Clerc - Saskatoon war victim                                                          Updated:  29 JUN 2009

From The Star Phoenix 15 December 1990 - SASKATOON, SASKATCHEWAN, CANADA, cutting from Johannes V. Hansen
by Eric O. Burt.  Eric O. Burt has been a Western Canada newsman for more than 50 years, and a Star-Phoenix staffer since 1956.

Saskatoon war victim remembered in Denmark

Svend Erik Simonsen had two objectives in mind when he visited Saskatoon recently. He came to see a pharmacologist at the
University of Saskatchewan whose research is in the same field as his own.

Jacques Oliver Clerc. Born in 1917 in Schwitzerland. Died in 1944 in the night between
16 and 17 August 1944, when he drowned after he bailed out from his plane that crashed
near the isthmus of Langøre here very close to the peninsula of Helnæs here.

A University of Saskatchewan instructor in Canada. Joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, the RCAF,
in 1942.
He only became 27 years old.

See the remarkable Letters from an Airman, Jacques-Olivier Clerc and
Remember Jacques-Olivier Clerc with the original text in French.
More about Svend Erik Simonsen in Around Hampden P5330.

(HAL MZ808 was on a minelaying mission to the Kiel Bay about here, see Helnæs and Assens at the top.)
(Texts at this photo and in all brackets are not written by Eric O. Burt)

He also wanted to tell his story of a former University of Saskatchewan instructor who died in a plane crash in Denmark during
the Second World War. Simonsen is an opthalmologist by profession, a research scientist by choice. Originally from the Odense area
of Denmark, he now lives in Copenhagen. His major interest is the connection between diabetes and blindness and he is working toward
a solution to the problem. 

The story he tells is of Flying Officer Jacques Oliver Clerc who left the university here in enlist as a navigator with the Royal Canadian
Air Force (RCAF), and who was one of five men to die when their Halifax bomber was shot down on the night of Aug. 16, 1944.

University files indicate Clerc was born in Switzerland in 1917, gained a doctor of philosophy degree in 1939, at age 22,
then came to Canada, actually arriving in the country the day after war was declared.

His first job in Canada was as an associate in the department of political economy at the University of Toronto. In 1941 he came to
Saskatoon to instruct at the university summer school and remained on staff through the 1941-42 term. He joined the air force in 1942.
Other information available indicates his father was a professor of French literature and a brother is a priest at Neuchatel in Switzerland. 

A boy of 12 when the tragedy occurred near his home, Simonsen has memories of the event. He shows on a map how planes
from Britain came over the Denmark coast, then over the Baltic Sea to reach targets in northern Germany. He knows the target
in this instance was Kiel.

Simonsen's interest and memories were rekindled when he came across a book listing all aircraft shot flown in Denmark during the war,
burial places of the victims, and other details. (Anders Bjørnvad: Faldne allierede flyvere 1939-1945, Fallen Allied Airmen 1939-1945,
a main source of www.airmen.dk , see FAF  Summary in English)

Among other items in the book are the texts of letters found on Clerc's body which indicate he saw little value in economics
when young men were dying in a war that was supposed to be saving the world's civilization. It was this feeling that made Clerc leave
his university job and enlist. He knew the danger into which he was heading but determined to do what he could for the cause. 

Simonsen says that in the early years of the war the Germans would take bodies of their victims to be buried in the nearest churchyard.
They would provide such military details as a guard of honor and a salute fired over the grave. As the war went on and downed aircraft
became more numerous the churchyard burials continued but the honor guard and the salute were dropped from the proceedings.
Eventually, the Germans would just dig a grave and bury the airmen where they were found.

The plane carrying Clerc came down in the sea, not far from shore. Danish rescuers were able to find the survivors. The bodies were
more difficult to locate but were eventually found and taken to a nearby church for funeral services and burial in Sonderby churchyard. 

The search was not without its difficulties. The voices of the two survivors could be head from a point of land above the sea but the
sound was lost when searchers listened from the beach. 

Simonsen tells of a fisherman preparing to launch his boat for the search and being warned of the German military reaction. The man
is quoted as saying he didn't care whether the victims were German, British, Canadian, or what, he was going to find them and
bring them to shore. 

The usual military stones mark the graves of the five men and a memorial wall has been built nearby (in Sønderby Churchyard)
with a plaque containing the five names. (J.A. Morgan, C.R. Stewart, J.O. Clerc, R.F. Young and J.W. Moffat)

Survivors of the crash were Phil Marchildon, now living in Toronto, and George Gill, whose home is in London, Ontario.
Marchildon says the Halifax was one of 14 aircraft sent to plant mines in Kiel harbor. Escort planes were supposed to be flying
with them to divert attention but, for some unknown reason, the escort was cancelled. 

The plane in which Marchildon, Gill, Clerc and the four others were flying was shot down before it reached its goal. Gill was in the nose,
Marchildon was in the tail. The two were the first to jump, landing in water close to shore from which they were picked up by fishing
boats manned by members of the Danish underground. 

Marchildon says the plane was travelling at 195 miles per hour and by the time the others jumped they were much farther from
shore (here) and harder to locate. He adds that the life jackets known as "Mae Wests" were "little good in choppy seas."