The seven members of SCITS gymnastics team posed patiently in their athletic uniforms for another school photo. Perhaps these young men were used to having their pictures taken. Three years earlier, some had been members of the school's powerhouse gymnastics team that had captured the junior championship of Canada. They knew one another very well, but today they stood stoically with their backs straight and their hands clasped behind them. Two staff members sat in front of them, their formal suits and ties complementing their unsmiling, serious faces.
Of particular interest in the photo are #6, Don MacGregor, age 20; #11, Rodolfo “Rudy” Mendizabal, age 17; and # 15, Jack Thain, age 17.
The year was 1935. They looked and acted like typical young men, each very successful in his own way, but that's only part of their life story.
By 1941, Don, Rudy, and Jack had all enlisted to fight for Canada in WWII. By 1943, two years before the war had ended, all three had made the supreme sacrifice for their country.
Don MacGregor lived at 208 Mitton Street South, close to SCITS where he earned a well-deserved reputation as an outstanding athlete during his five years there. Besides excelling at gymnastics, Don was a key member of the school's football and swimming teams. Even after he graduated from SCITS and served as a sergeant with the Lambton Regiment NPMA (Non-Permanent Active Militia), he played sports ranging from golf, rugby, and basketball to boxing and skiing.
When he was in his fourth year of Agricultural College at Guelph, Don enlisted with the RCAF. He was backed by a desire to serve and reference letters which stated he was a man of excellent character and considerable ability and he is a gentleman in every sense of the word . . . I am sure would be of value to the Royal Canadian Air Force.
By May 1, 1942, Don was a sergeant-pilot with Squadron #286 at Exeter RAF Station in southwest England. But he never had much of a chance to fulfill his dreams of serving his country. Only 10 days later, the young Sarnian was dead at age 27. He was on a training exercise aboard Oxford aircraft DF253 when she crashed at Dymonds Farm, a few kilometres from Exeter. No other details were provided other than two other RAF crew members perished in the crash and Don's remains were buried on May 15, 1942 at Exeter Higher Cemetery, Devon.
These words are inscribed on his headstone: HOLY FATHER, LOOK ON US TODAY, AS WE THINK OF HIM OUR DEAR ONE GONE AWAY.
Rodolfo “Rudy” Mendizabal, born to a Bolivian father and a Canadian mother, was recognized as a multi-talented and well-rounded student. Rudy was the Boys Sports editor for the SCITS yearbook, as well as being a member of the gymnastics, wrestling, and rifle teams. He also loved swimming, boxing, hockey, soccer, and rugby; played the clarinet in the school band; and spoke English, French, German, and Spanish.
Rudy stood only 5' 4” (163 cms) when he enlisted to be a pilot with the RCAF in 1940, but he was a crack shot, having won a special gold medal for shooting accuracy and a Dominion Marksman gold ring.
Hemingway has famously defined courage as “grace under pressure” and, in the heat of aerial conflicts, Rudy epitomized that phrase.
No one incident better revealed Rudy's character than his refusal to capitulate to the Japanese when they invaded Java in March 1942. Rudy was one of five pilots who engineered an improbable escape that was as dangerous as it was heroic. With Japanese forces only hours away and closing in on all sides, a cease-fire was called.
For the five airmen, surrender was not an option.
Instead, they found two damaged Lockheed 212 transport aircraft and the five pilots, who were not mechanics, used parts of one plane to create a makeshift plane that they hoped could get airborne.
A coin served as a screwdriver and they trued the replacement tail with rope.
They removed forty-gallon wing fuel tanks from one airplane and installed them inside the fuselage with strings and bits of bamboo. They carved a hole in the side of the fuselage through which they jammed a length of hose into the wing fuel tank, the idea being to feed the tank from inside the fuselage. A number of full 20 litre cans were carried into the cabin.
On March 9, after the official surrender to the Japanese at Java, the five airmen and their makeshift Lockheed were ready for flight.
In a scene right out of an Indiana Jones movie, they cleared by inches the fence at the end of the runway. And somehow, with each pilot taking turns, they flew over 4,000 kilometres in two stages. Along the way, they eluded Japanese fighters and braved inclement weather. When they arrived in Ceylon two days later, they had ten minutes of petrol to spare.
