Joe was then nineteen years old. We knew that he kept a diary of his war years but this came as a surprise to us. It is [a] diary of a sensitive boy and in it is a beautiful tribute to his mother and his home life. It is almost as if someday he expected we would find it and realize how much his home meant to him and how great a love he bore both of us. He said some very moving and fine things about me. He idealized me but the things he said about his mother are absolutely true. For a while back I have felt as if my heart was hard as ice. This discovery melted me and both May and I went on a jag, we broke down, I think it did us both good. We still feel that we must live in the present and not escape into the past that means death to our souls. But Joe and Peter are the present. Portions of Joe’s diary refer to Peter. He writes sweetly about how they were just beginning to be fully companionable when Peter was taken. Peter after all was three or four years younger than Joe. He dwells on the details of Peter’s death and his insight into our feelings and his concern for both of us moved us deeply. I have tried my utmost not to idealize Joe, to see him clearly with all his faults but this diary shows clearly that I need not worry. The lad himself was as lovely a character as no legend could exaggerate. He was so understanding, so appreciative so full of the highest ideals of service that we should be indeed happy and proud parents to have had such a lad. God Bless him. (PJD 14 February 1943)
I wrote yesterday about our discovery of Joe’s diary. … The diary is very much in the rough, is spasmodic but one things stands out clearly and that is Joe’s awareness of life of his determination to taste every bit of his living. I think that the reason he wrote so much about his happy family life was so that in years to come it might serve as a reminder of his happy youth. … This trait of self-examination and sensitiveness to his surroundings is the more remarkable because he was not by any means an introvert. He took his pleasures gaily and with a whole heart. He was of excellent physique and shone well in every sport … He had beautiful coordination. He also did well in dramatics. He acted in the college play. He was beginning to make a good speech. His personality was vibrant with life and he had a tremendous charm. …
And today February 15th a young refugee, German born, educated for the five years previous to the war in England, interned by the British on the outbreak of the war afterwards sent to internee camp in Canada, then released to go to McGill as Engineering student is occupying Joe’s room.4 (PJD 15 February 1943)
Joe’s great pal Gerald Smith is back from England. … Now he is starting all over again training for aircrew. Fine boy. We look upon him as a son. He has brought back with him some things of Joe’s, his diary, letters received from us and other records. (PJD 27 October 1943)
Joe’s parents knew that he had kept diaries in England. But their eventual return to Canada had taken the efforts of several people with shrewd foresight and substantial good luck. In the weeks before he was killed, Joe was already thinking about how to ensure that his diaries and notebooks would return home even if he did not. This would not be a straightforward matter. When an airman failed to return, his belongings were sent immediately to the Air Ministry for clearance before return to next of kin. Joe knew very well that the daily diary that he had kept since the previous February, his operational diary, and the notebook in which he had recorded his critique of the bombing campaign, would be impounded. He might also have suspected the same fate for the November and December notebooks that contained his political and philosophical musings. Mrs. Lettice later told Joe’s parents that, after Roger went missing, Joe packed up his own papers with the intention of giving them to Monty. This he apparently did when he visited Monty in London the week before his final flight.5 Monty in turn gave these to Dan Kostoris for safekeeping, who advised Percy that he had
put it in a sealed envelope to lock it up in my Bank until such time as we can arrange with the Canadian Authorities in London to post it on to you. We have spoken to them about this and they have promised to deal with the matter when we write to discuss it with them. Of course, I take it that the Authorities will have to read through it before they decide to let it go as there may be something of a Military nature so if you think it advisable for that Diary to be left in my Bank sealed up until such time as you want it back … my personal opinion would be to leave it here … (12 February 1942)
Monty missed the first chance to get the diaries home. Joe had passed some of Roger’s things on to Adjutor Savard, but he returned to Canada on short notice at the end of March. Monty learned of his departure too late to give him Joe’s diaries as well. So it was not until Gerald returned to Canada eighteen months later, that Joe’s diaries and papers arrived home neither censored nor impounded. Whether Gerald was aware of the inspection procedures to which servicemen leaving Britain were subject, whether he just took a chance, or how he managed to avoid them, is lost in the mists of time.
