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BOUND o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.toronto_star 2006-04-19 published
BOUND,
William
C. "
Bill"
Peacefully, at the Pines Long Term Care Residence in Bracebridge,
on Tuesday, April 18, 2006, in his 94th year. Beloved husband
of the late Eleanor "Polly". Loving father of Rod (Sandy), Phil,
Tom and Irene "Missy" (Stephen). Dear grandfather of Derek, Darren,
Becky, Jeff, Amanda, Chantel and Dillon. Brother of Roy "Mac"
and the late Edward, Charlie, Ann and Doris. Brother-in-law of
Edith, Bea, Queenie and the late Roy. Friends will be received
at the Reynolds Funeral Home 'Turner Chapel' in Bracebridge,
on Wednesday, April 19, 2006 from 7-9 p.m. A Legion Service of
Remembrance will be held on Wednesday at 7: 00 p.m. The funeral
will be held in the chapel on Thursday, April 20, 2006 at 1: 00 p.m.
As your expression of sympathy, memorial gifts to The Pines Life
Enrichment Fund (c/o 98 Pine Street, Bracebridge, Ontario - P1L 1N5).
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BOUNSALL o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.toronto_star 2006-04-12 published
MORRISON,
Eula (née
BOUNSALL)
Peacefully at Toronto East General Hospital on Monday, April 10,
2006, in her 79th year. Beloved wife of the late Alden. Loving
mother of Linda and her husband David
BLACK,
Terry,
Helen and
her husband David
BLACK.
Devoted grandmother to Kendra, Liam,
Steven and Katelyn, who will dearly miss their Nana. Dear sister
of the late Muriel
IVY,
Lou and Allan
BOUNSALL. Fondly remembered
by her nieces, nephews and cousins. The family will receive Friends
at the Humphrey Funeral Home - A.W. Miles Chapel, 1403 Bayview
Avenue (south of Eglinton Avenue East), from 7-9 p.m. Wednesday,
April 12. Rosary prayers at 7: 30 p.m. Mass of Christian Burial
will be held at Holy Name Church, 71 Gough Avenue (Pape and Danforth),
Thursday, April 13, at 10: 30 a.m. Interment Westminster Cemetery.
If desired, donations may be made to the Alzheimer Society of
Metropolitan Toronto, 2323 Yonge Street, Suite 500, Toronto,
Ontario M4P 2C9.
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BOUNTIS o@ca.on.middlesex_county.london.london_free_press 2006-05-27 published
BOUNTIS,
Mary (née
THEOFILOPOULOS)
It is with great sadness that the beloved family of George and
Mary BOUNTIS announce Mary's peaceful passing on Friday, May 26,
2006 after a brave and courageous battle with ailing health.
Mary loved her family and Friends unselfishly and brought an
enormous amount of joy into their lives. She will be remembered
for her strength, generosity and love for life. Mary was the
beloved wife of the late George
BOUNTIS. Dear mother of Panagiota
(Pana) and Elias (Louie)
BOUNTIS. Cherished daughter of Stavros
and the late Vasiliki
THEOFILOPOULOS.
Will be deeply missed by
sister Patra
DEMETRIOS, brother Stelios
THEOFILOPOULOS and sister
Eva PISPIDIKIS.
She will be forever loved and missed by her many
Friends and family. Friends will be received at the Logan Funeral
Home, 371 Dundas St. (between Waterloo and Colborne St.) on Sunday
2-4 and 7-9 p.m. Funeral service will be held at Holy Trinity
Greek Orthodox Church, 131 Southdale Road W. on Monday, May 29,
2006 at 11 a.m. with Father Elias
DROSSOS,
Father
Demetrios
TZANETEAS,
Father Demetrios
CHELONIS and Father Efstathios
KONTORAVDIS officiating.
Interment Woodland Cemetery. Prayers will be held in the chapel
on Sunday at 2 and 8 p.m. Friends who wish may make memorial
donations to the London Regional Cancer Centre or towards the
iconostasis of Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church. On line condolences
www.loganfh.ca A tree will be planted as a living memorial to
Mrs. BOUNTIS.
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BOURBONNAIS o@ca.on.middlesex_county.london.london_free_press 2006-11-17 published
LEPAGE,
Lily
Rose
(PULLUM)
Peacefully at her home surrounded by her loving children on Wednesday,
November 15th, 2006 Lily Rose
(PULLUM)
LEPAGE of Ottawa and formerly
of London in her 82nd year. Beloved wife of the late Harold Preston
LEPAGE. Dear mother of Bill
LEPAGE and his wife
Melanie;
David
LEPAGE;
Barbara
LEPAGE-
MARGISON and her husband Barry; Irene
LEPAGE; and Diane
LEPAGE and her husband Eric
BOURBONNAIS.
Predeceased
by her parents, her 3 brothers Fred, Bill, and Victor and her
sister Doris
RICHARDS.
Loving grandmother of Adam
WITT and his
wife Sheri
BELL; Laura
WITT; Jeremie
LEPAGE-
BOURBONNAIS; and
Emilie LEPAGE-
BOURBONNAIS.
Also loved by her great-grandchildren
Colton BELL;
Sorria
WITT; Ashlyn
WITT; and Kaine
WITT. Cremation
has taken place. Friends will be received by the family from
2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. on Sunday at the A. Millard George Funeral
Home, 60 Ridout Street South, London where the funeral service
will be conducted in the chapel on Monday, November 20, 2006
at 10: 00 a.m. with Reverend David
CARROTHERS of Colborne Street
United Church officiating. Enurnment of cremated remains in Woodland
Cemetery, London. As an expression of sympathy, memorial donations
may be made to the Canadian Cancer Society, 123 St. George Street,
London, Ontario N6A 3A1 or to the Hospice of May Court, 114 Cameron
Avenue, Ottawa, Ontario K1S 0X1. (Online condolences accepted
at www.amgeorgefh.on.ca)
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BOURDAA o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2006-04-01 published
TURGEON,
Guy▼
Roméo,▼ M.D.
Born Saint_Jean-de-Matha, Québec on August 18, 1916, died March 24,
2006 in Sun City, Arizona. Dearly beloved companion and husband
to Bebe for thirty-two years, predeceased by first wife Georgette
also predeceased by; parents Dr Roméo
TURGEON and Cécile (Balète)
TURGEON, beloved sister Françoise, his best friend and uncle,
Roger TURGEON and many other aunts and uncles. Dr
TURGEON attended
Lycée Carnot in Paris, Trinity College at Cambridge University
(B.A. 1937; M.A. 1938), and graduated in Medicine from McGill
University, with an M.D.C.M. in 1940. After serving in the Royal
Canadian Air Force during World War 2 as a doctor, he set up
a private practice in Montréal. He and his wife then moved to
California where he became Chief Medical Officer for a state
prison and spent fourteen years working for the State of California
in the Social Security Administration. Other than his wife Bebe,
Dr TURGEON is survived by his brother Jean
TURGEON
(Josette,▼)
niece Adele
(TURGEON)
SMITH,
(Maury▼) and nephew Cecil, great-niece
Cécile and great-nephew Maury, step-children Alan
FOITAG
(Barbara,▼)
Carol BOURDAA
(Bruce,▼)
Debbie▼
GOLD and step-grandchildren Steven,
Robert and David. Always a gentleman and truly a gentle man,
his wit and keen intelligence will be greatly missed by his family
and Friends, who bid him adieu.
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BOURDAA o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2006-04-01 published
TURGEON,
Guy▲
Roméo,▲ M.D.
Born Saint_Jean-de-Matha, Québec on August 18, 1916, died March 24,
2006 in Sun City, Arizona. Dearly beloved companion and husband
to Bebe for thirty-two years, predeceased by first wife Georgette
also predeceased by; parents Dr Roméo
TURGEON and Cécile (Balète)
TURGEON, beloved sister Françoise, his best friend and uncle,
Roger TURGEON and many other aunts and uncles. Dr
TURGEON attended
Lycée Carnot in Paris, Trinity College at Cambridge University
(B.A. 1937; M.A. 1938), and graduated in Medicine from McGill
University, with an M.D.C.M. in 1940. After serving in the Royal
Canadian Air Force during World War 2 as a doctor, he set up
a private practice in Montréal. He and his wife then moved to
California where he became Chief Medical Officer for a state
prison and spent fourteen years working for the State of California
in the Social Security Administration. Other than his wife Bebe,
Dr TURGEON is survived by his brother Jean
TURGEON
(Josette,▲)
niece Adele
(TURGEON)
SMITH,
(Maury▲) and nephew Cecil, great-niece
Cécile and great-nephew Maury, step-children Alan
FOITAG
(Barbara,▲)
Carol BOURDAA
(Bruce,▲)
Debbie▲
GOLD and step-grandchildren Steven,
Robert and David. Always a gentleman and truly a gentle man,
his wit and keen intelligence will be greatly missed by his family
and Friends, who bid him adieu.
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BOURDAGE o@ca.on.middlesex_county.london.london_free_press 2006-01-05 published
BOURDAGE,
Stephen
John
(April 9th, 1963-January 5th, 2003)
We though of you with love today But that is nothing new We thought
about you yesterday And days before that too. We think of you
in silence We often speak your name Now all we have are memories
And your picture in a frame. Your memory is our keepsake With
which we'll never part God has you in his keeping We have you
in our heart. Loved and missed by Mom, Dad, Rick, Michael and all
other Family Members.
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BOURDEAU o@ca.on.middlesex_county.london.london_free_press 2006-10-17 published
McLELLAN,
William "
Bill"
Richard
A resident of Chatham (Eberts), died on Sunday, October 15, 2006,
at the Chatham Kent Health Alliance with his family by his side,
at the age of 80. Born in Southwold Township to the late Richard
and Charlotte
(KILLINS)
McLELLAN.
Predeceased by his Wife
Violet
(LUCAS)
McLELLAN, (1982.) Loving father of Richard Neil
McLELLAN
and his wife Janine, of Minneapolis, Minnesota, William Thomas
"Tom" McLELLAN and his wife
Patti, of Eberts, Hugh Brian
McLELLAN,
Margaret McLELLAN, of Eberts, and Mary Louise
McLELLAN and Ian
BURBIDGE, of Niagara Falls. Devoted grandfather to Justin, Janice
and Chad PRANGLEY, Erin and Scott
BOURDEAU, Jeff, Braden, Chelsea,
Hayleigh, Connor, and Cody. Bill will be sadly missed by special
friend Minnie
WALKER. He is survived by his sister Margaret "Peggy"
McLELLAN, of Toronto, and brother Bob and Mary
McLELLAN, of Markham.
Predeceased by 6 brothers and sisters. Family will receive Friends
at the McKinlay Funeral Home, 459 St. Clair St. Chatham, on Monday,
October 16, 2006, from 7: 00-9:00 p.m. and
on Tuesday, October 17,
2006 from 2: 00-4:00 p.m. and 7:00-9:00 p.m. Funeral Service will
be held at 1: 30 p.m. on Wednesday, October 18, 2006 from the
Funeral
Home with Rev. Sandra
FOGARTY officiating. Memorial donations,
made by cheque, to the Canadian Cancer Society or the Canadian
Diabetes Association are welcomed. Online condolences may be
left at www.mckinlayfuneralhome.com
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BOURDEAU o@ca.on.middlesex_county.london.london_free_press 2006-11-09 published
BOURDEAU,
Nancy (née
MIKULICA)
A resident of Chatham, Nancy
BOURDEAU died on Tuesday, November 7,
2006 surrounded by her family at her residence at the age of
46. Born in Chatham, daughter of Laddie and Anne
MIKULICA of
Chatham. Beloved wife of Paul
BOURDEAU for 25 years. Loving mother
of Andrew BOURDEAU of Toronto and Meghan
BOURDEAU of Chatham.
Sister of Barbara (Al)
POOLE of Richmond Hill, Larry (Irene)
MIKULICA of Chatham and Ginny (Bob)
O'NEILL of Chatham. Daughter-in-law
of Wanda BOURDEAU of Chatham. Sister-in-law of Susan
MOYNAHAN
of Chatham, John (Mary Jane)
BOURDEAU of Ipperwash, Bill
BOURDEAU
of Tilbury, Becky (Rob)
CHAPPLE of Dover Township, Peggy (Bob)
WRIGHT of Chatham and Pam
BOURDEAU
(Jim
SULLIVAN) of London.
Also survived by many nieces and nephews. Nancy was the Principal
of St. Vincent Catholic School, where she served the students
and staff with love and dedication. Family will receive Friends
at the McKinlay Funeral Home, 459 St. Clair Street, Chatham on
Thursday from 7: 00-9:00 p.m. and Friday from 2:00-4:30 p.m. and
7: 00-9:00 p.m. Parish Prayers will be offered at the Funeral
Home on Friday at 8: 00 p.m. Funeral Mass will be celebrated at
Saint_Joseph's Catholic Church on Saturday, November 11, 2006 at
10: 30 a.m. Interment St. Anthony Cemetery, Chatham. In lieu of
flowers, donations, made by cheque, to the St. Clair District
Catholic Education Foundation-Reading Room at St. Vincent School
("In Memory of Nancy's love of books"), Crohn's and Colitis Foundation,
Alzheimer's Society or Canadian Cancer Society appreciated. Online
condolences may be left at www.mckinlayfuneralhome.com
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BOURDEAU o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.toronto_star 2006-03-14 published
POLIN,
Genoveffa
Peacefully, with her beloved family at her side, on Sunday, March 12,
2006, in her 96th year, at Cawthra Gardens Mississauga, Genoveffa
is reunited with her late husband Attilio (1979). Dearly loved
mother and best friend of Franco, Julio, Rosanna and Bruno
TOFFOLON.
Cherished Nonna of Debbie and Kevin
SMITH,
Julie and Randy
BOURDEAU,
Paul, Annamaria, Dino, Lori, Mark and Andrea
TOFFOLON. Great-grandmother
of Melissa, Alexandra, Nicholas, Matteo, Jake and Sienna. Friends
may call at the Turner and Porter "Peel" Chapel, 2180 Hurontario
Street, Mississauga (Hwy. 10, North of Queen Elizabeth Way) on Tuesday
from 6-9 p.m. A private family Funeral Mass will be held. Thank
you to all those who cared for and loved our adored Nonna. If
desired, remembrances may be made to a charity of your choice.
A mother like ours is more than a memory. She is a living presence
in the hearts of our family. Not time, not space - not even death
can separate us.
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BOURDON o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2006-03-06 published
Maurice CLENNETT,
Army
Officer And Banker (1915-2005)
Skinny bank clerk, who was almost rejected by the army as too
puny, rose to command a battalion and win the Distinguished Service
Order. Later, he returned to banking and became a senior civil
servant with the Inspector General of Banks
By Buzz BOURDON,
Special▼ to the Globe and Mail, Page S8
Ottawa -- At five feet, eight inches tall, Maurice
CLENNETT was
tall enough to join the army when Canada went to war in 1939.
The problem was his weight. He weighed just 112 pounds, two pounds
less than the minimum demanded by the army.
The situation looked grim, but Mr.
CLENNETT, tongue firmly in
cheek, convinced the medical examiner that the Allied war effort
was doomed unless he,
CLENNETT, personally led the fight against
Adolf Hitler. It worked and he was in.
Mr. CLENNETT was eager to get overseas because he knew where
his duty lay. He didn't even have to think about it, he wrote
in a family memoir six decades later. "Because my people were
English, we still thought as England as the mother country and
believed that Canadians should come to its aid."