Four days later, Rudy was back in action.
His instinctive skill and good fortune saw him survive dogfights against Japanese Navy fighters over Malaya and land unscathed after his Hurricane II aircraft crashed due to landing gear problems. But in August 1943 Rudy, 23, was killed instantly on a training exercise in India. He was buried with full military honours in Madras War Cemetery, Chennai, India.
Like Don Cameron and Rudy Mendizabal, Jack Thain was very athletic. During his five years at SCITS, he was active in gymnastics, weightlifting, boxing, swimming, and rugby. He also excelled at wrestling, where he won the 125 lb. Championship at the Assault at Arms. Jack was that rare student who did well in both the arts--English Composition and literature—and maths and sciences--trigonometry, biology, physics, and chemistry. This is even more admirable since Jack had more demands thrust on him when his mother, Isabella, passed away shortly after the yearbook photo was taken.
When Jack enlisted with the RCAF in July 1940, he stated that he was single. But that was soon to change. The following May, after obtaining permission and a leave from the military, he married Rhoda Leona Westlake in nearby Wyoming. After a brief honeymoon, the newlyweds resided at 136 North Front Street, but Jack left his young wife shortly after to resume his RCAF training.
On December 8, 1941, and married less than seven months, Jack embarked overseas from Halifax bound for the United Kingdom. Much was expected of him. Part of his appraisal read that Jack was excellent material. This boy has everything, splendid physique, keen mind, smart, alert, very strong personality, the determined aggressive type. Will make good in any classification. Recommended for Pilot or Observer.
Jack was in the Sarnia Observer news in June 1942 for his part in a Nazi raid. The Observer report described how, as part of the “Demon Squadron” of the R.C.A.F., Pilot Officer Jack Thain and his fellow crew members on Coastal Command had bombed a medium-sized enemy vessel in the face of “heavy opposition”, bringing their Hudson bomber home unscathed. In the latter part of 1942, John Thain learned at his Bright Street home that his son had been promoted to flying officer while overseas.
On the afternoon of Tuesday, June 1, 1943, Jack was the flying officer navigator-bomb aimer aboard Halifax aircraft BB257. Six crew mates and he left RAF Station St. Eval in Cornwall, England, at 1518 hours on an anti-submarine patrol. Six hours later, air controllers received only one message from the Halifax over the northwest coast of France: enemy aircraft were attacking them over the Bay of Biscay. After that, nothing. By 2330 hours, when the estimated time of arrival back at base had passed, “overdue action” was taken. A search of the area proved fruitless.
Jack Thain, 24, has no known grave. His name is inscribed on the Runnymede War Memorial,
Surrey, United Kingdom.
It is impossible to measure the grief that the friends and families of these three young men felt when they heard the grim news of their deaths. Individuals undoubtedly offered their condolences to grief-stricken family members and the larger community responded to their sorrow. At St. Andrew's Church in January 1943, Rev. Dr. J. M. Macgilliray conducted a memorial service for Don Cameron who had been a parishioner. In March 1945, the first “FO. Rodolfo Mendizabal Shooting Trophy”, named in honour of the young flier, was presented in the SCITS auditorium by his father and staff member, Augustin Mendizabal. On November 11, 1955, Augustin, who is sitting in front of Rudy in the photo, and his wife laid the first wreath on the newly renovated cenotaph.
WWII hit the Thain family hard. Jack's body was never recovered and eleven months after he disappeared, Clare, Jack's younger brother and the best man at his wedding, was killed in action in Singapore. Clare's body was never recovered as well. Their father, John, passed away in 1955 and is buried alongside his wife, Isabella, in Lakeview Cemetery. Jack's widow, Rhoda, remarried years later and moved to Wyoming, Ontario
Only eight years had elapsed between that 1935 school photo and their deaths.
Don, Rudy, and Jack had their reasons, noble reasons, for choosing to enlist. They did what they felt was right and looked forward to the challenge. It's tempting to speculate, though, what their lives, so full of promise, would have been like—what they would have accomplished--had they not served. The void created by their deaths affected so many around them.
Life, as the saying goes, is meant to be lived forwards, but can only be understood backwards.