Yesterday, January 28th, was the second anniversary of the loss of Joe. I was home ill and spent the afternoon looking through his diary. It brought us together and I felt as if he was in the room with me.
(PJD 29 January 1944)
Peter [who had died of leukemia on this day in 1936] was unconscious of his doom. Joe was not. He planned for us. His letters, his diaries, his talks with Monty, all evidenced a supreme joy in living. He loved life. He did his best to get as much of living once he knew his sentence. His passionate desire to see all, know all was clear, also made it clear that he wanted to remain a part of our lives, he tried to plan for me a way of life … (PJD 13 March 1944)
Had another glance through Joe’s diary and was again struck by his awareness of his chances of being killed. This diary of Joe’s is very revealing of the inner man. It is very frank and very satisfying for me to have always with me. It is as if I carried around a part of Joe himself. This it really is. He mentions the fact that he always was afraid of the mere mention of death. But death faced at close quarters, as he faced it on several trips stripped him of his fear of it. Final pages of his diary he says, and I feel, honestly that this old fear of death has been effectively given its quietus. He also sums up his life and is satisfied it has been a full and happy one. (PJD 18 April 1944)
Read again some parts of Joe’s diary. This referred to his numerous flights over Germany. It covers the last half of 1941 … Joe’s last half for ever … that is if the millionth part of hope which we still hold fails … when we overrun Germany we may find some remarkable instances of reported killed and missing being still alive … perhaps Joe might be … my reason tells me “no” but hope dies hard.
This diary of Joe’s is sometimes sad, sometimes is very gay and is always honest. For an extravert it is remarkable because he does seem to strive for truth about himself. (PJD 10 September 1944)
We had a thread of hope that Joe might be discovered alive in Germany. This now seems impossible. There is a new organization founded with the objective of finding out as much data as possible about boys, like Joe, who have been given up for dead but with actual proof not available … so far.6 Roger Rousseau’s brother has telephoned us that Roger has landed at Halifax. He has been a prisoner of war for three years. … When [Joe] heard he was lost he made up his mind that this meant the end for Roger. This was not the case. Roger was saved and became a prisoner of war. Joe lost his life a few weeks after Roger was reported missing. A nephew of ours, Lionel Silver, also a prisoner of war, is expected home any day. I find no trace of bitterness on the part of May because of our, shall we call it bad luck. Her nature is indeed a beautiful one. (PJD 10 June 1945)
Last Wednesday I invited Roger Rousseau, Monty Berger, Gerald Smith and May for lunch at the Windsor. The three boys loved Joe. We felt warmed by their presence. We all talked freely about Joe.
(PJD 2 December 1945)
Late that year, the Jacobsons donated an annual scholarship in Joe’s name to McGill University. And in late November they received notice from the RCAF, citing information from a Canadian Graves Registration Unit, of Joe’s burial
place in Holland.
Yesterday we received from the Government Operational Wings and Certificate in recognition of “gallant Service rendered by your son Flight Sergeant J A Jacobson.”
These wings are given for operations against the enemy and we are proud to have Joe’s well done job acknowledged. He is of course only one of thousands of our boys who did the right thing because in their hearts they knew it was the only thing they could do and maintain their integrity and respect for themselves.
Last Wednesday March 13th was the anniversary of Peter’s tragic death a death far more tragic and far more senseless than Joe’s. Joe lived to enjoy something of life and he died a man. Peter was only a boy. Both were fine lads. God Bless them. (PJD 17 March 1946)
Near the end of January 1948, the RCAF sent Joe’s flying log, which was part of his service estate, to his parents. Sometime later that year, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission inquired if the Jacobsons desired a personal inscription for Joe’s headstone in the Netherlands. Percy supplied the following, which is duly inscribed:
A Loving Son and Brother
A warm friend
His courage came not easily …
He had it in need
Undoubtedly Percy composed it. He of all Joe’s family would have been most aware of how Joe had managed to nurture and sustain his courage all through the period of his enlistment, training, and combat. Perhaps reflecting a lingering unwillingness to accept that Joe had not survived the first night he was reported missing, Percy supplied Joe’s age at death as 24 years, as appears on his headstone in Lichtenvoorde General Cemetery. In fact he was twenty days short of his 24th birthday on that night.