He didn't worry about his size, either. "It never bothered me.
I was in pretty good shape. I had lots of stamina and could get
things done."
By the time Germany collapsed in flames six years later, Mr.
CLENNETT had proved himself a superb leader. Fighting with the
1st Battalion, North Nova Scotia Highlanders, he won an important
decoration and was wounded.
On July 31, 1944, seven weeks after the North Novas hit the beach
at Normandy on D-Day as part of the 9th Infantry Brigade of the
3rd Canadian Infantry Division, Mr.
CLENNETT started his long
slog across France, Belgium, the Netherlands and into Germany.
In August, during the battle of Falaise, Mr.
CLENNETT -- described
by author Will R. Bird as "small in stature but mighty in spirit"
had a narrow escape when he scrambled up into the loft of
a barn to hide from German troops. "All hell broke loose. Machine
gun fire started coming in right through the door I had entered.
A tank fired through the door. I waited, looking down at the
yard filled with hundreds of Germans. The moon came out and it
was impossible for me to get down without being seen. There I
was, trapped, with German tanks rolling around."
Fortunately, most of the enemy had left by daylight and Mr.
CLENNETT
was able to convince the 20 who remained, "some wounded, some
not, all armed, and sleeping" to surrender.
Mr. CLENNETT's first big battle was at Boulogne, a heavily defended
port on the northeast coast of France. On September 17, his under-strength
'D' Company of only 60 men was ordered to attack six German pillboxes
at the rear of Mount Lambert, a key feature covering the southern
approaches to the city.
Almost 60 years later, Mr.
CLENNETT still remembered the sight
of his highlanders sweeping to the assault. "We went fast with
measured steps. The men were in a straight line advancing if
on parade, with me in the centre. The barrage went on, protecting
us. Then it stopped when we were a couple of hundred yards from
the pillbox. We thought, 'Okay, that's it!' and I led them in.
I went ahead. All of a sudden a barrage opened up again after
I'd started advancing."
Taking cover, Mr.
CLENNETT and his men got up when the barrage
ceased and launched themselves at the pillbox. Armed with only
a pistol, Mr.
CLENNETT was shot in the neck. "Lt. Grainger and
Sgt. Jack Mackenzie continued the attack. Reinforcements were
sent, we captured the pillbox and took 200 prisoners. Eventually,
the entire fortress surrendered and out came 1,800 prisoners,"
Mr. CLENNETT wrote.
For his heroism, Mr.
CLENNETT was awarded the Distinguished Service
Order. His citation read: "He was wounded in the neck but refused
to be evacuated. Throughout the action his own disregard for
his own personal safety and outstanding leadership were the biggest
factor in the success of the attack."
Mr. CLENNETT seemed to lead a charmed life during those desperate
months. In contrast, almost all his junior officers and non-commissioned
officers were killed or wounded. During the brutal, 25-day Battle
of the Scheldt in the Netherlands, 'D' Company lost every officer
except Mr.
CLENNETT. It was a bitter struggle, in which the Canadians
took the strategically important Scheldt estuary that lay between
Antwerp, Belgium, and the sea.
Four months later, in late February of 1945, Mr.
CLENNETT, by
then a major, commanded his battalion during a fierce attack
on the Hochwald Forest. The enemy was well dug in with 88mm guns
and tanks. "He was always where things were the hottest and his
decisions were largely responsible for the defeat of the enemy,"
his citation read. "His coolness under fire and his leadership
when things were toughest, are beyond praise. He never ceased
to be an inspiration to his men."
Maurice CLENNETT grew up in Nova Scotia before studying commerce
at Dalhousie University. In 1934, he joined the Royal Bank of
Canada as a junior clerk. Earning $500 per year in the middle
of the Depression, Mr.
CLENNETT was happy to have a job, said
daughter Mary
CLENNETT. "
Dad progressed rapidly in his early
years and, after just four years, he had more than doubled his
starting salary and was earning $1,300."
After shipping out to Britain in 1940 with the West Nova Scotia
Regiment, Mr.
CLENNETT participated in the invasion of Sicily
and the Italian mainland in 1943 as a staff officer. After that,
he could have wangled a safe job at headquarters, but he was
eager to see some more action and arranged a transfer to a fighting
battalion.
Shortly after joining the North Novas, a tough regiment with
many miners, farmers and fishermen in its ranks, Mr.
CLENNETT
discovered he was expected to wear a kilt. "A kilt is something
like nine yards of material. The front is just a plain apron,
but the back is all pleated. I didn't weigh much more than when
I enlisted, and I didn't have the rear end to carry the bloody
thing," wrote Mr.
CLENNETT. "I went on parade with the aid of
a pair of braces and two safety pins, and prayed to God that
they would hold."
After the war, he relocated to the Royal Bank's head office in
Montreal. In 1948, he married Catherine
SENNAT, a "pretty young
blonde" stenographer he'd met in the chief accountant's department.
Over the next three decades, Mr.
CLENNETT moved steadily up the
corporate ladder, retiring in 1974 as the Royal's assistant general
manager. An important part of the bank's enormous post-war expansion,
he helped modernize its operations. He also found time to father
12 children.
Afterward, Mr.
CLENNETT became a senior civil servant with the
federal government's Inspector General of Banks before retiring
again in 1983. A year later, Mr.
CLENNETT and his wife visited
the Netherlands, 40 years after he helped to liberate it. "It
was a moving and gratifying experience to return with my comrades.
People greeted us with open arms. It was touching to be treated
as a hero."
Maurice Gascoygne
CLENNETT was born on June 1, 1915, in Watanga,
Nova Scotia He died of Parkinson's disease on November 8, 2005,
in Ottawa. He was 90. He is survived by his wife, Catherine,
and by daughters Anne, Mary, Norah, Margaret, Jocelyn, Louise
and Janet, and his sons Mark, Bill, Andrew, Michael and Peter.
He also leaves 30 grandchildren.
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BOURDON o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2006-03-17 published
Frank WATKINS, Royal Canadian Air Force Officer (1915-2005)
Pilot who won the Distinguished Flying Cross for flying missions
over Germany was sustained by writing 258 letters home. When
it came to wartime morale, few things were more important
By Buzz BOURDON,
Special▲▼ to the Globe and Mail, Page S9
Ottawa -- Fighting hard to keep his sanity amid so much death,
Frank WATKINS wrote hundreds of emotional and poignant letters
to his wife during the Second World War. The young Royal Canadian
Air Force flier's correspondence paints a fascinating portrait
of a man thousands of miles from home trying to both do his duty
and stay alive.
During the long months they were apart, Mr.
WATKINS, a bomber
pilot, wrote his bride Charmian 258 letters that told how he
cherished her and the pain he felt at losing Friends. Writing
every three days on the flimsy, blue airmail paper typical of
the time, Mr.
WATKINS began and ended every letter with a simple
and heartfelt declaration: "I love you, I love you, I love you."
The couple married in Edmonton on March 22, 1943, two months
before Mr.
WATKINS shipped out to Britain. He was 27. After that,
their only link was the mail. Canada's postal authorities --
both military and civilian -- handled millions of letters, postcards
and parcels during the war. If humanly possible, the mail got
through. When it came to morale, few things were more important.
In his letters, Mr.
WATKINS not only told his wife about everyday
squadron life but used them as a therapeutic safety valve to
express his emotions. On June 13, 1944, in letter No. 224, he
described his grief over losing his mentor, a wing commander.
"He was the finest fellow I ever met and I a.m. going to miss
him terribly. I know that even the best can be shot down but
somehow I felt he would go on operating as long as he cared.
He only had a few more trips to do…"
Then Mr. WATKINS told his wife how happy she made him. "Thank
heaven we were married before we parted. If it hadn't been for
the fact that I knew I had your understanding and love and respect
I would have thrown in long ago."
Life wasn't all doom and gloom. In letter No. 247, written on
August 12, 1944, he described shaking hands with the King. "After,
there was a tea and they introduced men from each station to
the royal party."
Mr. WATKINS closed that letter with a plea not to "stop praying
and believing. I'm not through my tour yet and as the number
[of missions] to do get smaller they seem to get tougher. God
willing, we shall share the future."
Frank WATKINS joined the Royal Canadian Air Force on January 7,
1941. It took almost three years, but he eventually made it overseas
after earning his wings. Known as Highpockets because he was
6 foot 4, he first flew with 428 Squadron. One day at the end
of 1943, he and his crew had a narrow escape when a German fighter
attacked their Halifax. "We did not see the fighter and were
raked with cannon shell," Mr.
WATKINS said. "The rear gunner
was badly wounded but continued to advise [me] on evasive action
and we finally shook the fighter off."
That was the good news. The bad news was that his aileron controls
had been shot away, the elevator wires were cut in two and the
hydraulics, undercarriage and flaps were useless. Fearing the
worst, the crew prepared for a crash landing, but Mr.
WATKINS
managed to land the aircraft safely.
In March of 1944, he was promoted to squadron leader and posted
to 434 Squadron. Just three months later, on June 11, five days
after D-Day, he was promoted to wing commander. The squadron
was in the thick of things, bombing the Germans' flying-bomb
sites in northern France, plus oil storage depots, freight yards
and coastal batteries. In August, the squadron flew 1,206 hours
on 246 sorties for 19 bombing operations, dropping 2,149,670 pounds
of high explosives and incendiaries. The cost came in casualties:
484 men killed or missing in a 20-month period.
Death could occur any day, yet Mr.
WATKINS wrote that he had
no regrets. "I have missed you terribly. But I could never have
known any peace of mind if I had stayed at home and not taken
my share of the work. A fellow owes it all to his Friends who
have gone before him. I will feel I have done my duty. I hope
this doesn't sound heroic. God knows, I have no illusions about
dying for any great cause. There's nothing glamorous about being
killed in an aircraft. When I come back I'll be wiser, more understanding.
And I will come back. Don't ever worry about that."
On August 16, 1944, with his 30th and last mission still to come,
he wrote that he got a "small measure of satisfaction of having
successfully bombed [his] targets and, more important, getting
away with it despite flak and fighters and weather and searchlights.
It was quite an experience and, although I think it's changed
me in a lot of ways, I'm not sorry I have had it."
A month after that, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
After the war, Mr.
WATKINS decided to stay in the Royal Canadian
Air Force. Over the next 21 years, he occupied many senior positions
and commanded two stations, Royal Canadian Air Force Station
Rockcliffe, in Ottawa, from 1955 to 1958, and Royal Canadian
Air Force Station Namao, outside Edmonton, from 1964 to 1966.
After retiring in 1967 as a group captain, he worked for the
Department of Regional Economic Expansion.
Francis Hubert
WATKINS was born on August 13, 1915, in Winnipeg.
He died on December 21, 2005, in Ottawa. He was 90. He leaves
his daughter Melissa, sons Christopher and Michael and his brother
Stanley. He was predeceased by his Charmian, his wife of 55 years.
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BOURDON o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2006-04-10 published
Murray LISTER, Royal Canadian Air Force Air Vice-Marshal (1912-2006)
In 1966 he was rising to the top of his cherished Royal Canadian
Air Force when he resigned to protest against Ottawa's plan to
unify the military and outfit Canada's Armed Forces in lamentable
green serge
By Buzz BOURDON,
Special▲▼ to the Globe and Mail, Page S8
Ottawa -- Murray
LISTER was a man of integrity. In 1966, as an
Royal Canadian Air Force air vice-marshal in charge of Air Defence
Command, he quit rather than stand by and watch Paul
HELLYER
unify Canada's armed services. Defying the minister of national
defence in 1966 came at a very high price for Mr.
LISTER, whose
responsibility is was to defend Canada against aerial attack
by the Soviet Union. Unlike hundreds of other senior officers,
he deliberately refused to follow Mr.
HELLYER's dictatorial party
line and lost his promotion to air marshal, at that time a rank
equivalent to an army lieutenant-general.
Mr. LISTER's decision took many by surprise, since he was fifth
from the top of the Royal Canadian Air Force's seniority list,
but he never regretted following his conscience at such a great
personal cost, his son, Murray, said. "He was a man of principle
and the main principle he followed was duty. He declined promotion
and accepted early retirement on the principle of duty toward
the traditions and morale of the air force."
The trouble had started after he made his feelings known. He
believed that while the traditions of the Royal Canadian Navy
and the army were important, those of the Royal Canadian Air
Force were unique. "He didn't want any service tradition to be
diluted," his son said. "He felt that the effectiveness of each
of the three services was built on morale. There was no point
in destroying this morale."
One day in mid-March of 1966, during the height of the unification
crisis that gripped Parliament and the country, Mr.
LISTER was
summoned to Ottawa and found himself on the carpet. Air Chief
Marshal Frank
MILLER, the chief of the defence staff, accused
him of criticizing unification in speeches to subordinates.
Fortunately, Mr.
LISTER's aide, retired squadron leader Robert
FLYNN, had taken notes on what his boss had actually said. "While
he did not 100-per-cent support the concept, he impressed those
over whom he had command that it was his and their duty to respect
and honour the political directives. It was a very uneasy and
stressful time for him, but he weathered the storm," Mr.
FLYNN
said.
Mr. HELLYER's ambitious drive to create one service from the
navy, army and air force, unveiled in 1964 in a government white
paper, created enormous controversy. Mr.
HELLYER insisted his
dual plan of integration and unification would save millions
of dollars that would be better spent on new equipment, but many
saw it as a direct attack on the military's cherished, British-based
traditions. Thousands of sailors, soldiers and airmen were appalled
that Mr. HELLYER wanted to scrap their traditional uniforms of
navy blue and army khaki and replace them with a common green
serge. Sailors and airmen would wear army ranks on their sleeves.
Mr. LISTER was a strong supporter of integration, which sought
to eliminate costly triplication such as separate personnel and
supply systems. If he'd decided to put his career before his
principles, there's no telling how high he might have risen,
since Mr. HELLYER desperately needed senior officers to toe his
party line and take over from those who decided to resign.
Mr. LISTER, known as a strict disciplinarian, had a strong streak
of stubbornness, his son said. "His sense of duty came from his
mother, who was very strict herself and brought him up that way.
He had enormous willpower. He used logic in arguing and was quite
an intellectual. He was a super-achiever."
Tragically, the stress of coping with unification may have affected
Mr. LISTER's first marriage to Janet
RICHMOND, their daughter
Sydney said. Her parents were divorced in 1971 after 32 years
of marriage. Still, there was plenty of hope and happiness at
the beginning, she said. "My dad always told us how much fun
she was, how talented she was… It was a love story."
After graduating from the Royal Military College of Canada in
1935, Mr. LISTER flew fighters with the Royal Canadian Air Force.
He and his bride of four months happened to be in England when
war broke out on September 1, 1939. Naturally, he thought he'd
soon be flying against the German Luftwaffe, but brass had a
better appreciation of his talents.
A week later, he was recalled to Canada and put to work organizing
all bombing and gunnery training facilities for the British Commonwealth
Air Training Plan. Dubbed the "Aerodrome of Democracy," Canada
built an enormous network of training bases that, over the next
five years, trained 131,500 aircrew from the British Commonwealth
and Allied nations. Overall, the Royal Canadian Air Force grew
dramatically to 215,000 men and women and 88 squadrons.
Promoted to group captain in 1943 at the early age of 31, Mr.
