Against All Odds

by P. J. Naworynski

  The entire crew of seven was like a family. Ranks were a forgotten thing. The boys in the Lanc that was humming through the night sky towards the south of France loved each other like brothers. They drank together, they bunked together, and they fought together. Tonight their mission was to bomb the snot out of the rail yards at Cambrai.

  At around midnight their bomber stream was high above a thick cloud cover and about an hour away from their target. As Forbes lay in the bomb aimer’s bay with his eyes scanning for enemy night fighters, the curtain of cloud suddenly opened. He called out to his skipper over the intercom, “Jeez, Root, look at that. There’s something down there.” Ten thousand feet below, in the blackness of night, the sea was lit up by the twinkling lights of hundreds of Allied ships that were also heading towards France. It was a bizarre and surreal sight of different coloured lights, some with crosses. The bomber stream was flying over an advancing fleet of reinforcements sent to burst through the Atlantic wall as part of the invasion of Normandy. After a few minutes the clouds closed in again and swallowed up the flotilla. About half an hour later their Lancaster began to make its way down to bombing height.

  Amid a wailing barrage of ground fire from anti-aircraft guns, Lacey took the Lancaster in low. Accuracy was a must. Bomber Command wanted the boys to break everything up at the rail yards. They made it to their target, and from about a thousand feet up, Forbes unleashed hell on the infrastructure below. As they pulled up and started climbing for home, the massive German ground guns blew a hole in the wing. Two motors ignited in a wall of fire. In an instant, the fuselage and the engines were engulfed in flames. Lacey was in a death grip with the controls as he struggled to keep the Lancaster from keeling over and rocketing to the ground. It all happened so fast. Seconds later, Lacey called out to the boys, “Get out, get out! We’ve had it! Bail out!”

  Forbes grabbed his parachute and threw it on his back. Fortunately he was still in the bomb aimer’s bay and near the escape hatch. Just as he popped the door and leapt out into the abyss, he felt the hand of the flight engineer on his shoulder for a fleeting second. Forbes tumbled into the dark and looked up to see the stricken Lancaster in flames and going down fast. He figured he was only about eight hundred feet from the ground, far too low for a safe jump. To make matters worse, as he pulled the rip cord he nearly got spun upside down. One half of his chute got tangled, and it only partially opened. With virtually no control over his descent, he dropped fast and spiralled towards the rapidly approaching ground. In the seconds before impact Roy’s thoughts raced back to home. He was certain he wasn’t going to make it. He thought about his mom, Elsie, and his fiancée, Jeannie. They would both be so sad when they got the news. Then he hit, and he hit hard. He smacked into the earth on his side and mashed up his shoulder and his leg.

  But Roy was lucky. He didn’t get impaled on a tree and he didn’t slam into a house or a rock. Instead, fate delivered him to a recently plowed farmer’s field. The freshly tilled earth saved his life. Roy had no idea where the flight engineer was or if he had landed safely.

  With his ears ringing and his shoulder and leg screaming at him, Forbes looked up from the dirt just in time to witness his beloved plane, which was carrying five of his best friends, explode in an enormous fireball as it piled into the earth a few miles away.

  With no time to mourn the loss of his friends, Forbes limped from the open field and scrambled to a distant stand of trees and bushes. He buried his harness, his silk parachute, and his Mae West. He slunk over to the next field, collapsed, and waited in the bushes for daylight.

  While he sat there in the dark, Roy thought about his situation. He knew he was in enemy-occupied France. It was highly likely that German spotters had seen him and the engineer leap from their burning Lancaster. They would be looking for them in no time. But Forbes was a fighter. There was no way he was going to surrender. Based on the bombing run, Roy figured he was around a hundred miles from the advancing Allied army forces. If he walked north he should be able to connect with them within two weeks. If Roy was going to survive he needed to get out of his uniform and boots and into some other clothes. It was about 2:00 a.m. He knew he needed help and he needed to take a chance.

