Dutch writer searching for clues about missing WW II airman from P.E.I.

A Dutch writer who has spent years researching Second World War history is now turning his attention to a soldier from Montague, P.E.I. whose body has never been found. 

John Heideman is looking for any information he can find about Ronald Frederick Taylor, who served in the Royal Air Force and was 24 years old when he died in 1943. 

"I'm very curious, you know, who was he? What did he look like?" said Heideman. 

Heideman is working on his third book about what the Second World War was like in the region of Castricum in the Netherlands, where he lives. 

Taylor, the soldier born in Montague, died when the bomber plane he and his crew were flying was shot down by Germans over the North Sea on December 20, 1943. 

Two of Taylor's seven-member crew washed up on the shores of Castricum and one of them is buried in the cemetery there.  

But Taylor was declared missing in action. 

Heideman is telling the stories of some of those soldiers in his book, and he wants to mention Taylor too. But so far he has precious little to go on. 

"If you look on the internet, you can't find a thing," said Heideman.

"Yeah, the general things … where he lives, who his mom and dad were. But not where did he work? Did he have a brother and sister? Is there a photograph of him?"

Heideman was doing research on P.E.I. online and decided to message CBC P.E.I. to see if the station could get the word out about Taylor and see if anyone knows more about him. 

"He liberated our country, he was part of the liberation of Holland. So it's important," said Heideman.

"Younger generation must not forget what happened in those days because it's happening all over again. If you watch the situation in Ukraine, everywhere around the world."

Sgt. Ronald Frederick Taylor was born in Montague around 1919. His parents were Frederick John and Gertrude Maude Taylor.

Heideman thinks he was married to a woman named Vivien Hilda Taylor, and during the Second World War he was a member of the air force's 76 squadron. 

Heideman teaches high school biology and writes in his spare time. But war research has always been a passion, and he brings his students to the gravesites of dead soldiers to share their stories. 

"And I want to mention [Taylor]. I want to show him to the kids, you know? And they must never be forgotten. Never," said Heideman.

"I always say if you know your past, you know your future."

'Heard a lot of stories'

Heideman was born in 1965, twenty years after the Second World War ended. But his grandmother was about 21 when the war started and talked about it a lot. 

"I heard a lot of stories of my mom and dad who were kids during the wartime," he said. 

Heideman now has a son who is 26 and thinks about what it would be like to have him go off to war.  

"What about my son? What about somebody's other son? And why are we doing this?" 

Hoping for a clue

He is hopeful that his search for the Montague soldier will turn up something. 

"It was a very small community, so … there must be some relatives living nearby, an uncle or a nephew," said Heideman. 

Heideman has come across someone before in his research who knew one of the soldiers buried in his town. 

"Two years ago I met an old neighbour of one of the guys who was buried at Castricum. And I thought, 'Well, they're still there.' You know, it's still possible."