LISTER
tried to get overseas to fly on operations but never made it,
his son said. "He was too valuable. That bothered him to the
end of his life, [since] his first love was flying."
The closest he came to going operational was to command Station
Tofino, British Columbia, an air base that flew long-distance
anti-submarine patrols far into the Pacific. His 1944-45 posting
earned him a mention in dispatches: "By his ability and outstanding
devotion to duty he has raised the standard of this unit to a
high pitch of operational efficiency."
After the war, Mr.
LISTER filled four key positions as the Royal
Canadian Air Force expanded dramatically to 52,000 men and women.
In 1954, he was appointed chief of plans and intelligence. In
1958, he was appointed deputy vice-chief of the Royal Canadian
Air Force and chief of training, a job that gave him and his
wife Janet -- known as a gracious hostess -- a high profile on
Ottawa's diplomatic cocktail circuit.
In 1960, Mr.
LISTER went to Colorado Springs where he spent four
years at North American Air Defence Command as deputy chief of
staff, operations. Mr.
LISTER played a key part in organizing
North American Air Defence Command, an agency set up to protect
North America from air attack. He had a first-hand view of the
Cuban missile crisis that brought the United States and the Soviet
Union to the brink of nuclear war in 1962.
Jaye LISTER, then 14, still remembers the worries she experienced
when her father didn't come home for four days. It was the height
of the Cold War and nuclear conflict seemed a horrible possibility
for millions. "We had a red phone in the master bedroom, a direct
line to North American Air Defence Command headquarters. One
morning I asked mum where Dad was. Her reply was, 'I don't know.
The red phone rang and your father left. I don't know when we'll
see him.' We had no contact with him at all."
In 1964, Mr.
LISTER took command of Air Defence Command, which
included squadrons of CF-100 and CF-101 fighters. Mr.
FLYNN remembers
his boss as "a very demanding person yet very patient and understanding.
He had a great sense of humour yet was a no-nonsense type. When
toughness was demanded he could dish it out, but always in a
human and respectful manner. [He] treated me, as he did everyone,
with human understanding."
After retiring from the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1966, Mr.
LISTER
became a gentlemen farmer, growing apples and wheat and raising
sheep and cattle on a farm near Picton, Ontario In 1997, more
than 50 years after he had last flown an aircraft, Mr.
LISTER
took to the sky one last time as a pilot. Although by then blind
in one eye, he made a "beautiful flight," an observer said.
"[It's] exactly like riding a bicycle," Mr.
LISTER said at the
time. "You never forget. Everything felt very natural. It was
tremendously exciting."
Murray Duncan
LISTER was born on January 17, 1912, in Edmonton.
He died of pneumonia on January 7, 2006, in Niagara-on-the-Lake,
Ontario He was 10 days short of his 94th birthday. He leaves
his wife Elizabeth
DAILLEY, son Murray, and daughters Sydney
and Jaye. He also leaves stepdaughters Elizabeth and Lynne.
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BOURDON o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2006-05-02 published
Bill MILROY,
Army
Officer And Consultant: (1920-2006)
Major who won a D.S.O. during the closing weeks of the Second
World War later became a lieutenant-general and was given command
of the Canadian Army
By Buzz BOURDON,
Special▲▼ to the Globe and Mail, Page S9
Ottawa -- By April of 1945, Bill
MILROY was tired, bone tired,
after more than a year of almost continuous fighting in Italy,
Belgium and the Netherlands. Mr.
MILROY, a major commanding B Squadron,
2nd Canadian Armoured Regiment, knew that Germany was in flames
and close to surrendering, but when and where the Second World
War would end was anyone's guess.
Hundreds of thousands of German soldiers fought tenaciously to
defend their homeland and for Mr.
MILROY and his battle-weary
troopers, there were always more of them to kill or capture before
they pointed their Sherman tanks toward the next objective. Still,
they could almost smell the end.
"There was excitement in the air. It was difficult to realize
that we were at last on Dutch soil and only a few miles from
Germany," wrote Lieutenant-Colonel J.M.
McAVITY in his 1947 history
of the Lord Strathcona's Horse (Royal Canadians). "It had seemed
very far away during the past year."
Fresh orders arrived on April 10, 1945. Mr.
MILROY and his regiment
were ordered to support the British army in Operation Cleanser,
known as the second Battle of Arnhem, in the Netherlands. The
Strathconas would fire their 75-millimetre guns in support for
the assault, then push to the Zuider Zee, now called Ijsselmeer,
50 kilometres away.
Deploying his tanks with his customary skill, Mr.
MILROY -- known
affectionately to his men as Billy the Kid -- ran up against
strong opposition from German anti-tank guns and infantry during
the week-long race to the sea. On two separate occasions, on
April 15 and
April 17, Mr.
MILROY, displaying "great personal
gallantry," dismounted from his tank to make a personal reconnaissance
on foot. "Then, in both cases, from the information gained, he
put a plan into effect which was highly successful and most skillfully
controlled and ensured the further advance of the regiment,"
an official citation said.
Sixty-one years later, Robert
GREENE, an Anglican canon living
in Calgary, remembers feeling alarmed when Mr.
MILROY climbed
down from their tank and walked down the middle of the road.
At that time, Mr.
GREENE was Mr.
MILROY's gunner in their tank,
which they had nicknamed "Brown."
"I jumped out with a Tommy gun and followed him to give cover.
I said, 'Sir, shouldn't we be in the ditch?' He was fearless,"
said Rev. GREENE, who fought with Mr.
MILROY for almost two years.
"We would have followed him everywhere. He was a great commander."
For his tactical brilliance, Mr.
MILROY was awarded the Distinguished
Service Order, one of only five Strathcona officers to receive
it during the war. "During the entire period, Major
MILROY was
tireless in his efforts, consistently showing the greatest skill
in handling his squadron and displaying magnificent coolness
under fire," the citation said.
Bill MILROY grew up in small-town Saskatchewan where his father
managed the local bank. After working on his grandfather's farm
for several summers, he studied commerce at the University of
Alberta and joined the Canadian Officers' Training Corps. Commissioned
as an officer, he volunteered for overseas service and joined
Lord Strathcona's Horse on August 13, 1941. That November, the
regiment left Camp Borden, Ontario, for Britain.
Two years later, Mr.
MILROY got his first taste of modern armoured
warfare when he landed in Italy on December 1, 1943. For the
next 11 months, he and B Squadron struggled up the Italian peninsula
with the 5th Canadian Armoured Brigade. On May 24, 1944, he fought
in the battle of Melfa River, part of Operation Chesterfield,
in which Field Marshal Sir Harold Alexander's Eighth Army attack
the Hitler Line south of Rome. In a two-day battle, the Strathconas'
reconnaissance troop crossed the Melfa River, established a bridgehead
and held it until a company from the Westminster Regiment, commanded
by Major J.K. Mahony, arrived. Major Mahoney was later awarded
the Victoria Cross. Shortly after, the Strathconas' commanding
officer was wounded and Mr.
MILROY took over temporarily.
Almost four months later, Mr.
MILROY was wounded during the battle
of the Gothic Line, a heavily fortified, mountainous defensive
line that stretched across Italy north of Florence. During the
action, Mr.
MILROY and B Squadron repelled a German counterattack
in the middle of the night that included fierce hand-to-hand
fighting.
After things settled down, Mr.
MILROY held a brief conference
with two of his officers. Then the unexpected happened. "[It
was] pitch black when what I assume was a German still in the
area [threw] a grenade in our midst. When I came to, I was the
only one left," he told his son Rollin in 1992. The explosion
cost Mr. MILROY most of the hearing in his left ear.
He never spoke of his war experiences unless asked, said Rollin
MILROY. "
Then he was happy to answer. The stories that would
spontaneously come out were always humorous, or about Friendship
in some manner. While I don't think he ever attempted to convince
himself war is anything but awful, he also recognized the many
good qualities of people that emerge during such times."
After the war, Mr.
MILROY remained in the army, serving at home
and abroad in the United States and Britain. In 1953, he attended
the Queen's coronation in London. Despite a fall of heavy rain,
Mr. MILROY thoroughly enjoyed his job marshalling the Canadian
troops marching in the procession. "[There was] a wonderful feeling
of camaraderie that enveloped everyone during the period of the
coronation. We all thought that we were in on the beginning of
a bright new world. While it didn't quite work out that way,
for those of us there the experience lightened our days for years
to come. It was similar to the feeling one has when one is a
member of a good Regiment, like the Strathconas," he wrote in
In 1972, he was promoted to lieutenant-general and given command
of the Canadian army, then called Mobile Command. After retiring
in 1975, he worked in Ottawa as a consultant until 1988.
In 2001, Mr.
MILROY was made a member of the Order of Canada,
for his "exceptional leadership qualities as a volunteer. As
national chair of the Canadian Corps of Commissionaires, he helped
raised the status and profile of the corps. He also served on
the board of governors of Ottawa's Ashbury College and has made
immeasurable contributions to health care in the region and to
the Salvation Army's fundraising operations."
Mr. MILROY never forgot his beloved unit and served as colonel
of the regiment from 1971 to 1978. He donated the sabre he carried
during the coronation to the regiment's commanding officers.
William Alexander
MILROY was born on June 25, 1920, in Brownlee,
Saskatchewan. He died of pulmonary fibrosis on February 20, 2006,
in Ottawa. He was 85. He is survived by his wife, Ann, his son
Rollin, his daughters Elizabeth and Alexandra. He also leaves
his sisters Marion and Jean.
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BOURDON o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2006-05-18 published
Jack WALLACE,
Soldier And
Civil
Defence Expert (1921-2006)
Tank commander who won the Military Cross in Italy became a driving
force in the Civil Defence Organization, Canada's Cold War system
of A-bomb shelters and warning sirens
By Buzz BOURDON,
Special▲▼ to The Globe and Mail, Page S7
Ottawa -- Jack
WALLACE was planning his next move in an Italian
wood south of Termoli when an armour-piercing round bored through
the back of his Sherman tank and destroyed his left leg.
The enemy projectile exploded in a blinding flash of light, killed
his gunner and filled the tank with smoke and razor-sharp shrapnel
on October 6, 1943. A second shell killed the driver.
Badly dazed, losing blood and with a suddenly useless limb, he
knew he had to do something quickly. As a tank commander in charge
of a troop of four tanks from the 12th Armoured Regiment (The
Three Rivers Regiment), he thought only of his crew and how to
save them. Realizing his Sherman was a sitting duck, he threw
smoke grenades to hide his tank from the enemy and deny them
a clear field of fire. At the same time, he yelled at his soldiers
to get out.
Mr. WALLACE's quick thinking and concern for the lives of his
men earned him a Military Cross, one of only nine awarded to
officers of his regiment during the Second World War. "By his
coolness and presence of mind while seriously wounded, and under
heavy fire, he undoubtedly saved his crew from further injury
while evacuating their tank," the citation said.
Radio operator Joe
COLLINS, who was awarded the Military Medal
for dragging Mr.
WALLACE to safety, provided an eye-witness account.
"If every officer had as much genuine guts as he showed then,
we'd have a damn sight better army than we have. When a man can
stand in the turret, with one leg dangling and useless and himself
in agony, and still throw smoke grenades to give his crew a fighting
chance to escape once they were out, the word I used was the
only one which fits… guts," he wrote to Mr.
WALLACE's father
on December 9, 1943.
Two very senior British generals agreed. Within days, Gen. Sir
Harold Alexander and Gen. Sir Bernard Montgomery had each approved
Mr. WALLACE's immediate Military Cross. Soon afterward, the home
front learned of Mr.
WALLACE's "outstanding bravery" in a radio
show broadcast across Canada to help sell war bonds. Described
in the script as "a lone heroic figure wreathed in the swirl
of grey smoke," the show featured his mother paying tribute to
her eldest son, as well as to his brother Ted, a member of the
1st Hussars who was later killed.
At the time, the Three Rivers Regiment had been supporting a
seaborne assault by the British Army at Termoli. Located a third
of the way up Italy's east coast, Termoli was the Adriatic hinge
of Germany's defence line along the Biferno River.
After sleeping fitfully through heavy shelling on the night of
October 5-6, Mr.
WALLACE and C Squadron started advancing after
7 a.m. "The plan of attack was for our squadron, led by No. 4
Troop and No. 5 Troop, to strike west and take over enemy-held
territory. For a while, the only enemy we could see were infantry
which we bypassed, or took on if they showed any anger," wrote
Mr. WALLACE in a family memoir.
Elements of the squadron approached a wooded area that the 3rd County
of London Yeomanry assured them was clear of Germans. The information
could not have been more wrong. Two tanks from the 16th Panzer
Division lay hidden in the copse and Mr.
WALLACE was next in
their sights. Seconds later, his tank was destroyed.
Fortunately, he had insisted that his men repeatedly practice
evacuation drill while training in Britain and it paid off. "That
day, they did it perfectly," he later said.
As he was being removed, he asked, "did they get the bastards?"
Soon afterward, his leg was amputated above the knee and his
three-month war was over.
Jack WALLACE grew up the eldest of three sons of a long-serving,
non-commissioned officer who served in Princess Patricia's Canadian
Light Infantry. His father had fought in the First World War
and stayed in the army afterward. "I suppose I was destined to
become a soldier," he said.
He enlisted while still a teenager. During the summer of 1938,
he was a batman, or servant, to Frank Worthington, the father
of Canada's armoured forces. "During my spare time, having polished
buttons, pressed uniforms, cleaned tents and latrines, I [went]
to where the tanks were. I learned how to drive them before I
could even drive a car."
At the time, the Canadian army still had horse-mounted cavalry
regiments. Maj. Worthington pleaded for modern equipment, but
what he got for his tank school at Camp Borden, Ontario, were
16 obsolete light tanks and
12 Carden-Loyd machine-gun carriers.
Fascinated by the possibilities of modern armoured warfare, Mr.
WALLACE
was the first man in line to join the tank school just three
days after Canada declared war on Nazi Germany on September 10,
1939. After qualifying as a mechanic, he reached the dizzy heights
of command when he was promoted to acting lance corporal.
Mr. WALLACE was commissioned as an officer in May of 1941, and
posted to the Royal Canadian Dragoons. After reaching Britain
in October, he transferred to the Three Rivers Regiment, where
he joined his father, by then a major commanding A squadron.
After the war, Mr.
WALLACE maintained his connection to the army.
Frank Worthington, his old commander, had by then left the army
to take up an appointment as Canada's civil defence co-ordinator
and in 1949 he asked Mr.
WALLACE to help set up the Civil Defence
Organization. The Cold War had just started and Ottawa wanted
to protect Canadians from nuclear war by organizing warning systems
and building bomb shelters. Over the years, Mr.
WALLACE became
Canada's leading expert in civil emergency and disaster planning.
In 1977, he took early retirement, worn out physically and mentally
from promoting civil defence to a government that no longer cared.
He never forgot, though, his wartime role. On May 8, 2005, Mr.
WALLACE
attended the opening of the new Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.
Wearing his medals and war-time beret, he rode all the way to
the museum from the National War Memorial in his wheelchair.
John Francis
WALLACE was born on August 12, 1921, in Esquimalt,
British Columbia He died on March 7, in Ottawa. He was 85. He
leaves his wife Cathy, his sons Ted and Peter, his daughters
Ann, Jane and Caroline, and 14 grandchildren. He was predeceased
by his brothers Ted and Doug.
