generalspeaking

An Exemplary Life, Honoured and Esteemed

In 2006 Canada lost a most respected member of society, a man who emigrated from England to live out his life in Canada. Roy Farran had a colourful background during the Second World War. As a 23-year-old in 1944, he led one of the most successful post-D-day operations, penetrating 200 miles through enemy lines in four days, north of Dijon, from Rennes airfield in France. The operation he led resulted in a high number of enemy casualties.

His own troops' casualties, by contrast, were light. In celebration of their exploit, his squadron took an illicit leave in Paris. Clearly, he was imbued with a spirit of derring-do; clearly he was also a rebel. The operation he led, however, brought him a distinguishing DSO. His family had a military history, and he was himself commissioned into the 3rd Carabiniers Dragoon Guards, serving with the 61st Training Regiment, then attached to the 3rd King's Own Hussars in Egypt.

He also fought in Crete; leading a tank attack, was wounded and captured, but he managed to escape; such escapades were his forte, as much as his proclivity to escapes. He was again medalled with his first MC. By 1942 he received advancement to ADC to the commander of the 7th Armoured Division. His war adventures were many and varied; he was a military achiever, and in 1946 he was awarded the Croix de Guerre.

Then, he became second-in-command of the 3rd Hussars and was sent with them to British-mandated Palestine. He returned to Palestine after a stint as a Sandhurst Military Academy instructor. His clandestine intelligence-gathering capabilities were placed at the disposal of the Palestine police, where he formed patrols of personally hand-picked undercover police officers tasked to infiltrate terror networks.

The terrorists of the time represented Jewish guerrillas, most notably the Stern Gang whose resolve it was to remove Britain from Palestine so that the dream of worldwide Jewry to establish a state of their own could be accomplished. Roy Alexander Farran, and the five companions forming their terror patrol unit were continually on the lookout for those they deemed suspicious, associated with the underground Jewish resistance movement.

And sixty-two years ago, in May 1946, he and his companions abducted a 16-year-old Jewish youth, Alexander Rubowitz, a young volunteer with the Lehi underground, who knew the risks, but who had been handing out leaflets. The youth was in possession of broadsheets associated with the work of the Stern Gang and the Irgun, and had been in Farran's sight for some time. They took the occasion to spirit him away in a vehicle, and the young man was never seen again.

He was tortured by this special British Palestine police unit, headed by Roy Farran. Despite the torture the young man never gave any information that Roy Farran and his cohorts sought, and they killed him. He was murdered, in fact, by Roy Farran himself, who bashed in his skull with a rock. And then undertook to file an official report to be handed to his superior officer. That document is no longer in existence.

When he was alerted to the fact that he would be charged with murder, accompanied with two of his NCOs he crossed the border by car into Syria, and there related his story to the head of the British Legation in Damascus. Then he flew back to Palestine accompanied by the Assistant Inspector-General of the Palestine Police, and was later incarcerated in Allenby Barracks, Jerusalem, and escaped again. He surrendered when the Stern Gang undertook reprisals.

No body had ever been found, and it was claimed that Farran hadn't been identified in a line-up, causing the case to be dismissed due to lack of evidence. Roy Farran returned to Britain where he served as a quarry master in Scotland, then moved on to Kenya, and from there to Rhodesia to work for a construction company. He returned to his home in Britain to run as a Conservative in the 1950 general election, but lost.

Finally, this peripatetic world figure emigrated to Alberta, where he lived out the rest of his long life, until age 85. He distinguished himself in Canada in many ways. He tried his hand at dairy farming, worked as a reporter and columnist for the Calgary Herald and in 1954 founded his own paper, the North Hill News. He was elected a city alderman six years later, and ten years after that a PC member of the provincial legislature.

He served under Peter Loughheed's government as minister of telephones and utilities, then as solicitor-general. He was a respected fixture in the country's political and social infrastructure. Leaving politics in 1979, he stepped into the chairmanship of the Alberta Racing commission. Then he wrote for the Edmonton Journal in the 1980s and became a visiting professor at Alberta University Centre.

This man of honour returned to France to accept the Legion d'Honneur in 1994, from the French government. Truly, a life well lived. Not long afterward he had his larynx removed after being diagnosed with throat cancer. Mr. Farran, truly a man of huge and varied accomplishments found strength in his Catholic faith, saying his Hail Marys before embarking on any action.

As a good Christian he often said later in life that he bore no ill will toward the British authorities over his arrest and court-martial. And he also claimed that he did not dislike Jews. But the fact remains that he committed the ultimate offence against humanity, in abducting, torturing and murdering a 16-year-old teen. He did confess to the murder, but he felt that he was simply doing his duty.

Following orders, "nicht schuldik" was the standard response actually, during the Nuremberg trials, after the Allies brought a halt to the rampage of the Nazis intent on establishing their Thousand-year Reich, and dominating the world.

Relatives of the young murdered man would like to discover the whereabouts of his mortal remains, to enable them to give him a proper and respectful burial. To that end they hired a private investigator whose Pallorium detective agency has operations in the U.S., Canada and Israel. Steven Rambam feels he is close to discovering the place where Alexander Rubowitz's remains may be buried.

Moreover, although Mr. Farran has been dead a number of years, it's speculated that a number of members of his squad are still alive and should be tried for war crimes. That is obviously an opinion that won't be shared by many. Israeli authorities and the family of the murdered youth would be satisfied with their testimony and their assistance in discovering the whereabouts of their family member's remains to conclude this sordid, sorry historical event.

Labels: Canada, Israel, Justice, Troublespots

posted by Pieface @ Thursday, March 19, 2009