fraser was born.
"I'd been living away from home since I was 13," he said, gesturing
toward his lovingly preserved collection of war relics. "For
me, all this is my father.... I wanted to preserve his story.
It's part of me, and now, I think I understand him a lot better."
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DOUGLAS/DOUGLASS o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-02-15 published
ADAM/ADAMS,
Robert ''Bob'' Watson
Born January 22, 1921 in Windsor, Ontario, Bob died February
10, 2003 at the age of 82, from complications arising from heart
disease and cancer. Bob started Adams Rent-All in 1967, with
his first store on Avenue Road. The business grew to include
six stores in the Toronto area. He retired in 1989 upon selling
the business. An active member of the Rental Association of Canada
until his death, he served as president in 1973 and 1974. The
son of Dr. Frederick
ADAM/ADAMS and Essie (née
WATSON,)
Bob was a
Flight Lieutenant in the Royal Canadian Air Force. In November
1943, his Wellington aircraft was shot down while bombing a ship
in Naxos harbour, Greece, and for the next six weeks he and his
crew evaded enemy capture before returning to Allied territory.
In 1965, he became a member of the newly formed Royal Air Forces
Escaping Society (Canadian Branch). Its 140 members were Canadian
airmen who, after being shot down over Europe, escaped or evaded
capture with the help of the underground. The Society's purpose
was to honour and assist the individuals who guided airmen to
safety, and who often suffered from imprisonment and torture
as a result. Bob was president of the Society's Canadian Branch
in 1995 and 1996. Bob is survived by his loving wife and best
friend, Joan (née
BERKELEY;) his children John, Patricia, and
Mary; his sons-in-law, Lawrence
SOLOMON and Steve
DOUGLAS/DOUGLASS; and
his granddaughters Essie and Catharine. He will be missed dearly
by them, and by his many Friends. Bob is predeceased by his brothers,
Frederick Coulson and John Charles, both Royal Canadian Air Force
pilots, who were killed in action in 1941 and 1945. A celebration
of Bob ADAM/ADAMS' life will be held on February 23, at 2900 Yonge
Street. All who knew him and his family are welcome to drop by,
anytime from 1: 00 pm until 5:00 pm. If desired, donations can
be made to Toronto's West Park Healthcare Centre in Bob's memory.
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DOUGLAS/DOUGLASS o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-03-01 published
Ex-pilot aided foreigners who hid soldiers
By Kelly HAGGART
Saturday,
March 1, 2003 - Page F11
Robert ADAM/ADAMS, past president of a society set up to honour and
assist individuals who risked their lives helping Allied airmen
evade capture during the Second World War, died in Toronto this
month of cancer. He was 82.
Mr. ADAM/ADAMS was a 22-year-old Canadian pilot on loan to Britain's
Royal Air Force when his plane was shot down after bombing a
German ship in southern Greece. Stout-hearted people on two small
islands in the Aegean, risking torture or execution for their
actions, sheltered the six-man crew for a month until they were
rescued.
After the war, Mr.
ADAM/ADAMS founded a chain of tool-rental stores
in the Toronto area called
ADAM/ADAMS Rent-All, which he sold when
he retired in 1989.
In 1965, Mr.
ADAM/ADAMS joined the newly formed Canadian branch of
the Royal Air Forces Escaping Society. The group vowed to assist
the citizens who had helped Allied airmen who fell into their
midst escape or evade capture; thanks to their courage, almost
3,000 men had made it back to safety.
"The object of the society is to remember, " the group's literature
says, "and to aid our helpers who may still be suffering the
results of imprisonment and torture at the hands of the enemy,
and to maintain the very strong Friendships that developed during
those years."
(Ernest BEVIN,
Britain's foreign secretary in 1945-51, told the
first chairman of the group's British chapter: "Your society
does a damned sight more good in Europe than all my ambassadors
rolled together.")
John DIX, a fellow member of the Escaping Society's Canadian
branch, said that, "in most cases, we only knew our helpers a
week or less -- we were just passing through. But the nature
of the relationship and the tension of the times were such that
they became lifelong Friends. We never forgot them, we had them
over to Canada every year, we kept in touch. We owed them a debt
of honour."
Flight Lieutenant
ADAM/ADAMS and his crew of four Britons and an Australian
left their base in Benghazi, Libya, on the night of November
6, 1943, scouting for targets to bomb. They spotted a German
ship anchored off Naxos, an island in the Cyclades group south
of Athens.
After dropping 16 bombs, one of the plane's two engines was hit
by German flak. "Luckily, it kept going for 10 minutes, which
gave us time to make a getaway, Mr.
ADAM/ADAMS told his daughter,
Patricia ADAM/ADAMS. "
Then it conked out and we had to slowly descend."