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BOURDON o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2006-06-05 published
Jim DALE, Royal Canadian Air Force And Department Of Transport
Pilot (1923-2006)
As the young captain of a Lancaster bomber, he flew countless
dangerous missions over Germany. Years later, he once wept at
the thought of how many civilians he had probably killed
By Buzz BOURDON,
Special▲▼ to the Globe and Mail, Page S11
Ottawa -- Jim
DALE loved flying so much that he volunteered to
keep going for an extra eight missions during the height of the
Allied air war against Germany.
A normal tour of operations for aircrew of the Royal Air Force's
Bomber
Command was 30 missions, but Mr.
DALE, a Canadian pilot
with the Royal Air Force's 166 Squadron, flew his mighty Lancaster
bomber over the German Reich for a total of 38 hair-raising missions
in all.
Starting on October 31, 1944, Mr.
DALE climbed into the cockpit
of his four-engine Lancaster and, night after night, headed out
on some of the biggest raids of the Second World War. Cologne,
Düsseldorf, Dortmund, Essen, Hanover: The list of German cities
bombed by Mr.
DALE and his crew resonate from the pages of his
logbook more than 60 years later. What those terse entries don't
mention is the gut-wrenching fear often experienced by aircrew
as they struggled to survive.
Besides fighting off wily and persistent German night fighters,
Mr. DALE and his fellow Lancaster captains also faced a storm
of flak shells exploding near their vulnerable, soft-skinned
aircraft. Bright moonlight was an unavoidable hazard that lit
up the sky, making juicy targets of those bombers. German searchlights
were also deadly, targeting Allied bombers by 'coning' them with
several beams of high-powered light. Once coned, many bombers
could not escape, making them an easy target for the Germans'
vaunted 88-mm flak guns.
Despite losing close Friends, Mr.
DALE kept doing his job, bombing
a wide range of targets by flying some of Bomber Command's deepest
penetrations into enemy territory. There was little opportunity
to rest, except when bad weather washed out a mission.
Mr. DALE's daughter Ann thinks her father kept risking his life
because he "loved the adventure, of being free in the air, of
fighting for his country, and yet, he also knew fear. He didn't
know the meaning of stress, as that word didn't exist then, but
often, he was scared. He once told me it would be stupid not
to have been afraid going on a bombing mission. It was what you
lived with."
In November of 1944, Mr.
DALE flew eight missions. For the next
three months, he flew six missions a month. Beginning March 1,
1945, with the Germans making a ferocious final battle, he flew
a mind-numbing 10 missions in 16 days.
"His last op was Nuremburg [on March 16] and he was petrified,
as that was where Mother's first husband had been killed. It
was also a night called 'bomber's moon' when the moon lit up
the sky and made [them] more vulnerable to attack," Ms.
DALE
said.
Mr. DALE's unassuming heroism did not go unrewarded by the Royal
Air Force. "For his devotion to duty, courage and magnificent
operational spirit, [showing] a complete disregard for his own
personal safety and a high degree of skill," he was awarded the
Distinguished Flying Cross on July 5, 1945.
"Throughout [his] attacks he has displayed a fine offensive spirit
in action and has allowed no hazard to deter him from his purpose.
Several of the sorties in which he has been engaged have involved
a flight of nine or 10 hours and his qualities of endurance and
tenacity have been manifest to his crew, to whom his conduct
has been a continuous source of inspiration."
Jim DALE joined the Royal Canadian Air Force on April 20, 1942.
After training at various British Commonwealth Air Training Plan
stations across Canada, he graduated as a sergeant pilot on May 14,
1943. Commissioned as an officer the next year, he joined 166 Squadron
in October, 1944. Over all, about 25 per cent of Bomber Command
aircrew were Canadian. One of its sub-units, No. 6 (Royal Canadian
Air Force) Group, was made up of 15 Canadian bomber squadrons
flying Wellington and Lancaster bombers.
Dubbed "Tail-up Dale" because he liked to take off with his Lancaster
tail in the air, Mr.
DALE was known as a devil-may-care character
who enjoyed annoying stuffy Royal Air Force officers obsessed
in maintaining military decorum, his daughter said. "Always a
daredevil, he had little respect for authority unless it was
earned, qualities that got him into a lot of trouble over his
career, but which made him an outstanding pilot able to fly without
ever losing a crew member. He did not hesitate to speak his mind.
Political acumen and diplomacy were not his strong suit."
After being demobilized in March of 1946, Mr.
DALE decided he
loved flying too much too remain a civilian and rejoined eight
months later only to find the Royal Canadian Air Force was being
reorganized on a tiny peacetime scale. He had to serve two years
as an airman before he regained his commission in 1948.
Two years flying C-47 Dakotas with 414 Squadron out of Royal
Canadian Air Force Station Rockcliffe, in Ottawa, followed before
Mr. DALE was posted to Royal Canadian Air Force Station Centralia,
Ontario, as a flying instructor. Training a new generation of
postwar pilots, Mr.
DALE -- by then a flight lieutenant -- proved
an inspiration to the young fliers. "The saying in Centralia
[was], 'Even when birds won't fly, Dale will," Ms.
DALE said.
In 1954, after 2,477 hours in the air in peace and war, Mr.
DALE
retired from the air force for the second time and joined the
Department of Transport as a pilot. Over the next 25 years, he
did a variety of jobs with Department of Transport, including
investigating aircraft crashes and flying government V.I.P.s.
His passengers included Prince Philip and Pierre Elliot Trudeau,
who apologized when he was late.
Bill BOONE of Ottawa, now retired from Department of Transport
as a chief flight dispatcher, remembers Mr.
DALE with great affection.
"He was one of the last great characters in aviation before it
became very serious and regimented. He liked to fly by the seat
of his pants, not always observing the rules. The rules were
for others." Despite that, Mr.
DALE is credited with contributed
greatly to safety standards during his Department of Transport
years.
Characterized as a man's man who liked sports and hunting, Mr.
DALE
was typical of his generation because he kept his feelings hidden,
Ms. DALE said. He was happiest while flying. "It was as if in
the air, he became everything, the real person, whereas on the
ground, he had trouble, people didn't understand him. Pilots
have to have so much maturity since they're responsible for people's
lives, that on the ground they party hard and don't always have
common sense about people and emotions. And yet, he had extreme
sensitivity. Once he cried after watching a documentary on the
war. He had been on that bombing raid and was acutely aware of
how many people he had killed."
Milton
Clarence
James
DALE was born on December 10, 1923, in
Ottawa. He died of a bladder infection on March 5, 2006, in Ottawa.
He was 82. He leaves his wife Catherine, daughters Ann, Elaine
and Adrienne, son James, sisters Elaine and Helen, and brother
Ashton.
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BOURDON o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2006-06-13 published
Mary MacDONALD,
Civil
Servant (1918-2006)
For decades, she guarded the gates of power in the Prime Minister's
Office, first as an 'indispensable' executive secretary to Lester
PEARSON and then to Pierre
TRUDEAU
By Buzz BOURDON,
Special▲▼ to the Globe and Mail, Page S11
Ottawa -- In 1967, Prime Minister Lester
PEARSON needed to find
a birthday gift for his executive assistant, and it had to be
special. Mary
MacDONALD had been with him 20 years and, as he
admitted handsomely in his autobiography, "[she was] indispensable
as my Girl Friday. Nobody ever served anyone with greater devotion."
So, what to give Miss
MacDONALD for her 49th birthday on April 30,
1967? In the end, he settled on the perfect gift: the Bible presented
to him by Prime Minister Mackenzie
KING on September 10, 1948,
when Mr. PEARSON was sworn as a member of the King's Privy Council
for Canada. At the same time, Mr.
PEARSON, arguably Canada's
most famous diplomat, was appointed secretary of state for External
Affairs, and the Bible had become a treasured family memento.
On the flyleaf, Mr.
PEARSON wrote a warm and heartfelt message:
"To Mary, with all of my best wishes and grateful appreciation
for helping a P.C. become a p.m. … L. B.
PEARSON."
The
Bible is
now held in trust by Mr.
PEARSON's grand_son, Michael, for his infant son.
Miss MacDONALD first joined Mr.
PEARSON in 1947 at the then-Department
of External Affairs. They had made a terrific team together,
travelling the world when he was minister of External Affairs
and then the country after he became leader of the Liberal Party
of Canada in 1958.
As one of the gatekeepers to Mr.
PEARSON,
Miss
MacDONALD did
not suffer fools gladly. "My father owed his success in part,
to her," said retired diplomat Geoffrey
PEARSON at her funeral
last week. "Success in politics, as in life, is often due to
those who stand at the door."
Miss MacDONALD's working day always extended past 5 p.m., for
10 or 12 hours overall. She once wrote 91 letters in one day.
Politics was her life, to the exclusion of everything else including
marriage, except her family. Weekends were no different. If Mr.
PEARSON
and his wife
Maryon needed her, Miss
MacDONALD would be there.
"She really knew who was useful and kept him in touch with his
constituents and vice-versa. She was a great organizer," said
retired senator Landon
PEARSON.
Mary MacDONALD grew up in Ottawa during the Depression. After
graduating from the University of Ottawa in 1938, she spent five
years with the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. In 1941,
she joined the Canadian Red Cross Corps, shipping out to Britain
two years later. A month after D-Day, June 6, 1944, she was sent
to No. 12 Canadian General Hospital as a welfare officer. Since
there was a shortage of nurses, her organizational skills were
used to regulate the efficient flow of patients from the wards
to the operating theatres.
Janet FLANDERS of Ottawa first met Miss
MacDONALD in 1943, in
a battered London at war. "She was bright and cheerful… She could
do anything."
After returning to Ottawa in December of 1945, Miss
MacDONALD
joined the Department of External Affairs. Soon after, she was
assigned to the new undersecretary of external affairs, just
back from Washington as Canadian ambassador. Lester "Mike"
PEARSON
was a rising star and it took very little time for them to develop
a working relationship, although she never called him anything
other than "Mr.
PEARSON."
For the next 12 years, Miss
MacDONALD received an education in
foreign affairs, as her boss helped Prime Minister Louis
SAINT_LAURENT
make Canada an important player on the world stage. It
was the beginning of the Cold War and Canada's foreign policy
included giving strong support to her allies in North Atlantic
Treaty Organization and the United Nations. She also obtained
a master's degree in political science in 1948, but paused in
her own advancement to help old Friends, one of whom was Janet
FLANDERS. "
After the war, she got me a job in External in 1947&hellip
We were close Friends for 60 years. You don't come across people
of her calibre very often."
Another of her Friends was Aline
CHRÉTIEN, wife of former prime
minister Jean
CHRÉTIEN.
They had met in 1963 after Mr.
CHRÉTIEN
was first elected to the House of Commons. "We saw her all the
time. She was devoted to her boss, Mr.
PEARSON, her Friends and
family," said Mrs.
CHRÉTIEN. "
She was like a mother to all sorts
of people… Jean and I loved her."
During Mr.
PEARSON's 20 years in federal politics, Miss
MacDONALD
played a part in getting him elected eight times in his riding
of Algoma East, in Northern Ontario. He was fortunate to have
Miss MacDONALD as his riding secretary, he once wrote. She was
a "very friendly, outgoing person who enjoyed meeting new people.
She became the bulwark of my political life and soon knew everyone
in the constituency, to my great advantage."
In fact, Time magazine said the only person who could ever dethrone
Mr. PEARSON in Algoma East was Miss
MacDONALD. After Mr.
PEARSON
was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo in 1957 for helping
secure peace in the 1956 Suez Crisis, he found himself out of
office when John Diefenbaker's Conservatives won the next election.
An exhausted Louis
SSAINTURENT resigned as Liberal chief and
Miss MacDONALD became the executive assistant to the new leader
of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition. Five long years in opposition
followed, until Mr.
PEARSON beat Mr. Diefenbaker and became the
14th prime minister of Canada on April 22, 1963.
A devoted Liberal, she also served Mr.
PEARSON's successor. When
Pierre Elliott
TRUDEAU took over as Prime Minister on April 20,
1968, he was advised that continuity in the Prime Minister's
Office was important and that Miss
MacDONALD could provide it.
After all, she knew everyone in Ottawa.
For the next 11 years, she was Mr.
TRUDEAU's administrative and
constituency liaison officer, ruling a staff of 15 secretaries
with tact and humour. Isabel
METCALFE of Ottawa was one of them.
"She was marvellous to us. She encouraged us, gave us advice
she was fun. She was meticulous in upholding the standards
of the Prime Minister's Office. She was an inspiration to us
in the context of political activism."
It was the role in which she probably felt most comfortable and
most effective. In 1968, rumours swirled around Parliament Hill
that Mr. PEARSON was thinking about appointing her to the Senate.
For reasons that may never be fully known, it didn't happened.
Instead, former Liberal cabinet minister Paul Martin, Sr., got
the call.
Landon PEARSON, who was Lester
PEARSON's daughter-in-law, believes
Miss MacDONALD "would have made an excellent senator. She had
excellent political instincts and knew politics. She was a great
organizer. In my view, she was never adequately recognized by
the men."
In 1979, Miss
MacDONALD retired and the following year she was
content to receive the Order of Canada. From her point of view,
it was probably more than enough. After sitting at the right
hands of Lester
PEARSON and Pierre
TRUDEAU, she had seen it all.
"Behind every great man is a surprised woman, my mother used
to say," said Geoffrey
PEARSON. "
Mary was never surprised."
Mary Elizabeth
MacDONALD was born on April 30, 1918, in North
Cobalt, Ontario She died of a stroke on June 5 in Ottawa. She
was 88. She leaves her sister Kay, her nephews Peter, Joe, Paul,
John and Greg. She was predeceased by her brother Neil.
B... Names BO... Names BOU... Names Welcome Home
BOURDON o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2006-07-04 published
Alex TRIMBLE, Royal Canadian Air Force Officer (1920-2006)
Meticulous worker began his career during the Battle of Britain,
repairing and maintaining the delicate instruments that crowded
the cockpits of his squadron's Hawker Hurricanes
By Buzz BOURDON,
Special▲▼ to the Globe and Mail, Page S9
Ottawa -- Alex
TRIMBLE climbed out of the cockpit of a Hawker
Hurricane fighter aircraft and wiped his brow. Nearby, a dozen
Hurricanes stretched down the airfield, each of them swarmed
by Royal Canadian Air Force technicians intent on servicing their
aircraft for the next flight.
From the fitters who maintained the engines and the riggers who
repaired the airframes, wings and undercarriage, to the men who
fixed the radios plus the armourers who cleaned and loaded each
aircraft's eight.303-inch machine guns, the technicians knew
the pilots of No. 1 (Fighter) Squadron depended on them.
Mr. TRIMBLE had a vital job of his own. Known for his painstaking
accuracy, he was an instrument maker, responsible for repairing
and maintaining the dozen or so delicate instruments that crowded
each Hurricane cockpit.
Speedometer, tachometer, oil-pressure gauge, air-pressure gauge,
compass -- every instrument had to be in perfect working order
because a pilot's life could depend on it, especially when flying
blind in clouds.
The Royal Canadian Air Force regarded servicing extremely seriously.
"Before a plane can take off, a chart has to be signed by eight
different men, including the five airmen in charge of the main
ground jobs, and the flight sergeant," said a newspaper story
entitled Ground Men Playing Vital Roles In War. "As a result,
accidents from mechanical faults seldom occur and when a pilot
sets out on a sweep across northern France he can be reasonably
certain that if he doesn't get in the way of enemy guns he'll
come safely back to his base."
