Rodolfo Mendizabal was born in Toronto, Ontario on March 5, 1918, the son of Augustus Ranulfo Mendizabal (born in Oruro, Bolivia) and Mary Willamena (nee Dafoe, born in Madoc, Hastings Co., Ontario) Mendizabal, of 496 London Road, Sarnia. Rodolfo had one sister, Mary Isabel, born June 2, 1920 in Toronto; however, she died very shortly after birth. His father Augustus was a long-time language teacher at Sarnia Collegiate. Rodolfo attended Renfrew Public School from 1925-1929 and then a Sarnia Public elementary school from 1929-1931. He attended Sarnia Collegiate from 1931-1936. While at SCITS, Rodolfo was the Boys Sports editor for the yearbook and was a member of the first aid team; the gym team; the rifle team; and the school band where he played the clarinet. As part of the Sarnia Collegiate cadet service, he won second prize at the provincial indoor pistol matches at Listowel. While part of the rifle team, he won a special gold medal for shooting accuracy and a Dominion Marksman gold ring. After high school, he attended the University of Toronto, studying geology from 1936-1940. In the summer of 1939, he worked for the Dominion Salt Company Limited (where Centennial Park in Sarnia is now).
On August 29, 1940, Rodolfo enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force. He was sent to Camp Borden to begin his training, which would continue for close to nine months. He would go to England in July of 1941. On January 22, 1942, he was wounded in the leg during a battle and managed to land his torn up aircraft on damaged landing gear. On January 29, 1942, his Hurricane II aircraft crashed due to landing gear technical problems, and he survived unscathed. Sometime in the early part of 1942, Rodolfo wrote a letter to his parents in Sarnia informing them that he had been transferred to a Royal Air Force squadron in Calcutta, India.
In early March of 1942, a stranded Mendizabel, two Australians, a New Zealander, and a Dutchman made a daring escape from the soon-to-be “Japanese held” Java, in a makeshift Lockheed 10 aircraft. They patched together the wrecks of two damaged Lockheed 212 transport planes into a single airplane that could barely fly. They then flew in stages from Java to Sumatra, across the Bay of Bengal to Ceylon, alighting to refuel at the few pockets of territory still in friendly hands. The following is a verbatim account of their escape, as written by the New Zealander in the group, Sergeant Pilot Doug L. Jones of the New Zealand RAF. The account was sent to Mr. and Mrs. A.R. Mendizabal in a letter and printed in the Canadian (Sarnia) Observer on March 22, 1943, one year after the events. The following is a portion of that article:
Rodolfo Mendizabal and Four Flying Companions In Thrilling Air Escape
An epic story is told in a New Zealand paper of how Rodolfo Mendizabal, son of Mr. and Mrs. A.R. Mendizabal, along with four companions, escaped from the Japs after the fall of Java. The task seemed so hopeless that none of those who knew what these young men were attempting, had any idea that they would succeed. The boys in the escapade were all sergeant-pilots, Rodolfo Mendizabal, the Canadian; Stuart Munroe and Alan Martin, Australians; Doug L. Jones, a New Zealander, and a Dutchman, whose name is unknown. Together, they feature in the best aerial escape story of the war. After the fall of Java, with Japanese troops a few miles away, they joined together the undamaged sections of two shattered aircraft and braving the hazards of distance and Jap Zeros, flew from Java to Sumatra and then on across the Bay of Bengal to Ceylon. Their story, which can now be told, throws new light on the last days of the Netherlands, East Indies. Here is their story, as told by Sergeant Pilot D.L. Jones, NZRAF.
“Fresh from Durban, I was in the last convoy into Singapore, and was bombed 26 times by as many as 50 Jap planes. Our convoy was one of the last to leave. We were there for three days, then came out on the same ship as we went in on. There were no planes for us to fly at Singapore, so there was no use in staying there. Anyway, the Japs had already landed on the island and the evacuation was in full force. In Java we were sent to Buitenzorg, 35 miles in from Batavia. We waited there hoping to get planes to fly. It soon became obvious that we were not to get any. When the Japs began attacking the island in earnest, they issued us all with rifles and ammunition with the idea of making a stand somewhere-sort of backs-to-the-wall stunt. This idea didn’t appeal to us much, so a few of us got working on our own”.
