Lois Blanchette remembers
Cousin recounts harrowing tale of escape
On July 4, 1941, Flight Lt. Keith Ogilvie’s Spitfire Mark V was shot down over occupied France. It’s a story his 98-year-old cousin Lois Blanchette remembers well, especially this time of year.
As of last week, the annual Poppy Campaign was launched across the country leading up to Remembrance Day, Nov.11.
It is a time to pay tribute to the sacrifices made to protect the rights and freedoms we enjoy today.
It is also a time to remember, to record and re-tell the stories collected
that paint a vivid picture of what our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents lived through.
An entire generation of Canadians, scarred for life, returned from the war, welcomed their loved ones home, or mourned their losses and continued with the struggles of daily life.
While many men and women of that generation made the burden seem weightless, their experiences were extraordinary and should be remembered as such, undiluted by time.
This is the story of Flight Lt. Keith “Skeets” Ogilvie (1915-1998) as told by his 98-year-old cousin, Sherbrooke resident Lois Blanchette.
“His younger brother Jimmy couldn’t pronounce Keith, so he called him Skeets. It stuck with him,” Blanchette explained.
The name would follow Ogilvie through his football days at Glebe Collegiate in Ottawa, into the cockpit of a Spitfire Mark I, through the tunnel during the ‘Great Escape’ of Stalag Luft III, and eventually back home to Canada.
According to Blanchette, Ogilvie wanted to join the Royal Canadian Air Force, but his application was rejected in 1939.
“I have no idea why,” Blanchette said. The family had a history of asthma, she speculated, but no details for the rejection were ever provided.
Determined to become a fighter pilot, Ogilvie enlisted in the British Royal Air Force.
A year later at age 22, after obtaining his flight certificate, (Flight Lt.) Ogilvie was posted to Squadron 609, piloting the Spitfire Mark I, the workhorse of the Royal Air Force.
In September of 1940, Ogilvie became one of the heroes of the Battle of Britain.
In the midst of the aerial battle, Ogilvie noticed a German bomber had separated from formation and was headed for Buckingham Palace.
Ogilvie and others managed to down the bomber, which crashed into Victoria train station.
The German plane managed to drop its bombs, but they missed the palace.
On July 4, 1941, Ogilvie, at that point flying a Spitfire Mark V, was forced to parachute from his burning plane, damaged in battle.
Severely wounded, Ogilvie landed in occupied France. He was arrested by a German patrol, given medical treatment, and then transferred to Stalag Luft III prisoner-of-war camp.
In March 24 and 25 of 1944, Ogilvie was one of 76 prisoners that escaped the seemingly inescapable prison through a tunnel they had dug.
Three of the escapees made it safely back to England.
The other 73, including Ogilvie, were recaptured.
According to Blanchette, her cousin remained a prisoner-of-war until liberated by allies.
“What really got me was what he went through when they recaptured the fellas that got out through the tunnel,” she commented.
Blanchette explained that while in the POW camp, every few weeks Ogilvie and the other inmates were rounded up and given scraps of paper, each with a number written on it.
A list of random numbers were then read out, and the prisoners holding them were shot right in front of their peers.
The gruesome ritual continued until the camp was liberated, Blanchette said.
Ogilvie was one of 23 out of the 73 recaptured men to survive the ordeal. The other 50 soldiers were executed.
“To think such things actually took place,” Blanchette said.
Ogilvie’s harrowing story is immortalized in the book ‘The Spitfire Luck of Skeets Ogilvie: From the Battle of Britain to the Great Escape’, written by his son Keith.