Despite a lack of formal recognition -- ground crew weren't entitled
to a campaign star, like the Aircrew Europe Star awarded after
the war to aircrew -- Mr.
TRIMBLE enjoyed his job. He knew his
pilots as human beings, since he strapped them into their cockpits
and wished them good hunting before taking off. Scanning the
sky anxiously, Mr.
TRIMBLE was there for them when they returned,
physically and emotionally drained after combat.
A key member of the only Royal Canadian Air Force squadron to
participate in the epic Battle of Britain, fought from July 10 to
October 31, 1940, Mr.
TRIMBLE watched history being made in the
skies over Britain that hot summer of perfect weather as the
German Luftwaffe tried to destroy the Royal Air Force as a prelude
to invasion. Over all, 105 Canadian pilots flew in the Battle
of Britain, 77 with the Royal Air Force and 28 with No. 1 Squadron.
Organized in 1937 at Royal Canadian Air Force Station Trenton,
Ontario, No. 1 Squadron and its Hurricanes were mobilized on
September 10, 1939, the day Canada declared war against Germany.
In May, 1940, No. 1 absorbed No. 115 (Fighter) Squadron and moved
to Britain.
On August 26, No. 1 Squadron engaged the Luftwaffe for the first
time when 10 Hurricanes scrambled against a force of 25 to 30 bombers.
Flight Lieutenant G.R.
McGREGOR destroyed a Dornier Do. 215 and
Flying Officer T.B.
LITTLE was awarded a bomber probably destroyed.
Flying Officer R.L.
EDWARDS was killed.
It had been quite a day for Squadron Leader Ernie
McNAB and his
pilots. His unit was the first Royal Canadian Air Force squadron
to score victories, suffer combat casualties and win gallantry
awards. On March 1, 1941, No. 1 was renumbered as 401 Squadron
after the Royal Canadian Air Force was awarded the 400-block
series of numbers.
For Mr. TRIMBLE and his comrades, life during the Battle of Britain
was hectic. Described as unsung heroes for their dedication,
ground crew worked long hours -- often starting before dawn and
finishing after midnight -- but the bright lights of London also
beckoned, with its "tonight we live for tomorrow we may die"
atmosphere.
In 1941, Mr.
TRIMBLE was at a party when he spied a pretty girl.
Sparks ignited and he asked Isobel
KIRKPATRICK to dance. That
was the beginning of a whirlwind romance that ended in marriage
a year later, on March 17, 1941.
"It must have been the uniform. We danced, we dated, he got posted
then came back. It was war time and we didn't know what tomorrow
would bring," said Mrs.
TRIMBLE. "It was love at first sight.
He was a handsome lad, had a great sense of humour, a wonderful
personality."
Alex TRIMBLE joined the Royal Canadian Air Force the day after
Canada declared war on Nazi Germany on September 10, 1939. After
training in Ottawa, he was sent to No. 115 (Fighter) Squadron.
On August 25, 1941, he was posted to the newly formed 408 Squadron.
A month later, he was promoted to sergeant, just 24 months after
first enlisting. Mr.
TRIMBLE spent the next two years in charge
of 408's instrument section. Formed as the second Royal Canadian
Air Force bomber squadron overseas, 408 attacked targets all
over Europe with its Hampden and Halifax bombers.
After the war, Mr.
TRIMBLE remained in the Royal Canadian Air
Force. He served from 1948 to 1956 with 412 (Transport) Squadron,
based at Royal Canadian Air Force Station Uplands, in Ottawa,
in command of the instrument and electrical sections. Then, as
now, 412 is known as the "V.I.P. squadron," flying prime ministers,
governors-general and the royal family. It was the golden era
of the Royal Canadian Air Force, which soon reached 52,000 men
and women and 2,000 aircraft.
In 1956, Mr.
TRIMBLE became an officer, specializing in aeronautical
engineering. He and his family spent three years in France before
going to air force headquarters in 1959. He retired in 1968 as
a captain and bought a 100-acre farm in Lanark County, Ontario,
in 1973.
Gail PROUDE of Ottawa remembers family life with her father during
the 1950s with affection. "He went to work every day and every
night the family sat down for supper together. Afterwards, Ann
and I did the dishes and Mom and Dad would retire to the living
room and read the paper. Families established their parameters
and kids followed the rules, for the most part. It was a secure
time."
Known as an organized, meticulous man, Mr.
TRIMBLE loved repairing
clocks and watches. "[It] became his hobby when we kids were
all very young. He used to tell us that whatever money he made&hellip
he used it to put gas in the car," said Mrs.
PROUDE. He continued
his repair work for a jewellery store in Perth, Ontario, until
Alexander George
TRIMBLE was born on September 3, 1920, in Ottawa.
He died of heart disease on April 11, in Perth, Ontario He was
85. He is survived by his wife, Isobel, his son Gordon, his daughters
Gail and Ann, six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
B... Names BO... Names BOU... Names Welcome Home
BOURDON o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2006-07-14 published
Ormond HOPKINS,
Chaplain
General (1925-2006)
Military padre who compared his job to being a mosquito in a
nudist colony spent more than 30 years ministering to troops
By Buzz BOURDON,
Special▲▼ to The Globe and Mail, Page S7
Ottawa -- Serving in Egypt 50 years ago was an eye-opener for
Ormond HOPKINS, a padre with the Royal Canadian Army Chaplain
Corps. Not only did he have to cope with the heat, sand and flies,
he also had to adjust to the local culture.
On New Year's Eve, 1956, Mr.
HOPKINS, an Anglican priest known
as Hoppy to his Friends, had the opportunity of observing Egyptian
culture at close range. The brass had booked two belly dancers
from Cairo to entertain Canadian troops and, as a man of the
cloth, he felt obliged to protest the salacious nature of the
festivities. His appeal made no impression. His Catholic colleague,
Father Schmidt, left in "great disgust."
For his part, Mr.
HOPKINS decided to apply the hoary old adage,
"if you can't beat them, join them!" After the dancers had completed
their performance, they were escorted to the officers' mess to
change out of their costumes. Mr.
HOPKINS and another officer
put their heads together and decided a second show was in order.
"[We] donned the belly dancers' costumes and jewellery, and after
bathing Father Schmidt with their musk [the effect was akin to
being sprayed by a skunk], we tripped into the mess on stiletto
heels," wrote Mr.
HOPKINS decades later in a family memoir.
The effect on the troops and their guests was electrifying. "The
Egyptians screamed like banshees, and went for Herb and me, grasping
at our most vulnerable parts. Until they were restrained, I am
told that I performed a hilarious version of the Highland fling."
It was 1957, and Mr.
HOPKINS was one of 800 Canadians sent to
the Sinai Desert as part of the United Nations Emergency Force
to secure and supervise a ceasefire between the Egypt and Israel.
While in the Middle East, he travelled around the Holy Land and
saw Mount Sinai, the Mount of the Beatitudes and St. Catherine's
Monastery. But what he found most meaningful, regarding his faith,
"was to walk the walk which He had walked."
Ormond HOPKINS grew up on his family's 40-hectare farm near Perth,
Ontario, during the hard years of the Depression. After graduating
with honours from Bishop's University in Lennoxville, Quebec,
he was ordained an Anglican deacon in 1949. He served as a curate
at St. Matthias's Church in Ottawa, until he joined the army
in April, 1953.
Seven months later, Mr.
HOPKINS found himself in Korea, ministering
to the tough gunners of 4th Regiment, Royal Canadian Horse Artillery.
The ceasefire between United Nations forces and North Korea had
been signed on July 27, after three years of fighting up and
down the Korean Peninsula.
Mr. Ormond wasn't prepared for the "terrible devastation [and]
dire poverty" he found. "Everything constructed of brick or stone
had been levelled. Pusan was a city of huts constructed from
metal ration containers. The stench was so high that you could
smell the city from 10 miles away."
Retired lieutenant-colonel Scotty Lamb of St. Albert, Alberta.,
met Mr. HOPKINS when they were working at a hospital in Japan,
before Mr.
HOPKINS went to Korea. They remained close Friends
for 50 years. "He was a very conscientious padre, very popular
with the troops. He mixed with them quite well. He had the unique
ability of reaching people."
Famous for delivering his sermons in a booming voice, Mr.
HOPKINS
had a clarity and certainty of faith, said his daughter Sareena.
"When it came to his role as a chaplain, he saw no conflict between
his Christian values and military service. This never wavered.
My father believed strongly in justice and democracy and was
a realist -- he was certain that military weakness would leave
Canada vulnerable."
During the 1960s and 1970s, Mr.
HOPKINS served at bases across
Canada and
in Germany. Busy seven days a week conducting services,
writing sermons, supervising church committees, ministering to
the sick and dying, going on field exercises with the troops,
Mr. HOPKINS also counselled the suicidal and helped save marriages.
"[He also] carried the heavy burden of informing a soldier that
their parent, spouse, or worst of all, child, had died, and getting
them through that terrible time. He did this literally hundreds
of times," said Mr.
HOPKINS's son, Michael.
Canon Bill
FAIRLIE of Ottawa's Christ Church Cathedral met Mr.
HOPKINS
when the latter was serving in Germany, from 1972-76. "He was
a very capable churchman, [and] a very able soldier. He was very
colourful, with quick wit. He loved a good party with interesting
people. He was extremely loyal to the military, but he wasn't
afraid to criticize it when necessary."
In 1981, Mr.
HOPKINS was promoted to brigadier-general and appointed
Chaplain General (Protestant) of the Canadian Forces. Suddenly,
he was responsible to the chief of the defence staff for the
moral and spiritual well-being of Protestant personnel in all
the different branches of the military.
That was a big job, to say the least. He visited every base and
station, supervised the 150-plus regular and reserve chaplains,
and related pastorally to the troops. Mr.
HOPKINS also officiated
at military investitures at Rideau Hall and the national Remembrance
Day observances in Ottawa. He also "argued vigorously, and I
believe convincingly, for the centrality of moral and spiritual
values in the definition of Canada's military ethos."
Mr. HOPKINS relished the challenges he faced in an increasingly
secular world and was fond of comparing it to being a mosquito
in a nudist colony. "We have unlimited pastoral opportunity,"
he said in 1983. "A civilian rector can't go into the factories
or offices where his parishioners work and join them in their
coffee breaks and go and live with them as we do."
Religious pluralism was also an important feature of Mr.
HOPKINS's
job. "In our caring ministry, religious doctrine and tradition
are seldom factors, but in the ongoing life of worship and Christian
nurture this is something that places limitations on us and tests
our skills and ingenuity."
In 1981, Mr.
HOPKINS was made an officer of the Order of Military
Merit. Three years later, he retired from the Canadian Forces
after 32 years of service. Too young to retire for good, he spent
the next 10 years as rector of the parish of Bradford, Ontario,
where he succeeded in doubling his congregation. As a result,
he was named Bradford's first-ever Citizen of the Year.
"He also, in very quiet ways, touched many individuals and families.
Often, in the middle of the night [he helped] someone in distress
and many credit him for their lives. Dad was a rare combination
of a strong and effective leader, someone with the gift of walking
quietly through troubled times," said Sareena
HOPKINS.
Ormond Archibald
HOPKINS was born on August 18, 1925, in Perth,
Ontario He died as a result of complications from an aneurysm
on May 15, 2006, in Ottawa. He was 80. He leaves his wife, Ernestine,
daughter Sareena and son Michael.
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BOURDON o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2006-07-17 published
Bill WATERTON,
Test
Pilot (1916-2006)
Former Royal Air Force flier was Canada's most internationally
famous and accomplished test pilot, yet, 'to this day, he remains
virtually unrecognized in this country'
By Buzz BOURDON,
Special▲▼ to the Globe and Mail, Page S8
Ottawa -- Diving over the Arc de Triomphe and down the Champs
Élysées just 15 metres above the pavement, Bill
WATERTON thrilled
a huge French crowd gazing in admiration at his Gloster Meteor IV
jet, then the world's fastest aircraft.
Flying more than 1,000 kilometres an hour over Paris on January 15,
1947, in a publicity stunt staged by his employer, the Gloster
Aircraft
Company,
Mr.
WATERTON, one of the world's top test pilots,
added some upward rolls and inverted climbs for good measure.
There was no margin for error, wrote Mr.
WATERTON in his 1956
autobiography, The Quick and the Dead. "The slightest error could
mean the slaughter of spectators as the Meteor fell among them.
Timing and precision were essential. The row must have been frightful
as the Meteor shrieked over the city. For blurred split seconds
I glimpsed upturned faces."
Flying around the Eiffel Tower, Mr.
WATERTON, a Canadian who
flew with the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, was
close enough to see people waving at him. "But with an icy stab
of fear I suddenly saw the sloping, almost invisible steel cables
which guy the tower. In dropping my height to fly around the
tower, I had missed one by no more than 12 feet. A bit closer
and the steel rope would have sheared off a wing as easily as
a hot knife slices butter."
The next morning, Mr.
WATERTON climbed back into his twin-engine
Meteor. "As I left the ground, things fell into their usual pattern:
as though I had been given a powerful shot in the arm, tiredness
and tenseness vanished, my brain was clear and my hand steady,
and only one solitary butterfly flapped in my stomach -- the
worry of possible failure."
He didn't fail, though. In just 20 minutes and 11 seconds, Mr.
WATERTON
established a new Paris-to-London speed record. His boss congratulated
him with typical English understatement. "[He] shook my hand
and said, 'Jolly good show,
WATERTON.' I went to the pictures."
Bill WATERTON saw his first aircraft when he was 3. "I heard
a noise. I looked up and there was an airplane. It was silver
and blue, a Stinson biplane," he said in 2003. When he was 16,
he paid two dollars in Camrose, Alberta., to take his first flight.
He was hooked.
After two years at the Royal Military College of Canada, Mr.
WATERTON
went to Britain, took flying lessons and joined the Royal Air
Force on June 10, 1939. Three months later, Canada declared war
on Nazi Germany.
Posted to No. 242 (Canadian) Squadron, Mr.
WATERTON flew in the
Battle of France until he suffered severe head injuries on May 25,
1940, when he crash landed his Hurricane fighter near Dover.
While instructing pilot trainees in Canada in 1942, he was awarded
the Air Force Cross for "acts of gallantry for fighting with
the Royal Air Force."
Things took off for Mr.
WATERTON in 1946 when he was posted to
the Royal Air Force's High Speed Flight, a group that was determined
to keep the world's speed record in Britain. On September 7,
despite an attempt by Royal Aero Club officials to disqualify
him because he was Canadian, Mr.
WATERTON flew his Meteor at
an average speed of 988 km/h.
A defective port aileron forced him to "jam my left arm like
a rod between the side of the cockpit and the stick. As long
as my palm, wrist and arm held out, the 'plane could not alter
course to the left. At 605 miles an hour, the agony was indescribable.
It seemed as though every bone from the tip of my elbow to the
palm of my hand was in the grip of a giant, remorseless nutcracker:
this in addition to the spine-jarring bounce of the bucking aircraft."
He was awarded a second Air Force Cross. Five weeks later, he
joined the Gloster Aircraft Company as a test pilot. Over the
next seven years, Mr.
