Dad made it home in good shape although, tired of waiting for the boat home, he flirted with a courtmartial for liberating a BOAC Short Sunderland to fly home via the Azores. Only problem he didn't know the flying boat was also moored from its keel. and had two engines started when the Royal Marines came aboard. What got him off---well, who's going to cashier a guy with long and distinguished service anyway---was his question to the arresting MP's "Where's the wet canteen?"
Dad's dearest friend, George Harsh, in charge of security for The Great Escape, was with him on that caper. George joined the RCAF after being pardoned for performing a successful appendectomy on a prisoner during 12 years on a Georgia chain gang. It's a remarkable story related in his biography Lonesome Road (Norton) Library of Congress No. 69-14699. What George didn't say in the book was that he saved more than 100 black inmates during a night fire by smashing a door with an axe and breaking chains holding prisoners by the ankle.
George died in Toronto Sunnybrook Hospital January 24, 1980 with his air force friends in Canada. He had redeemed himself, this great American, and his book is a tribute to the indomitableness of the human spirit. On that note, Destry, I'll be sending along 2008's without coercion, thanks. Your 10 gauge was certainly persuasive. Let me know when you're coming this way. All the best, King
