Acknowledgments

In 1871, the editor of Nova Scotia’s great Tribune, Joseph Howe, said “a wise nation preserves its records, gathers up its muniments, decorates the tombs of its illustrious dead, repairs its great public structures, and fosters national pride and love of country by perpetual reference to the sacrifices and glories of the past.”

Canadians have paid little heed to Howe’s sage advice. Our heroes are largely forgotten; the history of Canada’s participation in war is treated as a form of contraband in our schools. War was never pleasant, but sometimes it was necessary in the defence of freedom and liberty. Fortunately, there are still some Canadians who remember those gallant men and women who volunteered to serve. I am grateful to them for sharing their knowledge with me.

Historian Jack Granatstein, former director of Canada’s War Museum, was most helpful. Robert Hyndman and Jerry Billing were WWII Spitfire pilots who flew with Buzz Beurling. Syd Shulemson was Canada’s most decorated Jewish fighter pilot and Israel’s “man in Canada.” He recruited Buzz Beurling to fly for Israel in 1948. Floyd Williston is a retired Manitoba deputy minister who lost two brothers who served in the RCAF in WWII. His book Through Footless Halls is a military classic. General Ramsey Withers is a former chief of the defence staff who served in Korea and was always available at the other end of a phone. Ottawa physician, Dr. Peter Davison, is an aviation buff whose patients include many WWII fighter and bomber pilots. The late Ontario Justice Ed Houston was shot down in a bomber over Germany and was a prisoner of war in a German stalag. Jake Warren, former High Commissioner to Great Britain and Canadian Ambassador to the United States, served on the HMCS Valleyfield when she was torpedoed off Newfoundland. The family of bomber legend, Johnny Fauquier, was helpful and accommodating. Without the input of late General Reg Lane, the incredible deeds of Johnny Fauquier would have gone unrecorded. Israeli General, the late Meir Amit, former head of Mossad, was generous with his assistance. Andy MacKenzie’s phenomenal memory of his two years as a prisoner of the Chinese during the Korean “police action” put flesh on the bones of an incredible story. Ontario Justice Ken Binks, Ottawa, suggested the Benny Proulx story and contributed most of the research. Mike Sheflin, Ottawa engineer and former Ottawa-Carleton transportation commissioner, provided most of the research on the sinking of the armed yacht Raccoon in the St. Lawrence River. His father was a victim of the torpedo from a German U-boat. The British Public Records Office at Kew, London, was always obliging.

I also owe debts of gratitude to the RAF Library, Piccadilly, London; British aviation historian Peter Elliot, London; the German Luftwaffe Historical Division, Germany’s Defence Ministry; the British High Commission in Ottawa, and Israeli embassies in Ottawa and Washington.