WATERTON, the picture of a fighter pilot
with his huge, upswept mustache, flew into aviation history by
setting speed records and making the first flights of several
new aircraft. The jet era was just getting airborne and test
pilots quickly became heroes to a British public looking for
excitement.
The tiny fraternity, which included Mr.
WATERTON,
John
Derry,
Neville Duke and John Cunningham, had all been war-time Royal
Air Force pilots. They appeared almost daily in newspapers and
newsreels and became household names.
"The sounds were different, the speeds were different, the rate
of climb -- it was absolutely new. People just never experienced
it before. The stars of the new jet age were the test pilots.
Thousands flocked to see them and their records grabbed the headlines.
Their achievements shaped the modern world of aviation," said
a 1998 British Broadcasting Corporation documentary.
Test piloting, described by Mr.
WATERTON as 'suck it and see,'
required "a good pair of hands and you had to use all your senses
sound, vision, feel, like the old days of flying by the seat
of your pants. There was always an unknown with a new airplane,"
he once told the British Broadcasting Corporation. "You never
knew what the hell was going to happen next. Hydraulic failure
meant you had to belly land the thing at 150 mph, you got engine
failure, you got high temperature, it was new ground you were
breaking."
On June 2, 1952, Mr.
WATERTON survived a spectacular crash of
the prototype Javelin, the world's first twin-engine delta wing
fighter. He found himself trapped in the cockpit as his fuel
tanks exploded. "I banged around like a man gone mad. I cursed,
pressed buttons, pulled, tugged and heaved -- but nothing would
yield. Neither the jettison handle nor the canopy would give
a fraction of an inch."
Nevertheless, he got out and managed to rescue the aircraft's
data package, for which he was awarded a George Medal on July 29,
"for exemplary behaviour and outstanding courage beyond the call
of duty." He was one of only 30 Canadians to receive the medal.
But Mr. WATERTON's fierce integrity made him many enemies in
the aircraft industry, both in Britain and
in Canada, where he
returned in 1949 after an absence of 11 years to fly the prototype
Avro CF-100 Canuck all-weather interceptor, the first fighter
designed and built in Canada.
Some
Avro employees disliked the flamboyant Mr.
WATERTON. He
found he couldn't win on either side of the Atlantic. "In postwar
Britain, he could never be more than an energetic, temporarily
useful colonial. To Canadian eyes and ears he also seemed foreign
more British than the British," wrote author Sean Rossiter.
Fellow test pilot Richard
BENTHAM, of Flesherton, Ontario, believes
that Mr. WATERTON "set the bar for human courage. His career
was marked by his turbulent personality. Tact was not his strong
suit. He did not play the game… he told it like it was."
While some aviation colleagues disliked his outspoken manner,
he was Canada's most internationally famous and accomplished
test pilot, Mr.
BENTHAM added. "No one else even approached his
record of achievement. To this day, he remains virtually unrecognized
in this country."
In 1954, Mr.
WATERTON quit Gloster after seven years as its chief
test pilot. He felt underpaid and was disillusioned with the
Javelin and the British aircraft industry. For the next three
years, he reported on aviation for the Daily Express, but the
newspaper fired him after his controversial autobiography was
published. The aircraft companies had stopped buying ad space.
Mr. WATERTON's son, William, believes his father was brought
up to be honourable and honest, and that he tried to apply the
same standards to the air industry.
"I think he never really realized, when he left the Royal Air
Force and went to private industry, that he was working for big
business, where money many times overrides safety," he said.
"He refused to compromise the safety of the aircraft."
He said his father also treated everyone equally, "from the factory
sweeper, to the barons of industry, which didn't make him Friends."
After returning to Canada in 1957, Mr.
WATERTON spent the rest
of his life near Owen Sound, Ontario He never forgot the thrill
of flight, though -- just himself and his aircraft. "One of the
great things of flying is just looking at the countryside in
the evening when the air is calm."
William Arthur
WATERTON was born on March 18, 1916, in Edmonton,
Alberta. He died of natural causes on April 17 in Owen Sound,
Ontario He was 90. He leaves his wife Marjorie, sons William
and John and stepdaughter Karen.
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BOURDON o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2006-10-02 published
Paul MAYER,
Soldier And
Civil
Servant (1916-2006)
He survived the Second World War and the wrath of King George
to almost lose his life to a Congolese rebel
By Buzz BOURDON,
Special▲▼ to the Globe and Mail, Page S9
Ottawa -- On January 27, 1964, Paul
MAYER thought he was a dead
man. Surrounded by Congolese rebels intent on slaughtering as
many whites as possible in Kwilu Province, he was clubbed unconscious
for trying to arrange the release of eight missionary nuns and
a priest. As a lieutenant-colonel in the Regiment of Canadian
Guards serving with the United Nations, he had already rescued
two nuns and three priests.
When he regained consciousness, Mr.
MAYER found a native council
arguing the case for killing him on the spot. A member of the
Jeunesse, a fanatical rebel army, stuck a pistol in his stomach
and pulled the trigger. Click. There was no round in the chamber.
Enraged, the fanatic pulled the trigger again. Another click.
"He looked at the pistol, spat on it then slammed it against
the side of my head. My ears rang like cathedral bells. Finally,
he threw it on the ground. I could not believe my luck; there
were another nine rounds in the magazine of the pistol, but he
did not know how to work the slide," Mr.
MAYER wrote in his 2006
autobiography I've Had a Good Innings.
But his ordeal wasn't over yet. Walking toward his helicopter,
Mr. MAYER was struck from behind and knocked to the ground. A religious
man, he called to God for help. "I had no one else to turn to.
I said as loud as I could, 'Dear Lord, please help me,' and oh
boy, did I ever mean it. I will swear to my dying day that I
felt a friendly hand touch my shoulder and grip it as if to say,
'Go on, get up, it's going to be all right.' "
Mr. MAYER climbed into his helicopter and took off. He was safe
and so were the missionaries. He was just doing his job. Sent
to Congo in 1963 after rebellion broke out, he commanded the
United Nations Airborne Rescue Force of 900 men. For saving more
than 100 teachers and missionaries, plus almost 500 children,
he was later decorated with the George Medal.
Paul MAYER, a scion of a family that first served the Crown in
1689, grew up a privileged member of the English upper-middle
classes. His father was a colonel in the Royal Field Artillery
and his mother was a French countess and "tempestuous diva" who
could sing 32 operas in five languages. Destined for the British
army, Mr. MAYER was forced to change his plans when at 17 he
fell seriously ill. Advised to seek a better climate, he moved
to Ontario and worked on a dairy farm, soon regaining his health.
In 1938, sensing that war with Germany was certain, Mr.
MAYER
joined the Algonquin Regiment. Seven days after Canada declared
war on Germany on September 10, 1939, he was commissioned as
an officer. He was later sent to England.
Training for war was serious, but there were a few light moments.
On September 9, 1943, Mr.
MAYER wrote, he drove his jeep onto
a beautifully manicured lawn, where it got stuck. A group of
men standing nearby shook their heads sadly. One of them was
King George VI. Mr.
MAYER had driven his jeep onto the King's
croquet lawn at Sandringham. "Well, yyyoung man, you've bbbuggered
up my croquet lawn," said the King in his well-known stutter.
After the Allies invaded Europe on June 6, 1944, Mr.
MAYER commanded
a company of the Algonquin Regiment in action in France, Belgium,
Holland and into Germany.
Mr. MAYER remained in the army after the war, serving in Korea
with the 1st Commonwealth Division and the 25th Canadian Infantry
Brigade. He was made a member of the Order of the British Empire
for his work in intelligence, one of 17 decorations and medals
he received from Canada, Britain, France and Belgium.
Mr. MAYER transferred to the Canadian Guards when that short-lived
regiment was founded on October 16, 1953. One of his fellow officers,
retired major-general G.R.
CHERITON of Ottawa, remembers him
well. "He was an unusual man, something of a lone wolf. He gave
a lot of attention to protocol; always understood the proper
thing to do. He was always impeccably dressed."
In 1959, Mr.
MAYER was sent to Indochina as a military adviser
with the International Truce Commission, and once thwarted North
Vietnamese soldiers who tried to confiscate a Canadian diplomatic
bag. President Ho Chi Minh was sympathetic, but advised him to
leave the country. As a parting gift, the president, who confided
"I am only 15 per cent Communist," gave Mr.
MAYER a bronze statue
that had been in his family for 150 years.
By 1965, Mr.
MAYER was a military adviser to the United Nations
Secretary General. He was sent to the Dominican Republic as an
observer. During a golf game, he recalled in his memoir, he was
tipped off that an assassin was waiting for him on the second
green. After a 36-minute trial held that afternoon, Mr.
MAYER
was invited to the luckless assassin's execution an hour later.
He declined the opportunity to deliver the traditional coup-de-grace
to the head.
A few months later, Mr.
MAYER was shot at, at point-blank range,
only to have his cap badge deflect the round. "It took a piece
of my forehead with it and left a dent in my head above my right
eye." In April, 1966, he and his second wife, Ruth, survived
another assassination attempt.
After retiring from the Canadian Forces in 1968, he spent 10 years
with the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank. In 1987,
he married Pamela
McDOUGALL,
Canada's ambassador to Poland from
1968 to 1971.
Paul Augustus
MAYER was born on December 17, 1916, in Santiago,
Chile. He died of natural causes on July 5 in Ottawa. He was
89. He leaves his wife, Pamela, his sister Laura, his granddaughter
Crystal and his grand_son David. His son Owen predeceased him.
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BOURDON o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2006-10-25 published
Don HILLMAN,
Doctor And Educator: (1925-2006)
For 35 years, Don
HILLMAN saved the lives of children in Africa,
Asia and South America -- sometimes from the middle of a shooting
war
By Buzz BOURDON,
Special▲▼ to the Globe and Mail, Page S9
Ottawa -- Pediatrician Don
HILLMAN couldn't contain his excitement
when he arrived home one day in 1969 to tell his wife the big
news. A brand new medical school was to be established at Kenya's
University of Nairobi, and his name had been put forward as the
person to go and help it get off the ground.
Liz HILLMAN, herself a pediatrician, agreed the opportunity was
too good to pass up. Two weeks later, the entire
HILLMAN clan,
including five children under the age of 12, uprooted themselves
from their comfortable home in Montreal and started a new life
half a world away.
Moving to Africa turned out to be a bit of a culture shock, to
say the least. There were lots of things to adapt to over the
next two years, as Doctor
HILLMAN and his wife helped develop the
university's clinical services and establish a teaching hospital,
complete with students in classrooms and on hospital wards, focusing
on the management of disease. The
HILLMANs also came up with
something different. They thought there should be a focus on
the child and family life, on disease prevention and public health.
Dr. HILLMAN helped the university's medical faculty recognize
the importance of health in rural areas, and of alternate sites
for learning.
Those two years in Kenya were just the beginning of Doctor
HILLMAN's
adventures in international child health, a personal crusade
that took him all over the world and made him many Friends, including
hundreds of medical students who saw him not just as their professor,
but as a mentor. Over the years, he was to save the lives of
many children and, by training local doctors, to help the yet
unborn have a fighting chance. Over a period of 35 years, Doctor
HILLMAN
practised medicine and taught in Kenya, Uganda, Kuwait, Zambia,
Tanzania, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, Pakistan, the Philippines,
India and Guyana.
An unassuming man who loved to sing, Doctor
HILLMAN experienced
many adventures during his decades abroad, including at least
six coups d'état in Africa. The first occurred in 1971 when dictator
Idi Amin took over Uganda. Realizing they might have to leave
quickly, the
HILLMANs began wearing fanny packs called "coup
kits" that held their passports and money.
One dark night, Mr.
HILLMAN was told it would be a good idea
to get out of the country and experienced some tense moments
before slipping across an unmarked border crossing to Kenya.
"We escaped under a tarp on a logging truck," recalled Liz
HILLMAN.
"It was fun. We could hear shooting."
On another occasion, Doctor
HILLMAN was forced to leave his wife
alone in their car, which had broken down on a mountain road,
while he walked to find help. "He said he thought he'd seen a
church. I heard shooting in the distance. It was a long five-hour
wait for him [to return]."
In both cases, the children were away at school or elsewhere
in the care of nannies.
Don HILLMAN first studied engineering at McGill University, and
late in the Second World War was commissioned as an officer in
the Royal Canadian Artillery. He spent the last three months
of the war fighting with 7 Medium Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery.
After the war, he switched to medicine and graduated from McGill.
In 1956, he completed a pediatric endocrine fellowship at the
Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He also took time to
get married. Doctor Liz
SLOMAN had known Doctor
HILLMAN briefly in
Montreal three years earlier, when they were both residents at
the Montreal Children's Hospital.
Displaying a decidedly unconventional approach, he had challenged
her to an arm-wrestling contest. "I said, 'What's arm wrestling?'
He showed me. I told him I thought I could beat him and I did!"
As it happened, romance did not bloom -- at least, not then.
"He had lots of girlfriends," she said. "I babysat for his sister's
kid and he asked me out for supper, but nothing else happened."
In November of 1955, they met again in Boston, where she was
interning. The hospital wasn't paying her anything and she'd
run out of money. "I asked him if I could borrow $60. I was very
embarrassed and I didn't like to approach an American. He said
that it was a lot of money and that he'd better come over and
talk about it. He came over and a month later we went up to Montreal
and got married."
By all accounts, the
HILLMANs enjoyed a happy and fruitful life
together, both on the home front and in medicine. Doctor
HILLMAN
was the front man of the team, while his wife used her organizational
skills.
"He was funny, a terrifically good doctor who never frightened
a child in his life. He was very hard working. Mostly, we just
looked after kids together all over the world. It was fun working
together," she said. Naturally, they had the odd disagreement.
"I liked disagreeing with him, but I always did it in private.
We worked it out."
After returning to Montreal in 1957, Doctor
HILLMAN obtained his
doctorate in experimental medicine in clinical investigation
and eventually became associate professor of pediatrics, then
associate dean of postgraduate studies, at McGill.
In 1976, he relocated to Newfoundland's Memorial University,
where he taught pediatrics and headed the Janeway Child Health
Centre. In 1985, he returned to Africa with his wife, teaching
social pediatrics at Makerere University in Uganda. He also established
a child health and development centre. Idi Amin had been deposed
six years earlier and his disastrous regime had pretty much destroyed
the country's infrastructure. There was much to do, so Doctor
HILLMAN
rolled up his sleeves and repaired broken incubators, Land Rovers
and the like.
In 1989, both
HILLMANs went to McMaster University and set up
a child-health component within the International Health Centre.
They weren't there long, however. There were always more students
to teach abroad, and Doctor
HILLMAN went to Laos, Vietnam, and China.
In 1991, he and his wife taught at a medical school in Malaysia.
Believing that prevention is central to child health, they developed
a family medicine department.
In all this, Doctor
HILLMAN also found time to be a regular father.
Jamie HILLMAN remembers a father-and-son sports day at his Cub
Scout camp, when his father's sense of humour cheered up a lot
of small boys. "Our team was getting pretty upset because we
weren't winning anything. I kept dropping my egg, I was crying
and we were getting more and more depressed."
Then came Doctor
HILLMAN's turn to run across the field, balancing
a hard-boiled egg in a spoon. He decided to try and lighten the
atmosphere and taped his egg on with one of the Band-aids he
always carried in his pocket. He ran across the field, wildly
waving the spoon and egg. Of course, he was immediately disqualified,
said Jamie
HILLMAN, but "he raised our spirits."
