Barry Anderson Davidson

Obtained escape supplies behind the wire at Stalag Luft III.

Barry Anderson Davidson was born in Calgary in 1914 and attended schools in its Hillhurst and Sunnyside districts. After militia and Canadian Army service supporting Depression-era relief camps, he entered the insurance business. Encouraged by Canadian flying ace Fred McCall, he learned to fly and gained his civilian pilot's licence in July 1937. His offer to fly for China was declined later that year. He subsequently joined the Royal Air Force, receiving an acting pilot officer's commission on 18 September 1939.

Following training, Davidson joined No. 18 Squadron at RAF West Raynham. On 6 July 1940, his second day with the squadron, he flew his first and only combat operation, attacking an airfield in France in a Bristol Blenheim IV. Anti-aircraft fire damaged the aircraft's controls. Using the tail trimmer, he recovered from a dive, but with his compass unreliable he mistook the French coast for England and crash-landed at Sangatte near Calais. Davidson, observer John Gilmour and wireless operator-air gunner Reginald Fisk survived and became prisoners of war.

Eventually held at Stalag Luft III near Sagan, Davidson helped obtain supplies for the escape organisation. Claustrophobia made underground digging difficult, so he concentrated on acquiring materials. Chocolate, coffee and cigarettes from Red Cross parcels became bargaining tools for securing paper, ink, identity documents, railway information and other essentials. His resourcefulness earned him the nickname "The Scrounger."

Davidson had a place on the escape list, but a German guard who helped him had been observed speaking with him. Escape leader Roger Bushell asked Davidson to remain behind to protect the contact. He therefore did not join the seventy-six prisoners who broke out on the night of 24–25 March 1944. Fifty of the recaptured men were subsequently murdered.

Promotion continued during captivity. Davidson became a flying officer on 20 April 1941 and a war-substantive flight lieutenant on 20 April 1942. He transferred from the RAF reserve to the Royal Canadian Air Force effective 24 November 1944. In January 1945, the advancing Soviet armies prompted the evacuation of his camp. He endured forced marches, bitter cold, hunger and crowded rail transport before liberation by a Scottish tank regiment on 2 May 1945, nearly five years after his capture.

After the war, Davidson returned to Calgary, resumed his insurance career and raised a family. He became a charter member of the Calgary Prisoner of War Association and remained active in the Southern Alberta Aircrew Association and the Cosmopolitan International Club. He preserved wartime papers and a prison-camp logbook containing artwork and verse, and donated his scrapbook and related material to the Glenbow Archives in 1986. His support for fellow former aircrew continued until his death in 1996, aged eighty-two.