All the Luck in the World

J.L. Granatstein is a professor of history at York University, the
co-author of the Dictionary of Canadian Military History and Empire to
Umpire: Canada and the World to the 1990s, and the author of The Good
Fight.

This little volume is the first publication of a story told at the end
of World War II by a Newfoundlander who served with distinction in both
the RAF and the RCAF. Allan Ogilvie was a navigator with 51 operations
to his credit when his Lancaster bomber was shot down near Verdun,
France, in 1943. Landing relatively unhurt, Ogilvie put himself into
contact with the Resistance and over three months he cautiously moved
through Occupied France, Vichy France, and Spain. He fortunately never
seems to have come into contact with German-supporting French people or
with the Gestapo; he was treated with consideration and care all along
his route; and he made it back to England, his reward being a bar to his
Distinguished Flying Cross.

Ogilvie’s story is a good one, but this slender book—perhaps to
bulk it up a little—is padded with three forewords, biographical
notes, and a preface, some of which are repetitive. There are also too
many typographical errors, unnecessary explanatory notes, and a worthy
but superfluous effort to use the volume to pay tribute to Newfoundland
airmen.