“They were short of transport to shift the camp, so half a dozen of us went into Balavia to see if we could pick up any lorries. Batavia by this time was a deserted city. The Japs had landed troops on each side of it. All around the docks there were sunken vessels, which had either been bombed or scuttled. The Dutch had sunk a large vessel across the harbor mouth to stop ant ship getting in. We found some lorries after a while, but the trouble was none of them would go-which was why they were left. But we each managed to repair a lorry and get back to camp. At 4 a.m. next day we were awakened, and told to get moving as the Japs were down the road. Fortunately, a few transports had come up and they were able to take the whole camp to the town of Garut, 140 miles away. We were there a week waiting for word to come through to tell us which port to go to. We did not know at the time that there wasn’t an open port in Java. (Already blockaded Java’s “escape port”, Tjilitjap on the south coast, was completely destroyed by Jap bombers on March 5, a few hours after I left in the last ship to get away from Java)”.
“At 10 p.m. on March 7 we received instructions that the town we were in was an open city, and we were to hand in our arms and await occupation. We asked the C.O. of our unit if he would let a few of us escape as best we could. He said he wouldn’t. We told him to come back in half an hour and we would hand over our arms. In that half-hour we worked like mad, loading up our cars with food and ammunition. We had a couple of machine guns, which we had picked up at a bombed-out drone, a couple of Tommy-guns and dozens of rifles. We started out, reached the coast next day, and traveled along it, keeping a look-out for boats. Near a small native village called Pamaunpouk we found a deserted aerodrome with damaged aircraft scattered over it. A Dutch pilot and four of us sergeant-pilots looked them over and found a twin-engined Lockheed 10 with its tail blown off, but its engines in running order. Searching further, we found another machine of the same type, with the nose and wings smashed, but the tail untouched”.
“We all hit on the same idea at once. With the few tools we had we started. I used a 6d for a screwdriver, and got tied up in knots with ballraces, and lockingpins and God knows what! We found that the tail part of the good machine was strained out of alignment, and we finished up tying it together with rope. We fitted a machine-gun in the turret and another in the nose, firing forward. There was plenty of petrol lying around the field in drums. We also found couple of spare wing tanks with a capacity of 40 gallons apiece, which we strapped inside the fuselage with bits of bamboo and string after plugging up some holes with cork and bits of wood. I bashed a hole in the side of the fuselage, fitted a piece of bowser-hose through, and jammed one end in the tank in the wing, with the idea of feeding petrol from the tanks into the fuselage. Next day at 9 a.m. we were ready. After figuring out the range of the plane, we found we could not quite make Australia, so we agreed to fly up the coast of Sumatra, as we had been told the top end was still in Dutch hands”. “While we were repairing the plane, word came through that the Dutch government had capitulated, and that all members of the army were to proceed to Bandoeng to be demobilized. Before going, the Dutch destroyed the airfields-and a real job they made of it. They dynamited the whole field. We found the only clear patch ran in zigzag fashion barely the width of the undercarriage and with an overloaded plane it seemed a 10 to 1 chance that we wouldn’t get off. The Dutchman had flown Lockheeds before, so he took the controls. At the extreme end of the field we revved the engines up until they were about to shake themselves to pieces, let off the brakes and away we went. We zigzagged down the field with craters whistling by under our wing-tips. I looked ahead and thought we couldn’t get off without hitting the fence at the end. I still don’t think we would have, had we not hit the lip of one of the craters, which bounced us into the air. We cleared the fence by inches, got over the beach and out to sea. We flew 800 miles up the coast of Sumatra, then turned inland in the hope of finding an airfield. Later we discovered it was Medan airport. It was cluttered up with obstructions so we guessed it was still in Dutch hands. We couldn’t see any signs of life, so we took it we had caused an air-raid alarm”.
“We lowered our wheels and began to circle the field, waggling our wings. Soldiers appeared as if by magic and began clearing away the obstructions. Cars began to come in from the city packed with civilians and in a few minutes, hundreds of people were clearing the field so we could land. The Dutch treated us like kings. Next day we returned to our plane determined to try to get to Ceylon. The governor had given us codes, which we were to deliver to the admiralty if we got there, so as to re-establish contact with Sumatra. At Kuta Raja, on the northern tip of Sumatra, we had the same trouble in landing, but eventually got down OK. The Dutch immediately grabbed our machine, pushed it under cover and threw camouflaging over it, as they said the Jap reconnaissance plane was due over in five minutes. They set their watches by this plane, and at exactly 9 a.m. over she came. She circled us twice and then made off in a devil of a hurry. We guessed we had been spotted, so we started filling up as quickly as we could. We had just about finished when a lookout reported nine Jap bombers headed our way. We filled up in double-quick time while the Dutch soldiers were pulling off the camouflage and our Dutch pilot was revving up. Right in front of us was a whopping big hill, behind which we could see the Jap bombers heading toward us. The only thing to do was to turn as soon as we were in the air. We did it! We must have missed the trees on that hill by mere inches. We turned out to sea as fast as we could go with two of the Jap bombers armed with cannons diving down on us. But we were just those few seconds too soon for them. We just managed to keep out of range, and in the end gradually drew away from them. The old bus had a marvelous turn of speed when pushed. We owe our survival to that. We set what we thought was a course for Ceylon, but the only map we had was one of the world torn from a magazine. We had a job transferring petrol from the cabin to the wing tanks, but in the end found that by banking the plane over, we could gravity-feed it in”.
