LEWIS, Wilfred J. (Mike) - On Friday, July 17, 2009 at Dorothy Ley Hospice (Toronto) in his 92nd year. Predeceased by his wife Winnifred (nee Mumby) survived by his wife Dorothy McCabe Lewis (nee O'Hearn), his sons William (Sandra) and Robert (Linda) (JoAnn), his six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren and Dorothy's children, Michael McCabe (Karen), Arthur McCabe (Diane) and Lori McSweeny (Gord) and their families. Mike served in the Royal Air Force (Bomber Command) from 1938 - 1944. He was shot down on the night of September 7/8, 1941 and was a Prisoner of War for 3 years and 8 months. Returning to Canada in 1945, he continued to serve in the RCAF until his retirement in 1965. Mike was a member of Dalhousie Lodge no. 52, AF & AM, Ottawa; Rameses Shriners (Toronto); Shriners Club of Hamilton; the Hamilton Shrine Oriental Band; Fort York Branch, Royal Canadian Legion; the Ex-RCAF P.O.W. Association; the National P.O.W. Association and the Aircrew Association.

'Mike' escaped from a Nazi prison train with my father in a hail of bullets (Oct/41) and went to my grandmother's home in Hannover for help, only to learn she'd committed suicide 2 years earlier. I was in contact with him for 10 years, and he graciously wrote the Foreword to my new book "Escape, Evasion and Revenge: The True Story of a German-Jewish RAF Pilot Who Bombed Berlin and Became a POW".

A day or two after the completion of his SECOND full tour, the squadron CO saw Mike packing to go on leave, and said "We're short one pilot for tonight. Would you mind doing one extra trip?" That one extra cost him his freedom for 3 years and 8 months, after being shot down along the north coast of Holland.

The man was a true hero in every sense of the word.

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Ardent Escaper
Toronto, Canada
(Son of one of the war's most active escapers, a German-Jewish RAF bomber pilot/POW who won the Military Cross, without protection from the Geneva Convention)