He ditched his disabled Wellington bomber flawlessly into the
sea. The crew escaped through hatches, and a dinghy and a parachute
popped out of the aircraft before it sank within 30 seconds of
hitting the water. The men paddled ashore to the island of Sifnos,
half a kilometre away.
"After complaining about our cigarettes being wet, we slept in
the parachute under an olive tree, Mr.
ADAM/ADAMS recalled. "In
the morning, we were discovered by a girl riding by on a donkey.
She went to fetch her father [George
KARAVOS], and he went and
got someone who could understand English and who decided we weren't
German."
The initial suspicion was mutual. When Mr.
KARAVOS took the men
to his home and offered them water, they were afraid to drink
it, until the farmer reassured them by taking a first sip.
The six men were hidden first in a mountaintop monastery on Sifnos,
and then in a cave used as a goat pen on the neighbouring island
of Serifos. Their presence was kept from local children, in case
they unwittingly tipped off the German patrol that visited the
islands several times a week from the nearby occupied island
of Milos.
"During the war, 180 people on Sifnos died because they didn't
have enough to eat, Mr.
ADAM/ADAMS said. "But the locals made a
big fuss over us, bringing food and cigarettes."
The men spent 10 days in the monastery, with a stream of hungry
people climbing the steep path to bring them bread and cheese,
oranges, figs, retsina and handfuls of precious, rationed cigarettes.
Then the Sifnos chief of police, Demetrius
BAKEAS, who was determined
the men should not be captured, arranged for them to go to Serifos,
because "there are people there who can help you."
A fisherman took them under cover of darkness to Serifos. There,
housed in the goat pen, they found five British commandos spying
on German troop movements. Conditions were primitive in that
cave for the next 20 days, but the spies had a wireless and were
able to arrange the air crew's rescue. A Royal Navy gunboat disguised
as a Greek fishing vessel picked them up and, moving by night,
took them to safety in Cyprus.
All six men survived the war, and later learned they had succeeded
in sinking that ship in Naxos harbour.
Mr. ADAM/ADAMS kept in touch with his helpers after the war, with
his letters translated for him by a Greek neighbour in Toronto.
"I remember being taken to Greek community functions, " Patricia
ADAM/ADAMS recalled. "And every Christmas Dad would send a parcel
to the school on Sifnos, with paper and pencils, and little dime-store
gifts for the children. Putting that package together every year
was very emotional."
"Bob was a very great guy, with a great sense of humour, " said
Roy BROWN, secretary of the Escaping Society. Mr.
ADAM/ADAMS was treasurer
of the society at his death, and served as president in 1995-96.
"We have about 100 members now across the country, who are in
their 80s and beyond, Mr.
BROWN said. "Most of our helpers
are in the same or worse shape, so we're not bringing them over
as we did up until five or six years ago. But we still help out
when we see a helper in need."
Robert Watson
ADAM/ADAMS was born on January 22, 1921, in Windsor,
Ontario, where his father, Dr. Frederick
ADAM/ADAMS, was the medical
officer of health for more than 20 years. If he had returned
to base that night after the raid on Naxos harbour, he would
have received the cable informing him of his father's death back
home.
After graduating from Windsor's Kennedy Collegiate in 1939, Mr.
ADAM/ADAMS worked in a bank before enlisting in June, 1941. A few
weeks later his older brother, Coulson, was killed during training
in England, shot down by a German night fighter that had sneaked
across the Channel. His other brother, John, was also a bomber
pilot killed in action, shot down during a raid on Hanover, Germany,
just a few months before the war in Europe ended.
Robert ADAM/ADAMS's story was featured in a Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation-Television documentary
in 1966, when a Telescope camera crew followed him and his wife,
Joan, back to Sifnos, where they received a hero's welcome.
"Those Greeks had nothing to gain and everything to lose, " Mr.
ADAM/ADAMS told the show's associate producer, George Ronald. "They
were starving, and yet they gave us everything. They were superb....
I don't think they know just how kind and generous and how brave
they were."
Mr. BAKEAS, who had moved to Athens after retiring from the police
force, returned to Sifnos for the emotional reunion held 23 years
after he helped save Mr.
ADAM/ADAMS's life. Earlier, he had written
to "my dear friend" in Canada: "It is not possible for me to
forget the danger which connected us in those terrible war days.
We shall be always waiting you."
In addition to his wife, Mr.
ADAM/ADAMS leaves his children John,
Patricia and Mary, sons-in-law Lawrence
SOLOMON and Steve
DOUGLAS/DOUGLASS,
and granddaughters Essie and Catharine.
Robert Watson
ADAM/ADAMS, chain-store founder and past president of
the Canadian branch of the Royal Air Force Escaping Society
born in Windsor, Ontario, on January 22, 1921; died in Toronto
on February 10, 2003.
