THE HOUSE THAT DAVE BUILT - University of Toronto Magazine

L
etters
A Soldier’s Story
J.K. Macalister’s tragic
tale is a reminder of
the ultimate sacrifice
A TOWER’S MEANING
I always enjoy reading U of T Magazine,
but the Autumn 2007 issue was particularly
good. The articles “Witness to War,”
by Stacey Gibson, and “Behind Enemy
Lines,” by Alec Scott, were both extremely
interesting. When I attended the
University of Toronto, I often walked
past Soldiers’ Tower but didn’t think too
much about it. After reading the story
about J.K. Macalister and Frank Pickersgill
and their capture by the Nazis in the
Second World War, I would like to learn
more about the individuals who gave
their lives for our country.
Linda Klassen
PharmD 1995
Saskatoon
THE STORY BEHIND
THE SCHOLARSHIP
Thank you for the story on John Kenneth
Macalister (“Behind Enemy Lines,”
Autumn 2007). I won the J.K. Macalister
scholarship at Guelph Collegiate Vocational
Institute. Like Macalister, I also
went on to U of T. However, unlike him,
I subsequently returned to Guelph and
lived near the park named in his honour.
Although I knew the bare bones of his
story I was interested to learn more.
Angela Hofstra
BScPhm 1986, PharmD 1993
Guelph, Ontario
GOOD NEWS
FOR A CHANGE
I wish to commend you for your wonderful
work, but I also wish to draw your
attention to certain aspects of the Autumn
2007 issue that you may not be aware of.
On the cover, Dr. Samantha Nutt is
holding a picture of an apparently mal-
FOR
his 2002 history of the University of Toronto, out, Macalister signed up with theFieldSecurity Wing ofthe
Martin Friedland researched the contribu- British Intelligence Corps. After Continental Europe’s rapid
tions that UofTalumni made to the Allied cause inthe fall, he enlisted with a new intelligence service, the Special
two world wars. Among the 630 students and grads who Operations Executive, which had been set uptofoment resist-
died in theFirst World War and the 557 in the Second,one ance in German-occupied territories.
particularly affected Friedland. “Maybe because law is also “Set Europe ablaze,” instructed Winston Churchill. After a
my field, the loss of this promising young lawyer, J.K. hasty training in spy-craft, the French-speaking Macalister was
Macalister, stoodoutforme,” says theformer dean of U of T’s parachuted into the Loire Valley in 1943. Unfortunately,
law school. “There was something about the photographs before he could set his little bit of the continent on fire, the
of him. And then what I learned about his story intrigued Gestapo captured and imprisoned him.
–andhorrified –me.Istill getabit shaken when Ithink In the war’s final days, a panicked Hitler ordered the execu-
of him.”
tion of captive spies, such as Macalister, to prevent them from
The briefest description of John Kenneth Macalister’s describing their appalling treatment. After hanging Macalister
attainments illustrates the promise Friedland saw. After grad- and 15 other captives in the bowels of Buchenwald – with
uatingatthe top ofhislawclass at U of T,Macalisterattended piano wire attached to meat-hooks – the SS guards cremated
Oxford on aRhodes Scholarship. He graduated from there the remains. It was Hitler’s aim to keep their fates a secret. In
with first-class honours, and went on to the bar exams in Macalister’s case, the führer and his minions failed. The Nazis
London where he placed tops in the empire. When war broke disposed of his body, but they couldn’t destroy his story.
ILLUSTRATION: GARY ALPHONSO/i2i ART BEHIND
ENEMY LINES
U of T grads John Kenneth Macalister and Frank Pickersgill trained as spies during the Second World
War. An unlucky break brought their lives to a tragic end • BY ALEC SCOTT
32 UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO MAGAZINE / AUTUMN 2007
nourished African child. Another story
concerning black people, “The Schools
We Want,” is about black youths having
difficulties in school.
I appreciate your efforts to make the
concerns of black people news, but, on
the other hand, it’s rather distressing
that the news about Africans and black
people is so often about suffering, violence
and pain.
May I suggest that the next time a
black person makes your cover it be
good news?
Emmanuel Mbam
ThM 2006
Toronto
DOING THE RIGHT THING
It never fails to astonish me that each
year more and more people give more
and more money to charities and universities.
From the cynic’s point of view,
people like Sheldon Inwentash and
Lynn Factor and the Goldring family
(“Great Gifts,” Autumn 2007) give
because they get a great tax receipt or
because they can’t use all that wearisome
cash anyway or because they want their
names on a building or two. But does it
matter whether the cynics are right? Not
really. The point is they have chosen to
do some public good with their wealth
AT THE TOP OF THE J.K. MACALISTER FILE AT THE UNIVERSITY
OF Toronto Archives is a clipping from an April 1945 edition
of the Guelph Mercury – one which, despite its understated
language, wields awallop. “Notification has been received
from the British War Office by A.M. Macalister, editor of
The Mercury, and Mrs. Macalister… [residing on Metcalfe
Street], of the death of their son Capt. John Kenneth
Macalister on September 14, 1944. The parents had been
notified previously that their only son had
been missing in June.”
