Thomas Ladner; sailor & lawyer (Globe and Mail)
Hyfler/Rosner
THOMAS LADNER, SAILOR AND LAWYER: 1916-2006
Vancouver lawyer whose forefathers founded Ladner, B.C., was
the last of 'the three musketeer' pals who found wartime
fame in the Royal Canadian Navy
TOM HAWTHORN
Special to The Globe and Mail
VICTORIA -- Tom Ladner survived a night in a storm-tossed
lifeboat in the frigid North Atlantic after the torpedoing
of his armed merchant cruiser in December of 1940. It would
not be his only close call. He once avoided being sunk off
the Dutch coast by hiding his motor gunboat behind a buoy at
night.
He fought in the English Channel and in the Mediterranean
and Adriatic Seas, earning a Distinguished Service Cross
with bar. As well, he was mentioned in dispatches four
times.
Mr. Ladner was the last surviving member of the Three
Musketeers, a trio of sailing chums from British Columbia
who joined the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve.
Despite his many scrapes, he had a reputation for attention
to detail and precision in his orders. After a particularly
ferocious sea battle, his fellow gunboat commanders were
astonished to learn his vessel had not suffered a single
hit.
He was known as a kind and gentle man, so ordinary in
appearance as to have been once compared to a milkman.
Thomas Ellis Ladner shared a name with his grandfather.
Ellis Ladner and his brother William left their native
Cornwall to make their fortune in California, before heading
north to join the 1858 Fraser River gold rush. Ten years
later, they pre-empted an expanse of fertile land at the
head of the Chilukthan Slough in the Fraser River delta. The
site came to be known as Ladner's Landing. The area, still
known as Ladner, is today part of the municipality of Delta.
He was born the son of lawyer Leon Ladner, who had studied
with Sir Charles Tupper before becoming a founding partner
of the law firm Ladner, Carmichael and Downs (later, Ladner
Downs). Leon Ladner married Jeanne Lantzius in Brussels in
1912, later serving as consul for Belgium in Vancouver. In
1921, when his son was aged four, Leon Ladner was elected to
Parliament as the Conservative member for Vancouver South.
He twice won re-election before being upset in 1930 by
streetcar motorman and trade unionist, Angus MacInnis.
Tommy Ladner was educated at Shawnigan Lake School on
Vancouver Island and at the Leys School, Cambridge. He
graduated with an arts degree from the University of British
Columbia in 1937.
He was active in the debating society there and in his
senior year argued the affirmative when the Parliamentary
Forum took as its subject "resolved that in the event of
Britain going to war, Canada should withdraw from the
Empire." A few years later, he would be among several
Canadian naval officers to command a British crew while on
loan to the Royal Navy.
He studied law at Osgoode Hall in Toronto, returning to the
West Coast at the end of term. He spent the waning summer
days of 1939 sailing with friends. On Sept. 3, he listened
to radio coverage of Britain's declaration of war while at a
cottage on Pasley Island with Cornelius (Corny) Burke, whom
he had befriended at Shawnigan Lake School. Their mutual
friend Douglas Maitland, nicknamed Wimpy, was racing that
day off Vancouver Island. The three, who often sailed
together in Vancouver's English Bay, would volunteer for the
navy and fight together overseas. (Incidentally, a third
person at the Paisley cottage that historic day was Henry
"Budge" Bell-Irving, an infantry brigade commander who later
served as lieutenant-governor of British Columbia.)
Mr. Ladner returned to Toronto to complete studies at
Osgoode Hall. He passed his bar exam and enlisted at HMCS
York. He sailed overseas on a troopship in 1940. His arrival
at Victoria Station in London coincided with the Luftwaffe's
first daylight raid on the city.
Assigned to the armed merchant cruiser Forfar, Mr. Ladner
was on his second patrol when the converted Canadian Pacific
Steamships passenger liner, known as Montrose, was hit by a
torpedo at dawn on Dec. 2, 1940. Fifty minutes later, the
first of four more torpedoes slammed into the doomed ship.
Mr. Ladner was struggling aft for his assigned lifeboat when
the other torpedoes struck, destroying his lifeboat. He was
covered by a spray of oil, which would act as insulation
from the bitter cold. He entered the frigid waters wearing a
lifebelt over a great coat.
