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NAME ________________________________________________________________ EMAIL ADDRESS _______________________________________________________ ADDRESS _____________________________________ CITY____________________ (This number must appear in ad) R0013931452 (PLEASE PRINT.) SUBMITTED TO APPEAR IN MY LOCAL NEWSPAPER: _______________________ (NAME OF NEWSPAPER) *Limited time offer. Check Out: POSTAL CODE____________________ HOME # ______________________________ Yes. Please send me promotional offers from Metroland Media and its affiliates. PLEASE PRINT. Alex Campbell survived war experience By Tim Kelly ife L stories tkelly@yrmg.com Free App A celebration of lives well lived and people well loved Read more Life Stories on yorkregion.com ing City's Alex Campbell was just 20, scared, and minutes from certain death as the night wind blasted his face at the lip of the burning warplane. The Lancaster pilot, on his 24th and final mission over Nazi-held France on July 28, 1944, made sure the rest of his crew parachuted out of the bullet-riddled aircraft. Now it was his turn ­ if he could make it. But Campbell was stuck, the plane's emergency hatch door on top of him. Then, he saw his life flash before his eyes: the smell of bacon-and-eggs at the kitchen table at his boyhood farm on Keele Street in King City, the sight of spruce trees on that farm and a burst of anger took over. Campbell decided he wanted to live and shoved the hatch off. As he stood in the doorway, he felt the howling wind and knew time was short as the plane fell to earth. He was trained to count to 10 before pulling the cord, but didn't have time. He went to pull and found the ripcord, then headed straight down, the wind blowing his boots off and he sat up. He came so close to the ground the impact K King City's Alex Campbell survived neardeath war experience to live a long life knocked him out. When he came to, Campbell found he had landed in a wheat field and thought to himself, `I'm alive and I will live to see my 21st birthday.' He made his way to the nearest farmhouse and was hidden from the approaching Nazis by a farmer in a stable behind some hay bales. Campbell then travelled 40 kilometres in peasant clothes where he camped for three weeks in a forest with 150 other downed aviators until Patton's Army could come through and picked him up to take him to Paris. From there Campbell got back to England and flew home, his incredible war experience over. In 24 missions, Alex Campbell, Lancaster pilot, saw enemy action on every flight. He told his family he was lucky to be alive. He lived another 70 years and died May 4 at 92, a father of four, grandfather of eight and great-grandfather of two, happily married to wife Hazel for more than seven decades. His daughter Wendy is happy to recount stories about her father, especially his curious streak. "Dad was very curious about life, my brothers grew up having bees in the backyard and rabbit pens, there was a never a `No' to anything you wanted to do," said Wendy about her father, in an interview last month. "He loved Tommy and the Who and would play that over and over. He liked Mitch Miller and Burl Ives. He was never afraid to step into the future, never old. He was never an old fogey, a very intelligent man, a fabulous carpenter, builder, into technology, into computers which my parents got into in their 80s." She said her dad started his own business after the war building ladders, worked at de Havilland in Downsview, then at the hardware store in King City for a number of years in 1950s and 1960s before winding up his working life as a teacher at Huron Heights in Newmarket for a number of years. Alex Campbell, for whom there is a street named in King City, was born in the township in 1923, grew up there and lived there for 70 years until moving to Paris, Ont., a few years ago. "He was so blessed," said Wendy. "His health carried him for 92 years. I was in his room and I slept right beside him. "At dad's funeral in Paris, as my brother was telling stories, my mom said dad told her only once, but he said when he was in the plane as it was going down and he was alone on it, he felt this hand on his shoulder as he was trying to get out ­ it was his guardian angel, willing him to live."