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DOUGLAS/DOUGLASS o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-06-21 published
TARRANT,
Dr.
Michael - April 15, 1937 - June 17, 2003
Dr. Michael
TARRANT died peacefully at home in Calgary on Tuesday,
June 17. He leaves to mourn his wife of 40 years, Elizabeth Jean,
and his children, Neil (Alison), Paul (Rosalie) and Sarah (Sheldon)
and his grandchildren Evan
TARRANT,
Eric,
Bronwyn and Michael
TARRANT and Kathryn
DOUGLAS/DOUGLASS.
Michael was pre-deceased by his
granddaughter Avery
TARRANT.
Michael was born in Yorkshire, England
and went to school in Chesterfield. He received his undergraduate
education at Cambridge University and he completed his medical
training at University College Hospital in London, England. He
interned at University College, the Whittington and the City
of London Hospitals; and he did a residency in pediatrics at
Queen Elizabeth Hospital, London. He came to Calgary in October
1964 and worked as a family physician serving his patients and
community for over 38 years. Initially in group practice at the
Cambrian Clinic, he joined the University of Calgary Family Medicine
Clinic in 1977. Michael had been an active staff member at the
Foothills Hospital since 1966. Michael served as Residency Program
Director for the Department of Family Medicine, then as the Undergraduate
Coordinator for the U of C Medical School. His commitment to
the development of the Rural Family Medicine Clerkship over these
15 years has been a great service to education and society. Medical
students and Family Medicine residents will always remember Dr.
TARRANT. He enjoyed participating in the History of Medicine
Society. Michael was an original member of the National Research
Group of the College of Family Physicians of Canada, and was
Alberta's coordinator of the National Influenza Surveillance
Project. He was particularly proud of his Viral Watch program
that he directed for 26 years. In 2002, Michael received the
Reg L. Perkin Award as Family Physician of the Year. Michael's
passions in life were his family and his practice as a family
physician. His grandchildren filled him with great joy and happiness.
Funeral Services will be held at Westminster Presbyterian Church
(290 Edgepark Blvd. N.W.) on Monday June 23rd, at 3: 00 pm followed
by a reception at the Calgary Winter Club (4611-14th Street North
West) If Friends so desire, memorial tributes may be directed
to a charity of choice. To e-mail expressions of sympathy: condolences@mcinnisandholloway.com
Subject Heading: Michael Tarrant. In living memory of Michael
Tarrant, a tree will be planted at Nose Creek Valley by Mcinnis
& Holloway Funeral Homes' 'Crowfoot Chapel', 82 Crowfoot Circle
N.W., Calgary, Telephone: (403) 241-0044.
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DOUGLAS/DOUGLASS o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-10-16 published
MOYER,
David
S.
Born March 5, 1922 in Clinton Township, and died Tuesday, October
14, 2003, at his home in Beamsville.
son of the late Ira C.
MOYER
and the late Georgina Isabella
MacLEOD of Beamsville and brother
of the late Margaret Irene
BROWN,
Etta
Jean
BLUMGOLD of New Jersey,
Ronald Claus
MOYER of Grimsby and Ralph Levi
MOYER of Carruna.
In 1930 Ira Claus married Agnes Rohde
HANSEN of Denmark and had
additional children, Elizabeth
FRACCHIONI of Troy, New York,
Inge VIAU of Kingston, Peter
MOYER and the late Samuel
MOYER
of Beamsville. Mr.
MOYER was uncle of Paul
MOYER of Vineland,
Thomas MOYER of Beamsville. He is also survived by his daughter
Julia Grace
DOUGLAS/DOUGLASS and her husband Steven and four grandchildren,
Richard, Sarah, Cordelia and William, all of Whitby.
Mr. MOYER attended Queen's University in the Faculty of Applied
Science and Engineering and graduated in 1951 with a B.Sc. in
Physics. He worked in Toronto as a project engineer and later
as a production engineer for most of his professional life. He
attended the Vineland Mennonite Church as a child and later the
Beamsville Baptist Church. After his marriage he converted to
the Anglican Communion and lived mainly in Toronto. In later
life he returned to Beamsville and attended services in both
the Baptist Church and the Anglican Church.
Mr. MOYER is at the Tallman Funeral Home, 4998 King Street, Beamsville,
where the family will received Friends on Thursday 2-3: 30 and
7-8: 30 p.m. The funeral service will be held at St. Alban's Church,
4341 Ontario Street, Beamsville, on Friday, October 17 at 7 p.m.
Cremation to follow. If desired, donations to the West Lincoln
Memorial Hospital Foundation would be appreciated by the family.
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