"I ended up with seven others on a Carley float, paddled to
a lifeboat, which was practically empty, and then hauled in
others," he told the author Hal Lawrence. A passing
freighter picked up the survivors in the lifeboat, while
others were rescued by warships. He recuperated at a Glasgow
hospital, where severe rashes from the oil were treated with
oatmeal baths.
Though he had little naval experience, he was given command
of a motor gunboat. It was still under construction, so he
was assigned to ferry a sea-rescue yacht from Southampton to
the Thames Estuary. "I didn't know damn-all about anything,"
he told the authors of Champagne Navy (1991). "There were
minefields on either side, stuff in the air around you."
A raid on shipping off the Dutch shore in 1942 nearly ended
in disaster. The enemy convoy turned out to be escorted by
destroyers, which promptly opened fire on the smaller Royal
Navy gunboats. Mr. Ladner gunned his ship ahead of the
convoy but found himself unable to get back out to sea. With
his ship seriously damaged and several crewmen injured, he
hid in the dark behind a buoy.
"When things had quietened down, I made my way back to
Felixstowe with a big hole in the bow, badly shaken up," he
told Mr. Lawrence. "I got home but I ended up in a
minefield. The tide was low and these bloody great mines
were bobbing all around. I had this boat with her bow down
and only two of my three engines going and the pumps
thumping like crazy."
MGB 75 was towed to dock. Mr. Ladner was given leave, which
he used to spend Christmas with his family in Vancouver.
In 1943, the officer was handed command of MGB 663, which
took part in the Allied landings in North Africa and the
subsequent invasion of Sicily. Mr. Ladner soon after joined
a force ordered to capture the island of Ischia in the Bay
of Naples. He was joined in this by Lieutenant Commander
Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., of the United States Navy. The actor
was accompanied by two war correspondents, one of them the
novelist John Steinbeck.
As they approached the harbour, they saw a cheering crowd of
local residents led by the mayor, their ranks boosted by
U.S. Rangers who had arrived in advance, waiting to greet
their arrival. Mr. Ladner was disgusted to have played an
unwitting part in a propaganda stunt.
In early 1944, the 56th MGB Flotilla was formed with every
boat commanded by a Canadian. Wimpy Maitland was senior
officer aboard MGB 657; Corny Burke commanded 658; and,
Tommy Ladner had 663. The group harassed enemy shipping in
the Adriatic and became known as the Cowboy Flotilla.
Their best-known exploit came in the Mljet Channel off
Yugoslavia when they intercepted a convoy. They closed at
six knots under cover of darkness before opening fire. After
five hours of combat, including several daring manoeuvres,
the channel was cleared. Among the enemy losses were an oil
tanker and three schooners laden with food and ammunition.
An official report described the attack "as the shrewdest
blow that the enemy has suffered on the Dalmation Coast."
The Three Musketeers suffered no casualties among their
crew. Mr. Ladner's ship had not been struck by even so much
as a bullet.
By war's end, the trio were laden with decorations. Mr.
Maitland earned a DSC and bar to go with two Mentions in
Dispatches and a Croix de Guerre avec Palme en Bronze from
France. Mr. Burke's honours counted a DSC with two bars and
a Mention in Dispatches. After the war, Mr. Maitland became
a successful Vancouver businessman. He died in 1997. Mr.
Burke operated a travel agency in Vancouver. He died in
1999.
Mr. Ladner married Janet Fleck in September, 1945. He joined
the firm his father founded. He was named Queen's Counsel in
1964.
As a partner, he was a driving force in the amalgamation of
the firm with four others across Canada to form Borden
Ladner Gervais six years ago. He was a member of many
boards, both as a business director and community volunteer.
Mr. Ladner also made a contribution that led to Vancouver
being awarded the 2010 Winter Olympics. He was among the
original investors who turned Whistler into a skiing
destination, a grandiose dream indeed for an isolated valley
lacking even electricity.
He had taken up the sport as a youth, riding a ferry across
Burrard Inlet to West Vancouver before hiking up the
mountainside to ski at Hollyburn. From that vantage point on
the North Shore, he would have looked over the inlet and
onto English Bay, waters on which he and his friends learned
skills they would later put to use at war.
Thomas Ladner was born
on Dec. 8, 1916, at Vancouver.
He died at his home there on
June 23. He was 89. He leaves three sons, including
Vancouver City Councillor Peter Ladner; three daughters;
and, 14 grandchildren. He was predeceased by his wife, Janet
Fleck Ladner, and by three sisters.