Dr. Kate Wotton, a former colleague at Newfoundland's Janeway
Hospital, described how Doctor
HILLMAN helped her deal with a case
of child abuse in Davis Inlet. The community had expected the
child's parents to be arrested but instead they continued to
be at large. He "heard me out and asked a few pertinent questions.
He seemed to appreciate what a miscarriage of justice this would
be and how devastating [it would be] in this small community.
Then he asked, 'What can I do?' I was so taken aback, I was,
for a short minute, speechless. I had been hearing so many versions
of, 'It really isn't my problem' that I was totally unprepared
for someone who cared."
In 1994, Doctor
HILLMAN accepted an appointment as professor of
pediatrics, epidemiology and community health at the University
of Ottawa. For 10 years, he and his wife worked on projects in
Pakistan, Kenya, Guyana, India and the Philippines. They also
served as consultants in eight other countries.
In 2005, both
HILLMANs were awarded a fellowship by the Royal
College of Physicians and Surgeons, allowing them to return to
Africa to reassess Canadian university contributions to child
health.
Over the years, Doctor
HILLMAN received many awards, including the
Order of Canada in 1994. Doctor Liz
HILLMAN also received the order
at the same time.
Donald Arthur
HILLMAN was born on June 25, 1925, in Montreal.
He died in Ottawa on July 4, 2006, from complications from asthma.
He was 81. He leaves his wife Elizabeth, his sons Jamie, Don
and Alan, daughters Alison and Elizabeth, and his sister Elizabeth.
On October 15, colleagues paid tribute to Doctor
HILLMAN during
a medical conference in Ottawa.
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BOURDON o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2006-11-06 published
Gordon MOORE,
Airman (1925-2006)
Royal Canadian Air Force tail gunner claimed he won the Distinguished
Flying Cross for saving his Lancaster, and buzzed Buckingham
Palace into the bargain
By Buzz BOURDON,
Special▲▼ to the Globe and Mail, Page S9
Ottawa -- Gordon
MOORE spent a lifetime dining out on a yarn
that told how he won the Distinguished Flying Cross in the Royal
Canadian Air Force during the Second World War. While winning
such a medal was not unusual, he was a not a pilot but a tail
gunner in a Lancaster.
This is the story he liked to tell: Flying home one dark night
from one of the 64 bombing missions he flew over the German Reich,
Mr. MOORE fired his guns at the Luftwaffe fighters attacking
his stream of Lancasters. A few moments later, the bomber flying
in front of his aircraft blew up and debris from the explosion
shattered the cockpit windows and wounded the pilot. Mr.
MOORE
said he had some experience at the controls and, knowing this,
the pilot called for help. Mr.
MOORE snaked his way forward along
the narrow fuselage, took over the controls, and managed to keep
the aircraft in the air, putting it down safely at an airfield
near London. Mr.
MOORE even said he buzzed Buckingham Palace,
though it had happened only because the plane was far off course.
Mr. MOORE liked to tell his Friends that he and his wife, Helen,
had an audience with the Queen Mother years later. The incident
came up and the Queen Mother said she recalled the low-flying
Lancaster.
According to him, they also met in Toronto. During a Royal tour,
he was a policeman on guard duty at the Royal York Hotel when
she happened past. He said she did a double take and turned in
surprise. "Gord?" she asked. "Is that you?"
Gordon MOORE grew up in Toronto during the Depression. After
joining the Royal Canadian Air Force, he trained in Canada as
an air gunner and was eventually posted to 428 Squadron. A diminutive
five foot, three inches tall, Mr.
MOORE was just the right size
to fit in the turret. Once he climbed inside, dressed in his
heavy flying suit, complete with parachute and harness, there
was little room to move around.
Scanning the skies though panels of clear Perspex, Mr.
MOORE
strained his eyes to get the jump on high-speed German fighters.
He learned how to lead his target, because if he fired directly
at an aircraft then it was long gone when his stream of bullets
arrived. Even so, he never managed to shoot down any enemy aircraft.
Years later, he told his Friends that he was awarded the Distinguished
Flying Cross for saving the Lancaster. An exhaustive check of
the Royal Canadian Air Force association's web site, which is
equivalent in length to 5,000 pages, did not support his claim.
His name does not appear and, as an enlisted man, he would have
won the Distinguished Flying Medal. The Distinguished Flying
Cross was for officers.
Mr. MOORE never gloated about the Germans his Lancaster's bombs
had killed or wounded. To him, it was a terrible, yet necessary
job that had to be done. After reaching England and safety, he
would sit in his turret for about 30 minutes, praying for the
people he had helped kill, his friend Shelley
HILL said.
After the war, Mr.
MOORE joined the Toronto police force, where
he continued to live an adventurous life as a sergeant in the
traffic division. He later told how, in 1952, he had a hand in
capturing the Boyd gang. Eddie
BOYD and his boys had terrorized
Toronto banks for almost five years. They also managed to escape
twice from the Don Jail. Mr.
MOORE's cousin, a police detective
working on the manhunt, got a tip that the gang was hiding in
the Don River valley. Mr.
MOORE told his cousin he'd help find
him if he could tag along. The cousins agreed and Mr.
MOORE was
present when police arrested the gang. Two of its members were
hanged for murder, while Mr.
BOYD got 14 years.
Years later, Mr.
MOORE and his wife were vacationing in Victoria
when he spotted someone who looked like Eddie
BOYD. "
He's done
his time," he told his wife. "Let's invite him over for a coffee."
During the 1950s, decades before Canada abolished the death penalty,
Mr. MOORE claimed to have spent time with three condemned prisoners.
One wanted to play cribbage to pass his final hours on Earth,
so Mr. MOORE obliged. When asked if he let the condemned man
win, he replied no: "He had to earn it."
After retiring from the police, Mr.
MOORE became a glass engraver.
He then built furniture, also refinishing it. After undergoing
successful triple bypass surgery in 1993, he decided to show
his gratitude to London, Ontario's University Hospital by giving
it money.
Over the years, Mr.
MOORE and his wife gave between $100,000 and
$500,000 to the London Health Sciences Foundation. "He was an
exceptional gentleman," the foundation's Colleen
DEJAGER told
the London Free Press. "He liked recognition for what he had
done. He loved telling stories, but he was a modest man, too."
Gordon Ross
MOORE was born in Toronto in 1925. He died of internal
bleeding on August 18, 2006, in London, Ontario He was 81. He
is survived by his wife, Helen, and his sister Barbara.
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BOURDON o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2006-11-07 published
Jack ARMSTRONG,
Soldier And Administrator: (1915-2006)
Sergeant came back from the 'dead' after the disastrous raid
on Dieppe
By Buzz BOURDON,
Special▲▼ to the Globe and Mail, Page S9
Ottawa -- Jack
ARMSTRONG was so busy tending to the survivors
of the bloody battle of Dieppe that he forgot to make sure his
own name was added to the list of those who made it back from
the ill-fated 1942 raid.
A few days later, his fiancé, Ruby
WAY of Ottawa, received the
telegram every Canadian family dreaded getting during the Second
World
War. It informed her that Sergeant Jack
ARMSTRONG of the
Corps of Military Staff Clerks was missing, presumed dead.
If that wasn't traumatic enough, Ottawa's daily newspapers published
his name, plus his photograph, in their casualty lists. The pair
had become engaged two years earlier when Mr.
ARMSTRONG shipped
out to Britain in 1940.
But Mr. ARMSTRONG wasn't dead, as his fiancé found out to her
joy soon after. He had simply slipped through the cracks of army
administration, which sometimes happened in an era when a forest
of paperwork engulfed Canada's fighting services. Ironically,
Mr. ARMSTRONG himself was an experienced army administrator.
At the end of the Dieppe raid, Mr.
ARMSTRONG moved carefully
from soldier to soldier lying on the deck of HMS Calpe as
the ship steamed for England and safety. Many of the soldiers
were badly wounded and delirious from pain. Mr.
ARMSTRONG took
names and tried his best to find out who was still in France,
either as a prisoner or as a corpse.
After the smoke had cleared on August 19, 1942, more than 900 Canadians
from the untested 2nd Canadian Infantry Division lay dead on
and near the stony beach of Dieppe out of the 4,963 who crossed
the English Channel in Operation Jubilee. Almost 2,000 had been
taken prisoner. Only 2,210 returned to England, many of them
wounded.
Championed by Chief of Combined Operations Lord Louis Mountbatten,
the raid's purpose was to see if it was possible to seize the
northern French port of Dieppe, hold it for a few hours and assess
the German response.
Although his job was to watch and wait, Mr.
ARMSTRONG came under
fire as he stood on the Calpe's deck. The Royal Navy ship played
host to the commander of the 2nd Division, Major-General J.H.
Roberts, and the staff of his headquarters, where Mr.
ARMSTRONG
worked.
German aircraft tried to sink the Calpe and several men standing
near Mr. ARMSTRONG on deck were hit, he told his son Charles
many years later. "He said the British captain knew what he was
doing and he saved [their] lives by zigzagging," said Charles
ARMSTRONG.
Mr. ARMSTRONG remained haunted by the disastrous battle for the
rest of his life, although he never talked about it. Once a year,
though, on its anniversary, he told his son: "This is the day
that Canadians shouldn't forget."
Jack ARMSTRONG grew up in Montreal and Ottawa. By the time he
was 16, he had lost both his parents and found himself on his
own at the beginning of the Depression. Determined to make something
of himself, he went to school, played the trumpet with the Ottawa
Boys' Band and served with the Royal Canadian Artillery from
1931 to 1935.
After graduating from the High School of Commerce in Ottawa,
Mr. ARMSTRONG displayed the fierce independence he was known
for when he turned down a generous offer that would have seen
him study medicine, all expenses paid. Instead, he got a job
with a printing company. Ten weeks after Canada declared war
against Germany on September 10, 1939, he joined the army.
It didn't take long for the brass to see that Mr.
ARMSTRONG had
potential. Seven months after enlisting, he was a sergeant. For
his war service, Mr.
ARMSTRONG was made a member of the Order
of the British Empire. By the order of King George VI, Quarter-Master
Sergeant ARMSTRONG was also mentioned in dispatches on March 22,
1945, "for distinguished service." Britain's secretary of state
for war was "charged to record His Majesty's high appreciation."
After being released from the army in October, 1945, with the
rank of Warrant Officer Class One, he decided seven months later
to re-enlist and make a career of it. Canada's huge wartime military
had been ruthlessly cut, though, so Mr.
ARMSTRONG had to start
at the bottom as a private again. A week or two later, he was
made a staff sergeant. In December, 1952, Mr.
ARMSTRONG was commissioned
as an officer in the Royal Canadian Army Service Corps. He served
15 years in staff appointments in Ottawa and Kingston before
retiring in 1967 as a captain. He spent the next 10 years as
an administrator at Queen's University's student health service.
Mr. ARMSTRONG's daughter Cynthia remembers her father as a proud
soldier who taught her useful things. "Even though I was a girl,
he wanted me to learn skills so I wasn't dependent on others
for every little thing. For example, he taught me to change fuses,
change a tire on a car, take a fish off a hook, fix the chain
on my bike. He taught me not to waste food because he knew what
it was like to go without."
An ardent fisherman and hunter who loved the outdoors, sailing
and curling, Mr.
ARMSTRONG was also "defiant about maintaining
his independence. He never asked for help. He did things his
way and if there was a hard way of doing it, he'd do it," said
Charles ARMSTRONG.
In August, 1962, Mr.
ARMSTRONG, resplendent in his uniform complete
with seven medals, decided to attend his son Charles' graduation
parade. The latter had joined the Princess of Wales' Regiment
and had done well enough to be picked to command the parade.
"He's a captain and people were saluting him. He told me that
he was proud of me. That day is still very vivid to me. He was
slow to give praise but when we got it we felt good."
John William
ARMSTRONG was born on February 7, 1915, in Barrie,
Ontario He died of a stroke on May 12, 2006, in Ottawa. He was
91. He is survived by his daughter Cynthia and his sons Charles,
John and Robert. His wife Ruby died in 1989.
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BOURDON o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2006-11-08 published
John ORTON,
Gunner (1918-2006)
After seeing fierce fighting in the Italian campaign, he made
the army his career
By Buzz BOURDON,
Special▲▼ to The Globe and Mail, Page S7
Ottawa -- Growing up during the 1920s in rural Alberta, John
ORTON lived an innocent, idyllic life where there was world enough,
and time, to swim, take long walks, get to know his neighbours
and learn about the wonder of nature.
Mr. ORTON, whose father was the Anglican clergyman of Saint Mark's
Church, lived in Innisfail, a small prairie town of 1,200, which
boasted more horses than cars. It was a world away from the cauldron
of total war where he flourished 20 years later, winning the
Military Cross.
About 30 minutes after reporting to the Royal Military College
of Canada, in Kingston, Ontario, Mr.
ORTON and the 41 other recruits
of the class of 1940 learned that they were a "very low form
of life." The upperclassmen, resplendent in their perfectly tailored
uniforms and pillbox caps, were determined to turn those scruffy
recruits into officers and gentlemen. Discipline could be harsh
and the standards the newly minted gentlemen cadets were obliged
to meet were high.
Mr. ORTON -- destined for the Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery
quickly adjusted to the frantic pace of life, which started
at 5 a.m., finishing 17 hours later. With defaulters' parade,
room inspections, sports, parade-square drill and classes, the
class of 1940 was run ragged.
Canada declared war on Germany on September 10, 1939. By August,
1941, Mr. ORTON was in Britain.
He finally reached the fighting, in January, 1944, when he was
posted to 2nd Field Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery, in Italy.
For the next 14 months, 2nd Field supported the infantry in chasing
the Germans up the Italian peninsula in dozens of actions, both
big and small. Mr.
ORTON also acted as a forward observation
officer with the 1st Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment, a dangerous
and solitary job that saw him direct artillery fire on enemy
positions.
At Pontecorvo, in May, 1944, Mr.
ORTON's 25-pounder guns fired
500 rounds per gun during the attack on the heavily defended
Hitler Line. The Gothic Line was next, with the Germans mounting
a "bitter and savage opposition," Mr.
ORTON wrote. One day saw
"4,000 rounds [fired] between 1600 hours and 2000 hours."
For his gallantry in action, Mr.
ORTON was awarded the Military
Cross on July 30, 1944.
Fighting a modern war as an artillery officer was mentally gruelling
for him, since he was required to calculate complex fire plans
to place his rounds exactly where they were needed. An error
could mean his shells landing on Canadian troops. It was a long,
deadly campaign -- made miserable with rain and mud -- as town
after town fell to the Canadians.
At war's end, Mr.
ORTON decided to stay in the army. In October,
1950, he was appointed second-in-command of 2nd Regiment, Royal
Canadian Horse Artillery for its year-long tour of duty in Korea.
For one memorable month, he commanded the regiment when the commanding
officer was away. For his service, he was made a member of the
Order of the British Empire.
Another highlight quickly followed. On June 2, 1953, Mr.
ORTON
along with three other officers from 2 Royal Canadian Horse
Artillery -- formed a mounted escort in the Commonwealth contingent
for the Queen when she travelled to Westminster Abbey for her
coronation.
After commanding 3rd Regiment, Royal Canadian Horse Artillery
in Canada and Germany from 1957 to 1961, Mr.
ORTON was appointed
base commander of Canadian Forces Base Shilo, Manitoba, in the
late 1960s. He was also commandant of the Royal Canadian School
of Artillery.
