I sometimes take my neighbour's dog Sophie for walks in Mill Creek Ravine. If you walk enough there, or anywhere, stuff happens and you meet people. Here's one:
On a beautiful sunny winter day, I was walking in Mill Creek Ravine by the Velodrome with Sophie, and we passed by an older gent wearing a hat with a "Lancaster" logo. A Lancaster is a WW2 Allied bomber. This is my favourite era for airplanes, so I had to chat him up. Turns out that his name was Ken Taylor, an airman on a Lancaster bomber on a raid who bailed out over occupied Holland a couple weeks before D-Day. He was captured and put into Stalag Luft VII Prisoner Of War camp. He mentioned something about a long march from the camp - not to complain, but to maybe trigger a historical fact in my head. Didn't work. Apparently, he and a few friends now meet at that Argyll McDonald's on the same day each week.
At the time of his evacuation from the POW camp, the Germans knew that the war was unwinnable and were basically fleeing the Soviets and taking prisoners with them. The Germans were positioning themselves with the prisoners to be captured by anyone other than the Soviets, because of the horrible things that Hitler ordered against them (somewhere in the range of 20-30,000,000 Russian people were killed). Somehow or other, one of the Germans, maybe one of his guards, became a friend of his and they now live in the same condo complex overlooking Mill Creek Ravine. Ken now considers his former enemy to be his best friend. Unfortunately, Sophie was getting anxious so that's all I got from him.
I tried, off and on, for years to get some info about him, but wasn't at all successful. It doesn't help that the name "Ken Taylor" is also shared by that Canadian diplomat that helped get Americans out of Iran (as in the movie "Argo" by Ben Affleck). Somehow or other though, I found some info today. Here it is:
I couldn't remember if it was Stalag 3 or 7. Stalag 3 was "The Great Escape" one. It turns out that he was in Stalag 7, and it was the last Luftwaffe (German air force) POW camp. Later he was moved to one of the Stalag 3 camps...so that's close to the movie.
He was a Nav II Warrant Officer and bomb aimer/observer aboard an Avro Lancaster bomber.
On May 21/22, 1944 their plane was hit by flak and the starboard outer engine caught fire. He and a Sergeant bailed out. The crew, despite injuries to the pilot and flight engineer, were able to limp the plane back to Manston RAF base in England, where their lack of brakes caused them to run into a gas tank used for filling airplane tanks. No-one was further injured, but the pilot and engineer were kept in hospital.
It turns out that The March was quite a thing. There were three main marches with several POW camps. He was in the 'central' route.
19 January, 1945 – evacuation from Stalag Luft 7 at Bankau, near Kreuzberg, Poland, begins in blizzard conditions – 1,500 prisoners were force marched then loaded onto cattle trucks and taken to Stalag III-A at Luckenwalde, south of Berlin.
27 January, 1945 – Red Army liberates Auschwitz.
27 January, 1945 to February 1945 – evacuation from Stalag III-A at Luckenwalde, 30 km south of Berlin, then onto Stalag VII-A near Moosburg, Bavaria.
29 April, 1945 – Stalag VII-A at Moosburg was liberated by Patton's Third United States Army.
30 April, 1945 – Berlin falls to the Red Army and Hitler commits suicide.
Today I ordered The Long Road - a book about the liberation of Stalag 7. Ken was mentioned in it a couple of times and it seems full of interesting stories. 411.ca indicates that he's still alive and living where he said. After I read the book I think that I'll do some snooping at the McDonald's and 'happen' to drop by when they meet. If nothing else, I want to tease him about bailing out while most of the rest of his crew flew home - which wouldn't compare to the teasing his old crew would've given him after they met up after the war.
"Ken, why are you leaving early? It's not like you to bail. Hahahahahahaha!"
Or maybe I'll be there to apologize for not knowing much about the history of my neighbours and to listen to old war stories that are new to me. I hope I get the chance to get him to sign my book.
It may not mean anything to anyone else, but here are some links on this:
Link to The Long Road (pdf book)
link to The_March_(1945) [wiki]
link to Stalag 13 As you can see, Hogan's Heroes wasn't historically accurate, as Stalag 13 was actually two camps, which were both in factories. You know you were thinking about the show, so don't even pretend to take the high road.
So anyway...that's why I chat to people who I don't know.
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