GORDON ARTHUR KIDDER

                 Gordon Arthur Kidder son of Arthur Garfield Kidder and Ethel May Smith, of St. Catherine's, Ontario, Canada

    Gordon Arthur Kidder was born at St. Catherines, Ontario, Canada, 9 Dec. 1914; executed by Germany Gestapo, 29 March 1944.

   Gordon Arthur Kidder was murdered during the 2nd World War, he was a Flight Lieutenant for the 156 (R.A.F.) Sqdn., Royal Canadian Air Force.  He was murdered by German SS troops on Wednesday, 29th March 1944, at 29 years of age, for taking part in a massive escape from a German Prison Camp, he was buried in Poland.  Gordon A. Kidder was shot down 13/14 Oct. 1942, taken prisoner and held by the Germans at Stalag Luft III.  A movie titled “The Great Escape” starring Steve McQueen, was a true story based on 200 soldiers who tried to escape from Stalag Luft III, during the Second World War.  Of the 200 soldiers taking part in the escape, only 78 made it to the outside wall and of them 50 men were murdered by German SS troops for taking part in the escape.  In a documentary on the History Channel, regarding “The Great Escape” the names and pictures of the 50 men were featured, including “G. A. Kidder”
   Arthur G. Kidder attended the University of Toronto where he studied French and German.  A strong student, in 1937 he was accepted to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore for his Master's degree in German.  But he had a change of heart and decided to work as a clerk at the Ontario Department of Education and later as a translator with a Toronto insurance company.  He join the military when World War II started.  He trained as a navigator.
   Arthur Kidder accepted the assignment and jointed the 156 Squadron at Warboys on September 8, .  Their first operations against industrial targets was in the Ruhr valley.  On 13 October 1942, Kidder and crew join a raid on Kiel—Kidder's 9th operation of the war would be his last.  The Wellington they were in was spotted by searchlights and took heavy fire. As it tried to make it back to England across the North Sea, the plane went down.  He and another crew member survived the crash and were left floating at sea in the planes leaking dinghy. Arthur Kidder had a broken ankle. At dawn the two men were picked up by a German minesweeper.  Arthur Kidder spent some time in hospital before being sent to Sagan just before Christmas .
   In the prison camp, Arthur Kidder was known around the camp as one of the more reserved prisoners.  He became one of the camp's best language instructors.  He lived in hut 120—the same as the "Amicable Lunatics"—a group of rambunctious prisoners led by Alex Cassie and Des Plunkett.  After the camp purge that sent Wally Floody and a few others to another camp just a few weeks before the escape, Kidder is teamed up with Tom Kirby-Brown (British) as an escape partner. Originally Kidder planned to travel with Dick Churchill as Romanian woodcutters. But X Organization decided to team him up with Brown instead; they would travel as Spanish laborers. Everyone agreed to the change, but it still made everyone nervous, being so close to the escape.
   In the escape, they got out of the tunnel and proceeded to the Sagan train station.  At station, Arthur Kidder and Green are approached by a woman who was a member of the camp staff.  She smiled at them, but asked who they were.  Playing the part of a Spanish laborer, Green answered in a mixture of broken Spanish and German. The woman became suspicious and called over a policeman.  Green repeated his story and the policeman waved the two men on.  At 1 am, Arthur Kidder, Green, Bob van der Stok (who was one of the three to make it to safety), and three other escapees boarded a train for Breslau.  The men make it safely to Breslau where Green and Kidder board another train bound for Czechoslovakia. There plan was to reach Yugoslavia and hook up with the resistance.  The men cross into Czechoslovakia without incident but were recaptured at Hodonin in southern Moravia close to the Austrian border.  They were taken to prison at Zlin. They were the only escapees to be tortured by the Gestapo          
   The two men were shot by the Gestapo near Mahrisch Ostrau, their killers were Erich Zacharias and Adolf Knippelberg, both were cremated at Mahrisch Ostrau.  Gestapo agent Zacharias hanged by the British government on 27 Feb. 1948 for the murder of Green and Arthur Kidder.
   The transcripts of the trial called the “Trial of Max Wielen and 17 others” and “The Stalag Luft III Case” held by the British Military Court, Hamburg, Germany, 1st July - 3rd September 1947.  All the accused were charged with committing a war crimes.  The accused Erich Hermann August Zacharias, committed a war crime in the vicinity of Moravska-Ostrava, occupied Czechoslovakia, on or about 29th March, 1944, when a member of the Zlin Grenzpolizei, concerned in the killing of Flying Officer G. A. Kidder, Royal Canadian Air Force, and Squadron Leader T. G. Kirby-Green, Royal Air Force, prisoners of war   All accused were found guilty of the charges brought against them.  Erich Zacharias (9th charge) was sentenced to death by hanging.