“The Macalisters sort of disappeared
from Guelph after hisdeath,” a high school
friend, George Hindley, recalls during an
interview from his homeon the same sleepy,
tree-lined street where theMacalisters once
lived. “AsfarasIknow,he was the last of
that whole line.”
In high school, Macalister was a strong,
but notstellar, student. In addition to histo-
ry, he particularly enjoyed French – and the
stylish, lively French teacher, Olive Freeman
(who went on to marry John Diefenbaker
and frequently sported Chanel at otherwise
dowdy Ottawa events). Hindley, atopstudent,
recalls: “You knew Ken was smart, but
you didn’t suspect in high school that he’d be
able to compete with the bestinthe province
– let alone at Oxford.”
In 1933, the pair went off to U of Twith many of the
province’s best, Hindley to study classics at Victoria College,
Macalister to study law at University College. “We didn’t see
much ofeachother, being at different colleges,” Hindley says.
“But I did appreciate him taking me out to dinner once early
on.Iwas 16, afarm boy; he was a little older, more sophisticated,
the sonofa newspaper editor.”
In addition to excelling at his studies, Macalister threw himself
into the extracurricular life of the university, joining the
UC Literary and Athletic Society, playing rugby, debating at
Hart House, serving as chief justice of the moot court, and
chatting en français with the French Club.Aworkingknowledge
of French was viewed as helpful for English Canadians
interested inenteringpolitics –Macalister’s ultimate ambition.
IN 1937, MACALISTER BOARDED A STEAMER AND EMBARKED
on the month-long journey to the U.K. to register inlawat
Oxford’s venerable New College. The small-town Ontario
boydidn’t let the grandness of thestage affect the quality of
his performance; he earned excellent grades in his first two
years. In the summer break of 1939, still hoping to polish
his French, he went to live with a family in Lisieux,
Normandy. The daughter ofthe house, Jeannine Lucas,
captivated him and, by the end of the summer, they married.
Theirs wasa brief idyll: in September, Germany sent
its tanks intoPoland, and Europe again found itself at war.
Macalister’s instructors
in Britain’s Special
Operations Executive
rated him highly:
“Quiet and reserved
with plenty of
acumen,” one wrote
Macalister tried to sign up for the French military, but his
nearsightedness disqualified him. He decided to return to
England. When he left his wife with her familyinFrance,they
didn’t suspect that she was pregnant – or that the war would
irrevocably divide them. It was an emotional time, a time of
swift unions and equally quick, unintentionally final partings.
Backin Oxford, the armed forces’recruiting board turned
down Macalister’s application to join the military (again because
of his poor eyesight) and encouraged him
tocomplete his studies. He didso,graduating
in spring 1940 with afirst in jurisprudence,
though any celebrations wouldhave been
cut short. In April, he received heartbreaking
news from France: Jeannine had given birth
to astillborn daughter – their daughter.
He carried onwith his studies. At the
bar exams thatyear, he came first among the
142 from across the empire who sat the
tests. Unsure what to do next, he contem-
plated returning to Canada. Hart Clark,
another Canadian Rhodes Scholar at
Oxford reportedthatit was unclearwhether
Canadians in Britain should enlist in
Canada or England. Macalister wrote to a
formerUof T prof of his, W.P.M. Kennedy,
to let him know he was at loose ends. The
professor at once wrote back, offering
Macalister afaculty job, but itwas too late.
“In army since yesterday,” the young man telegraphed
Kennedy inSeptember 1940. “Sorry. Many thanks.”
AFTERTHE FALL OFNORWAY,DENMARK, BELGIUM, HOLLAND,
France and much of eastern Europe, the British war cabinet
decided in July 1940 toset up an agency to encourage resistance
– through sabotage and propaganda –inAxis-occupied
territories. The Special Operations Executive (SOE) –that
Macalister joined midway through the war –was like something
out ofaJohn le Carrénovel. It was typically headed by
a knighted Whitehall insider, known in the organizationsimplyasCD.Abunch
of Old Boys were appointed to runit.
Potential recruits metSelwyn Jepson, the SOE’s recruiting
officer, in a stripped-down room at London’s Northumberland
Hotel. Interviewing half in French and half in
English, Jepson was looking for reflective men and women,
notimpetuous sorts.He told potential recruits that there was
a one in two chance they’d die inthe service – and told them
to sleep on it before opting in or out. “I don’t want you to
make up your mindtoo easily,” he is reported to have said.
“It’s alife-and-deathdecision.”
In mid 1942, Macalister opted in and began five months
of gruelling training across Britain. The recruits learned parachuting
near Manchester and railway sabotage (using real
locomotives) and firearm handling on Scotland’s northwest
coast. AtBeaulieu Manor near lush New Forest, ex-Shanghai
WWW.MAGAZINE.UTORONTO.CA 33
instead of rolling around in it like
some self-indulgent Scrooge McDucks.
Good for them.
Geoff Rytell
BEd 1975
Toronto
SLURRING WORDS
Like H. Farrugia, I am upset that U of T
Magazine used the term “white-bread”
to refer to whites (“Letters,” Autumn
2007). What a sad world we live in if
we have to cross the line of decency to
emphasize a point. By the way, I can
find many racial slurs in various dictionaries,
but that doesn’t mean that I
have to use them. There is something
that each of us should use – and that is
good taste.
M. Novar
Mississauga
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