Plaques honour former Jasper men

Jasper Jr./Sr. High School students got a history lesson and an introduction last week to two former residents whose exploits in the Second World War were celebrated in movies. 

Former Yellowhead MLA Ivan Strang presented plaques to the school to commemorate the lives of Flt. Lt. Patrick Langford and W. O. Class II Alden Cottam, whose families no longer live in Jasper.

Dennis Langford told the students that his brother Patrick was one of  76 allied airmen, six of them Canadians, who tunneled their way out of a German prisoner of war camp.

All but three of  the prisoners were recaptured. Patrick Langford was among 50 of the recaptured men who were murdered by the Gestapo, on direct orders from Adolph Hitler, his brother said.

The incident was the subject of a movie, The Great Escape, made in 1963, and still seen occasionally on television. 

A 1955 British film, the Dam Busters, focused on the RAF’s 617 Squadron, the development of a “bouncing bomb”, and Operation Chastise, the attack on the Ruhr dams in Germany.

The attacks on the dams were intended to cripple Germany’s wartime production. They required the aircraft to come at just 60 feet above the water, under heavy fire, to deliver bombs which  skipped over the water to avoid protective torpedo nets.

Alden Cottam was a wireless operator/air gunner aboard one of the many aircraft shot down in the raid that was considered a success, despite the heavy loss of men and aircraft.