  Opportunity knocked a few hours later, when the sun poked its head up on the horizon. Roy spotted a farmer in the next field over who was working his horses and churning up the rich French soil. Forbes skirted to the edge of the trees and watched and waited as the farmer diligently led his team of horses around and around plowing his field. When the farmer made it to the edge of his pasture Roy whispered from the shadows, “Air force, air force, Canadian.”

  The farmer could have been a sympathizer; he could have turned Forbes in to the Germans. But introducing himself to this complete stranger was a risk that Roy had to take. He also knew the farmer would be putting his life on the line if he agreed to help Roy. The Germans were all over the place, and they didn’t hesitate to shoot locals who helped downed Allied pilots.

  The two men used a combination of hand signals and the odd word of French and English to communicate. The farmer had seen the plane go down the night before, and he understood that Roy wasn’t a German. He was a friend and he agreed to help. The impoverished farmer left Roy in the field and went back into his house. He returned moments later with some ratty old clothes, a few scraps of food, and a pair of worn-out shoes that sported a giant hole in the sole and were three sizes too big for Roy. It wasn’t much, but it was all Roy needed to blend in and look like a poor Frenchman if he was spotted by any Germans from a distance.

  For the next two weeks Roy evaded capture as he made his way north to link up with the Allies. He stayed as far away from people as possible and avoided spots like bridges or roads where the Germans might be watching or other people might be travelling.

  Under the cover of darkness Roy trudged through fields and forests and skittered along sad, dusty back roads. When it was feasible he swam across rivers and creeks and forded through swampy streams. After a few days his feet were bloody and raw from his nasty, hole-riddled shoes.

  During the daytime Forbes grabbed fitful catnaps in fields, ditches, and trees. On rare occasions he allowed himself to catch a few hours of shut-eye in a barn. But barns were easy places to get caught inside, so he tended to sleep outside in a hidden spot.

  With no food supplies, he stole carrots and potatoes from farmers’ fields in the dead of night. When he approached a town, he was even more on edge. The towns were crawling with Germans, and the threat of being spotted by a German soldier or a Nazi collaborator consumed Roy. Out there all alone, with no maps and no weapon, he was scared. He was scared as hell.

  Late one evening, as he headed down a dirt back road in search of a safe place to put his head down, he heard the ominous sound of a number of heavy machines and a dozen German voices approaching. Roy launched himself into the ditch and hid face down in the muck. For a few agonizing minutes he was certain his escape was over. But the unit rumbled by, and the boy from Portage la Prairie crawled away to safety.

  Mile after mile Forbes worked his way across the French countryside. The holes in the bottom of his shoes were getting bigger and bigger with each passing night. Before he swam across a river he stopped to wash the blood off his feet. As soon as he took a shoe off, his blood ran out of it by the cupful.

  After two weeks on the lam Roy was worn out. It was early Sunday morning, and he hardly even realized he had hit the edge of a little village. His feet were bleeding profusely and looked like raw, mashed meat. His body was still racked with pain from his fall from the sky. He was sleep-deprived and malnourished, having eaten only grass for the past few days. He couldn’t keep his food down, and his head was spinning. He needed a miracle, or it was time to turn himself in.

  As he sat down to get some water from a small hand pump at the side of the road, he heard church bells in the distance. Forbes jumped up and hobbled through the streets until he saw a troop of seven nuns walking down the r
oad. They were heading back to the nunnery after mass. This was it. All or nothing. He scrambled up behind them and whispered, “Air force, British. Airplane, Canada.” The nuns more or less ignored Roy, averted their eyes from him, and continued hustling towards their home. He followed and continued whispering, “Air force, British. Airplane, Canada.” At the gates of the nunnery they signalled him to follow them in.

  Roy was ushered into the Mother Superior’s office. She barely spoke English and wasn’t too pleased to have this strange, dirty man inside the nunnery. She told him she would introduce him to another woman who spoke English—someone who could help connect him with the French Resistance—and then she left. Roy had no idea if he was about to be turned over to the Germans, but he remembered being told in training that Catholics weren’t too keen on helping the Nazis, and he was hopeful these French nuns were on the good side. Twenty minutes later he watched through the window as both the Mother Superior and another woman returned on bicycles.

