Enlistment

Robert George Emmett Toomey was born September 3rd, 1918 on Crichton Street in Ottawa, Ontario, the fifth of ten children of George Toomey and Elise Sirois.

He was educated at St. Brigid’s Separate School and La Salle Academy in Ottawa, but left school after the death of his father to work at Erskine-Smith and Company in Ottawa as a plumber and steamfitter.

Robert enlisted in the air force on January 16th, 1941 at the age of 22 and was trained as an airframe mechanic at St. Thomas Technical School in Ontario. While overseas in 1944 he volunteered to transfer to RAF Bomber Command in spite of the danger and dismal odds of survival of aircrew. He was accepted and received training as a flight engineer on Lancaster bombers in St. Athan, Wales.

The flight engineer was the systems expert of the airplane with extensive mechanical and technical knowledge of aircraft systems and performance. He would start and stop the engines, control the throttles during take-off, get the wheels up, trim the flaps, monitor oxygen and fuel systems and keep an eye on all the instruments during flight. He was sufficiently trained that he could fly the aircraft if it became necessary and was the reserve bomb aimer.

A Lancaster bomber aircrew consisted of a pilot, flight engineer, wireless operator, mid-upper air gunner, rear air gunner, bomb aimer and navigator. At a point during their training airmen were left to mingle in a large hall to form crews on their own. The process of forming a crew generally started with one or two men who had met during training deciding to fly together then looking for other compatible members from different trades to join them. 

After training, Robert and his crewmates were assigned to 428 (Ghost) Squadron of the RCAF and posted to Middleton St. George Airfield in England in July, 1944. The motto of this squadron was "Usque Ad Finem", a Latin battle phrase that means "To the very end". Sadly, that phrase was prophetic for so many airmen in RAF Bomber Command. By the end of the war , the death rate was 44.4 percent for Bomber Command aircrew, while thousands more were seriously injured or captured.

Robert ("Bob") Toomey was one of four brothers in active service overseas at the time. Sgt. Arthur Toomey worked in R.C.A.F. records office in RAF Croft near Darlington, England. Sgt. Patrick Toomey served with the Governor General’s Foot Guards and Pvt. George Toomey served with the Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps. His fiancee's brother, Wilfred Brousseau, was a member of the elite Devil's Brigade.

Captured

In the early morning hours of August 17th, 1944 Robert's Lancaster bomber was shot down by a Junkers Ju 88 aircraft while returning from a bombing raid to the port of Stettin, Germany. The aircraft crashed into the sea near the German-occupied Danish island Sejerø. Sgt. Robert Toomey was the only survivor of his crew of seven with whom he had flown on five missions [1]. He was taken prisoner later that morning, sent to Dulag Luft Oberursel in Germany and was interrogated for three days. He was then transferred by train to Stalag Luft VII, near Bankau (now the village of Bąków, Kluczbork County in Poland, located about here) arriving on August 30th, 1944, where he remained for 142 days. Robert was commissioned to the rank of Flying Officer while a prisoner at this camp.

On January 19th, 1945 the prisoners were marched from Slalag Luft VII in freezing temperatures towards Stalag IIIA near Luckenwalde, Germany on what became known as the "Long March" central route. The total distance walked was 227 kilometres to Goldberg (now Zlotoryja), where they boarded cattle cars and transported by rail to Luckenwalde, 30 kilometres south of Berlin. (Some diaries give the distance as 256 kilometres, as the route and stopping places varied slightly because of the need to find sufficient accommodations.) They arrived at Stalag IIIA on February 8, 1945 and were finally liberated by the Russians on April 22nd, 1945. By then, he had spent 248 days as a prisoner of war. 

Home Again

Robert married his fiancée Adrienne Brousseau within two months of returning home after the war. By 1950, he had built a cottage in Burnet, Quebec and a house in Aylmer, near the city of Ottawa where they raised a son and three daughters. He was employed as a supervisor at the Public Works Department of the Federal Government in Ottawa until his retirement in 1972 and he played a role in the design and construction of the Centennial Flame on Parliament Hill in 1967.

Robert was a loving, devoted family man who was active in the community and his church. Among his favourite pastimes was hosting parties with family, friends and neighbours, cooking and playing his harmonica.

Return to Sejerø

In the fall of 1973 Robert was contacted by Jørgen Helme, a Danish author who was researching the air wars over Denmark during the Second World War and he flew to Copenhagen to recount his experiences of the morning of August 17th, 1944. During that trip he travelled to the island Sejerø to visit the site where he swam ashore, and to visit those who took care of him in their home before he was taken prisoner.

The Diary and Scrapbook

Robert died on June 18th, 1974 at the age of fifty-five, just nine months after his visit to Sejerø, Denmark. It wasn't until years after his death that we learned about his diary and scrapbook containing wartime letters, postcards and dozens of photographs of his crew mates and of fellow prisoners. Most of these original photos of his crew were taken with his own camera or were given to him. We presume that he must have acquired the POW photos from the prisoners themselves or records at Stalag III-A after the camp was abandoned by the Germans in April, 1945. Opposite each photograph in his diary, Robert wrote the prisoner's name, home town, squadron, rank and where he was shot down. The diary also contains notes of prisoners he met in camp who were from the Ottawa, Canada area and drawings of "name cards" that were signed by fellow prisoners at Stalag III-A.

In Memory of Bomber Command Aircrew

The main purpose of this site is to preserve Robert Toomey's wartime diary, now badly deteriorated, which provides a historic account of the long and difficult march westward of prisoners across Poland and Germany in January, 1945. Other goals are to pay tribute to the courage, strength and dedication of the aircrews of Bomber Command, and to raise awareness of the sacrifices made by these devoted young men who volunteered for such an unimaginable task. 

Claude Lafleur, his son-in-law.

Photo top of page: Robert Toomey, July, 1945.

[1] Toomey's five missions started on August 8 and ended August 16/17. The official summaries of these five sorties are outlined here in the section entitled "Addendum".