Carol SUTHERLAND-
BROWN remembers her father as a social man who
liked to help people. Since he was a gunner, he was also very
organized. "My Dad believed any problem could be solved by plotting
and graphing it. Whenever I had life challenges, he was there
to plot and graph them out and take care of all logistics. My
childhood memories were not so much of playing with dolls but
of being taken [to see guns and tanks]."
Mr. ORTON finished his career in Turkey as Canadian military
attaché. On one visit to Iraq, Mr.
ORTON met the army chief of
staff. Three months later, he went back and learned that the
man had suffered two broken knees. His replacement was a young
Saddam Hussein.
John Swaffield
ORTON was born on June 19, 1918, in Innisfail,
Alberta. He died of cancer on July 14 in Ottawa. He was 88. He
leaves his daughter Carol, his granddaughter Marisa, his brother
Fred and his sisters Molly, Joan and Ruth. His wife, Zelma, and
his brother Tony predeceased him.
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BOURDON o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2006-12-23 published
Mary DE BELLEFEUILLE-
PERCY,
Civil
Servant (1943-2006)
Known as the voice of Rideau Hall, she served five governors-general
and set exactly the right tone at ceremonies and investitures.
'People stood a little straighter when she walked into a room.'
By Buzz BOURDON,
Special▲▼ to The Globe and Mail, Page S9
Ottawa -- When Mary DE
BELLEFEUILLE-
PERCY retired from Rideau
Hall, after 18 years of working for five successive governors-general,
Governor-General Michäelle
JEAN asked her to reconsider and stay
on. Her experience and knowledge were just too valuable to lose.
Working as the director of honours in the Office of the Secretary
to the Governor-General from 1995 to 2006, Mrs. DE
BELLEFEUILLE-
PERCY
held a key position in the Chancellery of Honours. Leading a
team of 28 people, she was responsible for administering the
nomination and selection process for 30 honours and awards.
Each year, hundreds of Canadians receive honours and awards from
the governor-general, who is the personal representative of the
Queen. While the sovereign rarely presents honours in person
to her Canadian subjects, "The Crown [remains] the fount of all
honour," wrote Christopher McCreery in his 2005 book The Order
of Canada: Its Origins, History and Development.
Established in 1972, five years after the Order of Canada was
introduced, the honours system includes the Victoria Cross, the
Cross of Valour, the Star of Courage and the Medal of Bravery.
Over the past 15 years, Mrs. DE
BELLEFEUILLE-
PERCY played a key
role in creating many new decorations and orders, including the
General Campaign Star and the General Service Medal.
But she was best known for her very public role as master of
ceremonies during investitures held in the gold-and-white ballroom
at Rideau Hall. Presided over by the governor-general of the
day -- Mrs. DE
BELLEFEUILLE-
PERCY worked for Jeanne
SAUVÉ,
Ray
HNATYSHYN, Roméo
LEBLANC, Adrienne
CLARKSON and Ms.
JEAN -- her
job was to read, with suitable aplomb, the names and citations
of each recipient as they walked forward to accept their award.
Officiating at about 20 investitures per year, the modest and
unassuming Mrs. DE
BELLEFEUILLE-
PERCY quickly became known as
"the voice of Rideau Hall." Standing at her podium to the right
of the governor-general, her clear, precise and elegant tones
in both official languages -- she was perfectly bilingual --
lent an air of dignity and solemnity to the event.
"On occasion, she was also the voice of Canada. She emceed the
ceremony held on Parliament Hill as a tribute to all those affected
by the terrorist attack on the U.S. on September 11, 2001," said
her deputy, Danielle
DOUGALL. "
She was often recognized in public
and people would say, 'you're the elegant lady on television.'
People stood a little straighter when she walked into a room.
Her whole demeanour spoke volumes."
But Mrs. DE
BELLEFEUILLE-
PERCY never took anything for granted,
Mrs. DOUGALL said. "She was very professional. She'd rehearse
before the ceremony. You have to know where to pause, where to
be emotional. If it got emotionally stressful [for her] she'd
just concentrate on reading the words, and not the story behind
the words. She was a very caring and compassionate person. She
was everything to me. We were best Friends and soulmates for
10 years."
Mrs. DE BELLEFEUILLE-
PERCY was also good at making people feel
welcome in Rideau Hall, helping to dispense hospitality at about
200 events per year. She met hundreds of celebrities, athletes,
business moguls, politicians and foreign heads of state and government,
but she never failed to connect with ordinary people, Mrs.
DOUGALL
said.
"I remember one shy 10-year-old who had just received a Medal
of Bravery. With her usual magic touch, Mary went to him and
I saw them leave the ballroom together. When they returned shortly
after, the child was holding a plate [of food]. Lunch was running
late and he was hungry."
She understood that Rideau Hall's formality could be intimidating,
"particularly [to] recipients of bravery awards and their families
who sometimes came from remote parts of Canada," Mrs.
DOUGALL
said. "Some of them had never left their community, let alone
travelled by plane to the nation's capital. When Mary noticed
people looking a little lost or anxious, she immediately went
over and reassured them."
Mrs. DE BELLEFEUILLE-
PERCY also rubbed elbows with such celebrities
as Nelson Mandela and Wayne Gretzky, yet never acquired airs,
said her daughter, Kimberly. "She was extremely modest and humble
about what she did. She didn't boast or brag about it even though
she met some very famous people. It never went to her head."
What seemed to affect her was meeting people who had committed
acts of bravery, said her husband, Keith. "She'd come back in
the evening and talk about what people had done to get their
award. She was really touched by their feats of bravery and service
to the community -- the qualities and dedication of ordinary
Canadians."
Kimberly DE
BELLEFEUILLE-
PERCY only once saw her mother on the
job. In 2003, she went along to a military investiture at Quebec
City's Citadel, an imposing structure that is sometimes called
the second viceregal home. "It was a moving [and] emotional ceremony
and it was wonderful to see her in action," Ms. DE
BELLEFEUILLE-
PERCY
said. "She had a presence about her in both her personal and
work life. People were really drawn to her."
Mrs. DE BELLEFEUILLE-
PERCY grew up in Ottawa. A clever youngster,
she was admitted to the University of Ottawa at the precocious
age of 16. After teaching French and English to Grades 3 to 9
in Ottawa and Fort William, now Thunder Bay, she worked as a
writer, producer and on-camera presenter for educational television
programs for the Ottawa Board of Education.
Mrs. DE BELLEFEUILLE-
PERCY was also something of an actress,
appearing in Ottawa Little Theatre productions in the late 1960s
and early 1970s. In 1972, she took the role of Betty in Paddy
Chayevsky's play Middle of the Night. Playing the part of a girl
who falls for an older man, she soon fell for her leading man,
her future husband Keith. They married two years later.
"She blew me away. I thought she was the beginning and the end
sexy and smart," said Mr. DE
BELLEFEUILLE-
PERCY. He swept
her off to Washington, where he worked as a diplomat at the Canadian
embassy. After they returned home to Ottawa, she spent from 1974 to
1976 as the office manager of The Globe and Mail.
In 1988, everything changed. Rideau Hall hired Mrs. DE
BELLEFEUILLE-
PERCY
as director of information services and was given the job of
increasing public awareness of the governor-general's role and
responsibilities. "She was absolutely dedicated to the office
of the governor-general and its role," Mr. DE
BELLEFEUILLE-
PERCY
said. "She would have been happier if the role was better understood."
Over the years, Mrs. DE
BELLEFEUILLE-
PERCY got her share of awards,
too. In 1992, she received the 125th Anniversary of the Confederation
of Canada Medal, and 10 years later was given the Queen Elizabeth
II Golden Jubilee Medal. This year, she was awarded centennial
medals by the governments of Alberta and Saskatchewan.
During Mrs. DE
BELLEFEUILLE-
PERCY's final 15 months at Rideau
Hall, she served as acting deputy secretary of the Chancellery
of Honours, with responsibility for policy advice and the administration
of honours and heraldry.
Earlier this year, Ms.
JEAN learned that Mrs. DE
BELLEFEUILLE-
PERCY's
decision to retire was final and decided to honour her with a
farewell reception in Rideau Hall's historic Tent Room on June 30.
"Mary, herself, is irreplaceable," she told about 60 guests.
Mary Kathleen DE
BELLEFEUILLE-
PERCY was born on January 28, 1943,
in Ottawa. She died there of a heart attack on November 7, 2006.
She was 63. She leaves her husband Keith, daughter Kimberly,
son Kristian, brothers Terry and Pat. She was predeceased by
her brother Mike.
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BOURDON o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2006-12-27 published
Michael GUTOWSKI,
Soldier And Equestrian: (1910-2006)
Polish officer who participated in one of the last cavalry charges
in history settled in Ontario after the Second World War to teach
horsemanship. In 1968, he groomed a Canadian team to equestrian
gold at the Olympics in Mexico City
By Buzz BOURDON,
Special▲ to the Globe and Mail, Page S7
Ottawa -- All Michael
GUTOWSKI wanted to do was get some food
to his wife, Zofia, and their two small sons. Foraging in the
smoking ruins of a building destroyed by the invading Germans,
Mr. GUTOWSKI found some milk. It was late in 1939, and millions
of exhausted Polish refugees were on the move. There wasn't much
food to be had anywhere.
It wasn't enough, but his family was grateful when the 29-year-old
cavalry captain brought them the milk. Their world had collapsed
when Germany hurled its army against Poland's western frontier
on September 1, 1939, in the opening shots of the Second World
War.
Commanding No. 1 Squadron of the 17th Uhlans, Mr.
GUTOWSKI and
his cavalrymen did their best to stop the Germans' overwhelming
attack, but it was no use. Displaying great courage during three
weeks of desperate combat, he was awarded Poland's highest decoration,
the Virtuti Militari, 5th class, for his gallantry at the 10-day
battle of Bzura River west of Warsaw.
Although Poland still fielded 11 cavalry brigades as a mobile
reserve, cavalrymen usually fought as infantry after dismounting
from their horses. Mr.
GUTOWSKI, a born horseman who had competed
at the Olympics, relished the unit's devil-may-care spirit. Two
decades earlier, during the Polish-Bolshevik War of 1919-21,
mounted Polish units armed with sabres and lances played a vital
part in defeating Soviet forces and guaranteeing Polish independence,
with the result that many cavalrymen still believed their natural
élan would triumph over mere machines.
History tells a different story. By October 6, it was all over.
Poland was carved up between Germany and the Soviet Union, and
the government fled to Britain. For Mr.
GUTOWSKI, a scion of
the highly conservative, patriotic land-owning gentry who had
been taught from the cradle to believe strongly in God, honour
and country, it was a catastrophe. He didn't give up, though,
and joined the Polish Underground. As he told The Globe and Mail
in 1994, he believed in "fighting to the last drop of my blood."
Mr. GUTOWSKI was captured and sentenced to be shot for attempting
to reach his family in a detention camp near Krakow. Fate intervened
when a German officer recognized him as a member of the 1936
Polish equestrian team and he was spared.
By the following March, he had made his way to Britain to continue
the fight. Six days after the Allies went ashore at Normandy
on June 6, 1944, he landed with the 1st Polish Armoured Division.
By 1945, the Polish armed forces in the West totalled 195,000 and
played an important part in defeating Germany.
After fighting through France, Belgium, the Netherlands and into
Germany alongside Canadian forces, Mr.
GUTOWSKI was commanding
the 2nd Polish Armoured Regiment as a lieutenant-colonel when
the war ended on May 8, 1945.
Michael GUTOWSKI had decided to be a soldier when he was 10.
After graduating from the Cavalry Military College in 1930, he
was posted to the 17th Wielkopolski Cavalry Squadron and met
his future wife, Zofia, at a hunt ball. They were married in
1934, the same year he qualified for the Polish equestrian team.
He loved riding and spent as much time as he could in the saddle.
Two years later, Mr.
GUTOWSKI competed at the 1936 Olympics in
Berlin and shared in the silver medal won in a team event.
During the war, he fought with distinction. Like all Polish soldiers
who fought on the side of the Allies, they wished only to rid
their country of Germans. When the last shot was fired, however,
Poland was still not free. He and his men were devastated to
learn that the Soviet Union had been given control of Poland.
Forming up his regiment on parade, Mr.
GUTOWSKI gave his men
the terrible news. "There was such a silence, you could hear
the flag flying. Everything we were fighting for was gone," he
once told The Globe and Mail. "All that was left was honour."
In 1948, Mr.
GUTOWSKI immigrated to Canada when Major-General
Churchill Mann invited him to train the Canadian Army's equestrian
team. After that was disbanded two years later, he spent many
years instructing at the Caledon Riding and Hunt Club in Toronto.
He also trained the Canadian Olympic team from 1948 to 1955.
Olympic equestrian Jim
ELDER, then a junior rider, met Mr.
GUTOWSKI
in 1948. Two years later, he started taking lessons from him.
"He was instrumental in Canada for introducing the European cavalry
style for both riders and horses. He gave us the insight and
the training so we could reach the international and Olympic
level."
Putting his students through their paces, the "ram-rod straight"
Mr. GUTOWSKI was "a really tough taskmaster. Your arms and legs
were aching but he kept you going. Everybody admired him," said
Mr. ELDER. "He used to get his Polish and English swearwords
mixed up. He'd be there screaming at you, really chew you out.
A lot of people could not take it. But right after the lesson,
he was a great guy. He had a job to do and he did it. He wanted
to get Canada to the international level."
At the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, Mr.
ELDER and teammates
Jim Day and Tom Gayford won a gold medal, a success attributed
to Mr. GUTOWSKI's training methods.
He also instructed his niece, Tanya
GUTOWSKA-
NORMAN in 1970.
She still remembers him jumping up and down in a rage. "He was
very demanding," she said. "He was a perfectionist who demanded
the absolute best and tried to teach [us] the highest and purest
form of horsemanship. Drills were performed with military precision."
Describing him as "ambitious, loyal and proud," she said he cared
deeply about his family, students and army comrades. "His character
at times was difficult, since he had a military upbringing, so
his tolerance of sloppiness and stupidity was low." He was, however,
"especially susceptible to the charms of [women], and a tear
could get you anything. He was a softie where women were concerned.
With men, he expected them to be brave but most of all, to be
gentlemen."
In 2000, Mr.
GUTOWSKI returned to his beloved Poland 11 years
after the fall of communism. He was promoted to brigadier-general
and helped establish the Cavalry Parade Squadron. In 2003, at
age 92, he famously drew his sabre and led a cavalry charge.
Besides his British and Polish war medals, he was awarded Poland's
Cross of Valour five times. The U.S. government presented him
the Legion of Merit and France gave him the Croix de Guerre with
palm. On June 6, 2004, at a ceremony in Normandy, he received
the Legion of Honour from President Jacques Chirac of France.
Michal
Mieczyslaw
Wojciech
GUTOWSKI was born on September 13,
1910, in Maciszewice, Poland. He died on August 23, 2006, in
Warsaw, from complications resulting from a broken thigh. He
was 20 days short of 96. He leaves his son Peter and brother
Zbyszek. He was predeceased by his son Marek and his wife, Zofia,
of 65 years.
On September 16, he was accorded a military funeral at Warsaw's
Cathedral of the Army. Hundreds of officers, dignitaries and
admirers attended, and artillery thundered a 21-gun salute.
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