  The English-speaking woman was highly suspicious and put Forbes through the paces. She peppered him with questions about his “Canadian” identity and asked him about Canadian geography. She even tested his pronunciation and asked him to say words like “potatoes” and “tomatoes.” When the interview was over, Roy was put into another room and given a bite to eat. Then another man showed up by bicycle. He was clean-cut, about five foot five, and all business. Just like that, Roy was staring down the barrel of the gun of an operative of the French Forces of the Interior. The man on the other side of the revolver said that if he believed Roy was a German, he would shoot him on the spot. If he believed Roy was a Canadian, there was a bike waiting outside and he’d be welcomed into the underground.

  Roy passed the test and was accepted into the fold. He hopped on his bike and winced through the pain as he and the Frenchman pedalled like mad for a home in the countryside. About a week later a British air force unit prepared to mount a rescue attempt using a two-person glider to swoop in and fly him out. While Roy waited anxiously in the field for his glider to arrive, bad weather on the other end scrapped the mission. After that, Forbes was made to keep a low profile and stay in hiding.

  He spent the next four months being passed along the French–Belgian escape underground. The resistance put him up in the attic of a pub and gave him a fake identification card that listed him as a deaf-mute. While he was staying at another safe house, he joined the local resistance forces on a clandestine night mission and helped them blow up a series of bridges. Eventually Forbes linked up with a Scottish Highland armoured unit, and his time in hiding was over. All told, he was on the run for nearly five months after leaping out of the flaming bomber. When the little scrapper from the prairies reconnected with the RCAF, he went straight back into operational duties doing airdrops of supplies until the end of the war. Three years later, here he was on the verge of accomplishing something he had never dreamed of—playing hockey on the Olympic stage for the eyes of the world.

  Flyers versus Davos in exhibition.

  Ralf Brooks

  TUNING UP IN EUROPE

  11

  As the RCAF Flyers’ bus rumbled down the highway headed for Le Bourget airport, a thick ceiling of clouds enveloped the Parisian skies. It was time for the team to say goodbye to France and set off for Switzerland.

  That day, as Sandy Watson stared out at the runway, a feeling of uneasiness washed over him. Although he had spent years in the RCAF, he actually hated flying. It was midday on Thursday, January 22, 1948, and the ominous carpet of clouds hugging the mountains had Sandy on edge. Two Dakota airplanes were slated to transport the RCAF Flyers and their gear to Zurich for their next pre-Olympic exhibition match. One Dakota was arranged to take all the players. It hadn’t arrived yet. The other Dakota was booked to take Dr. Watson; the trainer, George McFaul; and all the team’s gear. It was already on the runway and ready to go. But the pilot for Sandy’s plane told the guys there was no way he was flying to Zurich, for a number of reasons. One, he had never actually flown to Switzerland before—he was with the Air Ministry from London. But more important, the Dakotas weren’t capable of flying over the mountain ranges along their route. Rather, their flight path to Zurich took them through the mountains. With today’s low clouds and three-thousand-foot ceiling, the pilot was very concerned about slamming into the side of a mountain on the way in.

  Some of the boys with a lot of hours in the air tried to lighten the mood and joked with their manager about crashes and such, but Dr. Watson wasn’t having any of it. The stern, tough disciplinarian with a penchant for jujubes was shaking in his boots. When the pilot for the second Dakota finally arrived, there was a burst of heated discussions. Thankfully this guy knew the landscape, he knew the route, and he had threaded the needle many times. A plan was devised for the two planes to make it to Switzerland. The seasoned Swiss pilot would fly lead in the boys’ plane, and Sandy’s pilot would follow on his heels as he slipped and skirted in between the mountains. Even Roy Forbes, with seven hundred hours in the air, had a few butterflies when the two Dakotas hummed down the runway and took to the skies at 2:00 p.m.

  That night Patsy Guzzo pencilled some reflections into his diary: “I still don’t know how Doc got the nerve to go. McFaul reported later that he shook the whole trip over. Poor Doc. We were up about 12,000 feet because of the high mountains, but on the way in it appeared as though we were skimming the treetops. Just before landing the pilot dipped a wing and we roared over the hockey rink.”

