Willa and David - A story of love and war

It all began in Ottawa at a reception where David, a Captain in the Scottish Highland Regiment, the Black Watch, was on the staff of Canada’s Governor General, Lord Tweedsmuir, better known as the novelist John Buchan.

Willa Magee was up from Montreal and innocently asked David at the reception for a glass of sherry. David soon returned to Willa with a glass of straight whiskey. David would later write about Willa: “She was too strong boned to be merely a pretty girl, but she was a girl most beautiful to me, my girl.”

Willa in the spring of 1939

​Willa thought better of the offer of the whiskey, but the two soon began a flash love affair, marrying in 1939 just before the start of the Second World War. Prior to the betrothal, David game his famous speech, saying that he felt like Ferdinand the Bull, who preferred to stay in the pasture sniffing the flowers rather than come into the ring for a bull fight.

There began Willa and David’s long, passionate and sometimes tempestuous marriage. Soon after the wedding David was called up to his regiment with the start of the war. 

Little did they know, but they were expecting their first child, a boy, who would be followed after the war by four more boys. Fortunately for Willa, she liked to be the mother of boys.

Willa had already decided to the follow David across the Atlantic and settled into her stay with David’s family in Fife, Scotland.

Shortly before the spring 1940 evacuation from France of Allied troops at Dunkirk, David’s regiment was engaged in fighting the Nazi army near St. Valerie, France. Much to his later mortification, David’s troops became surrounded, and they had little choice but to raise their arms in surrender.

There began David’s five-year incarceration as a Prisoner of War (POW) in various camps across Germany. To prevent the prisoners from growing too settled in their camps, the German authorities moved the POW’s often to disrupt them digging of tunnels under the camp wire or preparing other escape methods. 

David escaped three times from several camps but never made it all the way home.

Escape Buddies – David, left and Patrick, Scotland 1947

For each of those escapes his buddy was Patrick Campbell-Preston, his fellow Black Watch officer. David and Willa, like other separated couples, were able to write cursory letters to each other and a fateful message arrived that their first born, who they named after Patrick, had died from crib death.
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Willa had already returned to Canada, and after a difficult time mourning the death of her baby, Willa decided she could not remain idle in the face of the crushing international crisis which resulted in over 70 million deaths. She decided to join the war effort.

Meanwhile, David, small in stature, was a good man to be chosen for the cramped environment of escape tunnels.

He was also very involved in the highly successful Warburg Wire escape. This bold venture involved the placing of ladders up to the first wire surrounding the camp. Then, a bridge would be laid over the top to the second wire.

But, where to find the wood for the ladders and bridges? The Nazis liked prisoners to enjoy the “superiority” of German music, such as Wagner and Beethoven. Thus, they permitted the operation of a music room where sheet music was stored on  rough wooden shelving.

Crack teams of prisoners soon learned to assemble the ladders and bridges at great speed under the shelter of rousing music of the piano. A series of stooges (i.e. sentries) gave the teams of escapees cover from the prison guards.

There were endless other aspects of the escape including the shorting out of electrical power for the camp. Grappling hooks were used to create a diversion in the opposite side of the camp from the escape.

Four teams of 10 men, for a total of forty made it over the wire. They eventually learned that three escapees had made it all the way home.

David later wrote that shots were being fired as he and Pat made it away from the camp: “Pat forged ahead going well, much too well, I was dead tired already and I saw him fading into the dark. Then he stopped and came back…and said in a hoarse Scottish whisper ‘Arre ye wounded, Davie?’

Davie was not wounded, and they moved on. He said, ‘You know, Pat, whatever might happen to us ever again, that would be the best thing ever…Nothing could ever touch it, nothing.”
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Later Pat and David were recaptured at a wayside railway station and soon they were being driven back to Oflag VIB.

After more escapes, the prisoners were warned that if they were caught again, they would be shot. Eventually, the “bad boys” were transferred to Colditz Castle from which very few escapes were successful.

Meanwhile, back in Canada, Willa signed on for service in the Women’s Division of the Royal Canadian Airforce. Rising rapidly through the ranks she became commanding officer for the entire Division in the country.

Touring the training bases she helped a generation of young women contribute to the war effort.

Willa is acknowledged to have broken the barrier to women officers being admitted at officers’ messes across the country. She had her driver park outside one mess in the cold of winter, eating her snack in the plain view of the mess. Some male officers felt badly about the commanding officer’s exclusion and invited her to come in out of the cold. Thereafter, equality of entrance became standard protocol throughout the Airforce.

Although never taking a combat role, Willa had a commanding presence and was noted for the esprit de corps of her troops. Seven years ago, long after Willa’s passing, the department of defence named a small park near the Rockcliffe Air Base where much of the training took place, The Willa Walker Memorial Park.

Near the end of WWII, Willa had asked to be relieved of her military duties on humanitarian grounds so she could meet David when he and other POWs were liberated by the eastward advance of American troops in Europe.

Willa and David were reunited in Edinburgh, Scotland. Willa recalled that her husband had been so isolated as a POW that he hardly knew how to safely cross the street or use pocket change in stores.

After a brief stay in Scotland the couple decided to return to Canada and make their life there. They settled first in Saint Andrews, N.B, thinking they might more on from there to British Columbia. However, they quickly decided to stay in the town where Willa had spent most summers.

Their family grew rapidly with four more boys, Giles, Barclay, David and Julian born every two years up to 1951.

David, with the early encouragement of his Irish/Scottish mother, had decided to become a writer. While being held in his final Camp, Colditz Castle, he wrote this poem for Willa.

Here in the dawdling night
In the dim-lit murmuring room
The ceiling is touched with floodlight
And memories loom.
And the west wind below the castle wall
Sweeps in the trees and the owls call.
Ah, My Love, let us fly together
Through the night
Through the cold
Through the winter weather