After six years of reflection on Joe’s life, Percy had returned to the enigmatic observation he had made in his own diary on 28 September 1940, when Joe first flew in training in Saskatchewan. Of all Joe’s virtues, this was the one that Percy held in the highest regard: not simply raw physical courage but the moral courage of one’s convictions. He had commented on that as the enormity of the Nazi extermination program was being revealed:
I remember that Joe refused leave for the Jewish New Year and Day of Atonement because he felt that it was more important to pay some of his debts to the Germans than to celebrate the sacred days. He hated the Germans on two scores. What they had done to his people. What they were trying to do to the liberty which meant more to him than his life. He gave his life on both counts. I still owe a debt to Joe. I hope when my turn comes I will not repudiate it, even should it cost me my life. (PJD 20 December 1942)
That a father could feel indebted to his son’s courage and sacrifice, indeed be humbled by it, was the ultimate gift. Whatever Joe might have achieved had he survived, his triumph of courage was what he did achieve. Nothing else could have given his father greater pride and satisfaction.
Joe’s headstone, Lichtenvoorde General Cemetery, 4 May 2008. “A Loving Son and Brother. A Warm Friend. His Courage Came Not Easily … He Had It in Need.” (Peter J. Usher photo)
Thirty-One
Holland
A bitter and exceptional cold spell hung over much of Europe in late January 1942, even attracting the notice of the Montreal Gazette on the 22nd. At Lichtenvoorde, a Dutch town of a few thousand near the German border, daily temperatures had been below freezing continuously since early January. The cold reached its greatest intensity before dawn on the 27th, when the thermometer fell to –27.4ºC, the lowest temperature ever recorded in the Netherlands. The cold spell broke the next day as a warm front pressed in from the west, creating the catastrophic conditions that prevailed aloft on the night of the 28th.
That night, several people near Vragender, a small village northeast of Lichtenvoorde, heard a low-flying aircraft. As Bernard Nijland remembered the circumstances,
On the night of the 28th, around 7PM, I went to Beneman’s in Vragender to get salt, because we had to slaughter a pig which had to be pickled. It was extremely cold outside and there was blowing snow. You could not see in front of you. When I was back home around 2015, I heard a heavy creaking in the pine stand behind our house. Shortly before that we heard a plane come over very low altitude. I wanted to go take a look but I was not allowed by my wife. The reason being it was past eight o’clock and therefore dangerous.1
Hendrik Gunnewick recalled that on that same night, he and Beneman,
who had a grocery shop with adjoining pub at Vragender returned home from a clandestine pig slaughter at Lievelde. Walking on the Schansweg they heard a noise from the air. They said to each other: “the Tommies are active again.” Then they heard creaking in the fir-wood. Both men made off very quickly, as it was after eight o’clock, the curfew hour.
Others claim they heard the aircraft pass overhead twice. To the north, a few people heard bombs fall that night. Mr. Wegman, head of Air Warden Command Post, filed an incident report the next morning, stating that
at least one bomb had fallen at around 2145 in a pine forest near the back road between Groenlo and Aalten. … No personal injuries reported. In addition there are two possibly unexploded bombs.2
Mr. Wegman, accompanied by policeman Ter Haar, investigated the next morning. They found evidence of two bomb blasts and several shattered trees. The blast had broken some windows in at least three farmhouses within six hundred metres. While conducting their investigation, Wegman and Ter Haar were told that a plane had been heard to crash the previous night. Following up on this information, they found that an aircraft had indeed come down east of Lichtenvoorde. They arrived at the site before lunch to find what they identified as a bomber, probably English, “completely destroyed” at the edge of a pine bush. They could see that there were at least two dead in the aircraft. Wegman went to the town hall to make a report, while Ter Haar stayed to guard the aircraft. At 2:30 that afternoon, the commander of the local occupation force arrived from Borculo and found that there were probably three dead in the aircraft. He ordered the aircraft to be placed under constant guard until the Wehrmacht arrived.