  Unscathed and happy to be planted back on terra firma, the boys felt like they had finally arrived and were poised on the doorstep of their mission. Not only that, the beautiful Swiss mountains and crisp, clean atmosphere of Zurich seemed like an alternative universe in comparison to their grim accommodations in England and France. After a long, slow bus ride up a very steep hill, the Flyers checked in at the ornate Dolder Grand Hotel, tucked into the woods on the German–Swiss border.

  The boys were delighted. Their rooms were spotlessly clean and decked out with thick, lustrous carpets, large comfortable couches, double beds, double sinks, thick comforters, and glorious heat. The food in Zurich was also beyond compare. They treated themselves to delicious cakes and pastries and were amazed to find that real Coca-Cola was available for the first time since they’d left New York. After a soothing night’s sleep they feasted on bacon and eggs for breakfast and felt as if they were ready to take on the world. Things were definitely looking up.

  The first order of business for Frank and Sandy was to get the boys back on their skates. They had planned to use this final full week of practices and exhibition matches to tune up the guys before the Olympics. After a short walk through the woods at the Dolder Grand Hotel, they hit the ice for an early morning practice. Immediately the guys noticed how quickly they got winded while tearing around the ice at this high altitude. They also couldn’t help but notice that the boards were only about sixteen inches high and six inches thick. You couldn’t play the puck or the body off the boards like you could back home. Moreover, if you happened to shove your opponent or get shoved yourself, the rules in Europe dictated that you could hop the boards, run in the snow beside the ice, and then jump back over the boards and pick up playing right where you had left off. Some of the boys, like Forbes, Dunster, and Mara, practised hurdling the boards, skittering along in the snow, and leaping back onto the ice.

  None of this was a surprise to Frank Boucher. He knew that with time his players would get acclimated to the thinner air. He worked them hard in practice and continued toying with strategies and tweaking his lines and defensive pairings in his hunt for the perfect formula.

  Time on the road and on the ice solidified the friendships and bonds that were developing among the men. Warriors like Frank Dunster, Hubert Brooks, Roy Forbes, and Louis Lecompte had a natural affinity for each other. Longtime linemates Ab Renaud, Reg Schroeter, and Ted Hibberd had already developed a shorthand that came from months of time together on the
ice and off. Wally Halder and George Mara were like two peas in a pod. Patsy Guzzo chummed around with newbies Murray Dowey and André Laperrière. Although Patsy was by far the most religious of the trio, they often went to mass together whenever the chance arose. Slowly but surely the entire team was jelling into a cohesive unit.

  Murray Dowey and André Laperrière had hit it off from day one, when they shared a room on the Queen Elizabeth coming over. That first night on the massive ocean liner, Murray had presented André with a somewhat unique and unorthodox request. As they prepared to tuck in for the evening he said, “André, I got something special to ask you.” André wondered, OK, what the heck does this guy want? Murray continued, “You know, back home, my wife always does my hair for me. I can’t do it myself. Would you mind washing my hair for me?”

  It was the kind of moment that could either make or break a relationship. For a second André thought Murray was having a go at him, but then he realized his new teammate was serious. He started to laugh. Murray chuckled along. “Yeah, sure,” said André.

  From that day forward the two strangers became the best of friends. Murray and André roomed together for the remainder of the trip, and André became an expert at washing Murray’s hair. They maintained a lasting friendship long after the Olympics.

  ON FRIDAY, JANUARY 23, 1948, the boys in blue laced up in their hotel rooms for an afternoon game against the Swiss national team at the Dolder rink. Decked out in full gear, they hopped on the bus and snaked their way through the streets to the rickety outdoor rink. Fully fifteen thousand Swiss fans braved a steady pounding rain and near freezing temperatures to catch a glimpse of the Canadian boys in action. The small wooden stands were jammed to capacity. A sea of spectators held newspapers and umbrellas over their heads while the players took to the ice. Others crowded onto nearby rooftops. Some of the braver souls clawed their way up into the treetops and perched themselves precariously on extended branches.