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You Never Know Your Luck: Battle of Britain to the Great Escape: The Extraordinary Life of Keith 'Skeets' Ogilvie DFC
When the Royal Canadian Air Force wouldn’t accept him as a pilot in the summer of 1939, Keith ‘Skeets’ Ogilvie walked across the street in Ottawa and joined the Royal Air Force. A week later he was on a boat to England and a future he could not have imagined. Some unusual luck won him a transfer as a Spitfire pilot to No. 609 (White Rose) Squadron, just as the Battle of Britain was being joined. Over the next months he firmly established his credentials with six confirmed victories and two probables, along with several enemy aircraft damaged. Shot down over France the following July, he was fortunate to be treated for grievous injuries by top German surgeons. Skeets’ home for the balance of the war was Stalag Luft III prison camp. He was the second last man out of the ‘Great Escape’ tunnel but was recaptured three days later. For reasons he never understood, Skeets was one of 23 escapees who were spared from being murdered by the Gestapo. 50 of his fellows were not so lucky.

In London on a night off from flying duties, Skeets had been introduced to a fellow Canadian expatriate, Irene Lockwood. While he was testing the limits of his luck, his future wife was experiencing her own adventures in London, living through the daily stress of the Luftwaffe bombing campaign and working with MI12, and later as a wartime photographer with the RCAF.

You Never Know Your Luck is the story of two modest people who found themselves in extraordinary circumstances, and who rose to the occasion like so many of their contemporaries. Skeets’ and Irene’s own words and memories are the foundations on which the experience of wartime unfolds. A unique perspective from individuals who never failed to wonder at their own fortune.

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You Never Know Your Luck: Battle of Britain to the Great Escape: The Extraordinary Life of Keith 'Skeets' Ogilvie DFC
When the Royal Canadian Air Force wouldn’t accept him as a pilot in the summer of 1939, Keith ‘Skeets’ Ogilvie walked across the street in Ottawa and joined the Royal Air Force. A week later he was on a boat to England and a future he could not have imagined. Some unusual luck won him a transfer as a Spitfire pilot to No. 609 (White Rose) Squadron, just as the Battle of Britain was being joined. Over the next months he firmly established his credentials with six confirmed victories and two probables, along with several enemy aircraft damaged. Shot down over France the following July, he was fortunate to be treated for grievous injuries by top German surgeons. Skeets’ home for the balance of the war was Stalag Luft III prison camp. He was the second last man out of the ‘Great Escape’ tunnel but was recaptured three days later. For reasons he never understood, Skeets was one of 23 escapees who were spared from being murdered by the Gestapo. 50 of his fellows were not so lucky.

In London on a night off from flying duties, Skeets had been introduced to a fellow Canadian expatriate, Irene Lockwood. While he was testing the limits of his luck, his future wife was experiencing her own adventures in London, living through the daily stress of the Luftwaffe bombing campaign and working with MI12, and later as a wartime photographer with the RCAF.

You Never Know Your Luck is the story of two modest people who found themselves in extraordinary circumstances, and who rose to the occasion like so many of their contemporaries. Skeets’ and Irene’s own words and memories are the foundations on which the experience of wartime unfolds. A unique perspective from individuals who never failed to wonder at their own fortune.

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You Never Know Your Luck: Battle of Britain to the Great Escape: The Extraordinary Life of Keith 'Skeets' Ogilvie DFC

You Never Know Your Luck: Battle of Britain to the Great Escape: The Extraordinary Life of Keith 'Skeets' Ogilvie DFC

by Tim Weijun Liang
You Never Know Your Luck: Battle of Britain to the Great Escape: The Extraordinary Life of Keith 'Skeets' Ogilvie DFC

You Never Know Your Luck: Battle of Britain to the Great Escape: The Extraordinary Life of Keith 'Skeets' Ogilvie DFC

by Tim Weijun Liang

Overview

When the Royal Canadian Air Force wouldn’t accept him as a pilot in the summer of 1939, Keith ‘Skeets’ Ogilvie walked across the street in Ottawa and joined the Royal Air Force. A week later he was on a boat to England and a future he could not have imagined. Some unusual luck won him a transfer as a Spitfire pilot to No. 609 (White Rose) Squadron, just as the Battle of Britain was being joined. Over the next months he firmly established his credentials with six confirmed victories and two probables, along with several enemy aircraft damaged. Shot down over France the following July, he was fortunate to be treated for grievous injuries by top German surgeons. Skeets’ home for the balance of the war was Stalag Luft III prison camp. He was the second last man out of the ‘Great Escape’ tunnel but was recaptured three days later. For reasons he never understood, Skeets was one of 23 escapees who were spared from being murdered by the Gestapo. 50 of his fellows were not so lucky.

In London on a night off from flying duties, Skeets had been introduced to a fellow Canadian expatriate, Irene Lockwood. While he was testing the limits of his luck, his future wife was experiencing her own adventures in London, living through the daily stress of the Luftwaffe bombing campaign and working with MI12, and later as a wartime photographer with the RCAF.

You Never Know Your Luck is the story of two modest people who found themselves in extraordinary circumstances, and who rose to the occasion like so many of their contemporaries. Skeets’ and Irene’s own words and memories are the foundations on which the experience of wartime unfolds. A unique perspective from individuals who never failed to wonder at their own fortune.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780993415227
Publisher: Fighting High Publishing
Publication date: 08/18/2016
Product dimensions: 6.50(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Keith C. Ogilvie describes himself as the ‘lucky’ son of Skeets and Irene Ogilvie. As he grew up he gradually came to understand just how remarkable the lives of his parents had been. Working from a trove of personal correspondence, diaries, scrapbooks and media, together with memoirs of others and research covering the events of the time, he has chronicled the highlights of these two memorable lives.

Table of Contents

Foreword vii

Part 1 From Here to There

1 The Ottawa Boy 1

2 And the Westerner 9

Part 2 Preparations and Parties

3 De Havilland School of Flying - the Adventure Begins 22

4 With Serious Intent 32

5 From Student to Fighter Pilot 48

Part 3 Height of the Battle

6 Into the Fray 58

7 Battle of Britain Day 67

8 A Royal Note 70

9 Learning by Experience 76

10 Accidents Happen, Even in Wartime 89

11 The Battle Moves On 94

12 A Big Move - Biggin Hill 100

13 Bombs on London 105

14 A New Role 107

15 Other Pursuits 117

16 Back to Work 119

17 For You, the War is Over 133

Part 4 Four Lingering Years: the Camp, Escape and the Long March

18 Recuperation 140

19 The Camp - Stalag Luft III 147

20 The 'Rackets Room' 153

21 Back in London 158

22 Zagan 164

23 Preparations for Escape 169

24 Last Man Out of the Tunnel 180

25 Outside the Wire 186

26 Aftermath and Consequences 190

27 Interrogation 194

28 Return to Custody 200

29 The Long March 202

30 Freedom and Repatriation 212

Part 5 After the War

31 A New Life 222

32 Post-war Europe - RCAF 'Carnival' 225

33 Homeward Bound 234

34 Back in the Air 238

35 New Roots 244

Epilogue 251

Endnotes 254

Acknowledgements 259

Record of Service - A.K. 'Sheets' Ogilvie 261

Selected Bibliography 262

Index 264

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