Wegman and Ter Haar were not the first ones to discover the aircraft, however. There are at least five accounts of individuals happening upon, or searching for, the downed aircraft. Theo Te Walvaart, of Lievelde, then about twenty-two years old, went rabbit hunting at about 8:30 on the morning of the 29th. He saw the plane with the RAF roundel on the fuselage, although he thought at first that it was a Dutch aircraft. He assumed he was the first person who came upon the aircraft because there were no footprints in the snow around it. Bernard Nijland, who had heard the aircraft the night before, also discovered the wreck when he ventured out in the morning. He may have been the second on the scene.
I went to take a look and saw the plane, within it four dead flyers, of which the first one was missing half of his forehead. And so I ran away fast and almost had to throw up.
Mr. Klein-Gebbink, of Vragender, having heard about an aircraft that had crashed in the neighbourhood, went to the crash site with some others between 8:30 and 10:00 that morning. They found the wreck with the airmen still in it, but saw no sign of life. They also noticed oranges in the nose of the aircraft. Leo Paashuis and Joop Kruip, who lived in Lichtenvoorde, hopped on their bicycles to look for the crash that morning. As they recalled over fifty years afterwards, that was the first airplane they had ever seen. They saw four men, “two by two,” all dead, heads bent forward. The Germans came along and ordered them to go away, but they stayed there until the bodies were removed from the wreck. After the Germans left, they returned to photograph the downed aircraft from a distance. Gunnewick and Minkhorst went to the crash site between 10:00 and 10:30 that morning, and saw from a distance a man, probably a German soldier, who gesticulated “Beat it!”
Still others remembered these events from their childhood, when interviewed sixty-five years later. Some recalled gasoline visible in the snow, some remembered the bodies in their flying suits, some remembered the Germans behaving disrespectfully toward the dead flyers, some claimed the snow was t
hirty centimetres deep. At least one person thought he had heard the engines cutting out, then coming on and revving up again before the crash, and also that the aircraft was in at least three pieces on the ground. Almost everyone recalls the event occurring on the coldest night of the year, although in fact the cold spell had broken the day before, and the temperature had probably not fallen below zero since the crash. Passhuis’s and Kroop’s photos show the aircraft bare of snow, and crop stubble sticking up through the snow. The snow cover on the field cannot have been deep.
Some time on the 29th, Dr. W. Hardy, Lichtenvoorde’s general practitioner, was sent to investigate the scene, accompanied by two German authorities. He found four bodies in the aircraft. None had been thrown clear of the wreck, and none had escaped it after impact. Hardy determined that they had all died of injuries sustained on impact and that there was no evidence of injury from anti-aircraft fire. Interviewed many years later, Dr. Hardy stated that all four were in or near the cockpit. One had suffered a skull fracture and obvious brain injury. He added:
I am of the opinion that if I had been there the same night, I could possibly have saved two of them, but because of the crash and loss of blood and severe cold they probably froze to death.
Dr. Hardy was also accompanied by Mr. A. Hummelink, a coffin-maker then seventeen years old. He had been ordered to make four coffins for the dead flyers, but at first could make only three due to a shortage of wood. Hummelink, along with others including the town’s gravedigger, returned to the crash site by horse-drawn wagon. They returned their cargo of three coffins, along with one body wrapped in a shroud and laid on a plank, to the mortuary at St. Bonifatius Hospital before dark.
Leo Passhuis’s photo of AT122 on the morning of 29 January 1942, probably looking southeast, from over the handlebar of his bicycle, near Lievelde. (Courtesy Mrs. Leo Passhuis)
Joey Jacobson's War Page 38