“It was well into the afternoon when we did sight land. I was at the controls at the time and didn’t know whether it was Ceylon or India. Knowing Colombo was on the other side of the island, I headed inland and ran slap-bank into hills and a hailstorm. Eventually we hit the coast and followed it it down. Very soon we saw a large town and seaport ahead-Colombo. Then we had an uncanny bit of luck. There were a large number of warships in the harbor and on sighting us they started to challenge us with a signalling lamp. The correct thing to do when so challenged is to fire what we call ‘colors of the day’ with a Verey pistol. We had a Verey pistol on board and cartridges, but there are dozens of colors to choose from and they change the color every day. We had to shoot something off, so I picked up a two-star red, fired it and waited. We expected every gun in the harbor to open up on us, but nothing happened. We found the landing field and landed. We found out later that the colors of the day were a two-star red-just what we had fired. The trip from Java to Medan took seven hours ten minutes, and we landed with ten minutes petrol supply left. The flight from Kuta Raja took eight hours and we landed with 15 minutes supply left”.
In December of 1942, Rodolfo Mendizabal was part of a special escort. One of the highest ranking officers of the R.C.A.F., Air Vice-Marshal Harold Edwards was on an inspection tour of R.C.A.F. and R.A.F. establishments in India and Middle East theatres of war. It brought him to front-line fighter and bomber stations from which many Canadians were flying against the Japanese in Burma. He met airmen who called themselves, “the Canadians closest to the Japanese forces.” Vice Marshall Edwards travelled in a Hudson bomber escorted by fighters. One of the fighters was piloted by FO Rodolfo Mendizabal, of Sarnia, a veteran of Singapore and East Indies campaigns. At the time, Mendizabal did not claim any victories over the Japanese, but said that he had seen “plenty” of them.
In early February of 1943, Augustus and Mary Mendizabal in Sarnia would receive word from the Canadian government that their son Rodolfo had been missing for several months in the eastern theatre of war. No other information was provided. A few weeks later, Augustus and Mary would be advised by the government that the report of their missing son issued weeks earlier was incorrect. In a telegram, the Hon. C.G. Power, Minister of National Defence for Air, relayed a cablegram that he had received from Air Vice-Marshal Edwards in England in regard to Rodolfo Mendizabal. The vice-marshal said that Rodolfo had been an escort pilot with him while on a tour of India during December of 1942, and at the time Rodolfo was safe and well. The vice-marshal expressed his profound regret that there had been an official report that their son had been reported missing on air operations for several months. The commander said that he would endeavour to obtain further information about the Sarnian’s whereabouts. He was later reported safe and had been in Burma since October 1942.
Rodolfo was later promoted to the rank of Flying Officer-Pilot, as a member of RCAF #5 Squadron “Frangas Non Flectas” (Thou mayest break but shall not bend me). On August 10, 1943, Flying Officer Mendizabal would lose his life when his Hurricane aircraft KW859 went into a high-speed stall and crashed four miles east of the Amarda Road Station at Subhanauika Bridge, India. Rodolfo Mendizabal’s name would appear on the official R.C.A.F. casualty list approximately one week later. No other details were included in the official report and no information was available locally as his parents Augustus and Mary Mendizabal were vacationing in Haliburton. The last word the parents had received from their son indicated that he was still in the Far East and there was some speculation as to whether he took part in the Sicilian campaign.
Rodolfo Mendizabal would later be officially listed as, Killed in flying accident, overseas (India). He was buried in the Amarda Road Cemetery, exhumed, and reburied in the New Cemetery at Balasore, India. Twenty-five year old Rodolfo Mendizabal is buried in Madras War Cemetery, Chennai, India, Grave: 9.B.7.
Of the four fellow airmen who had survived the March 1942 escape from Java with Mendizabal, only one was to survive the war. Also killed in wartime service were Sgt. Stuart Munroe, RAAF, in Queensland in May of 1942; Sgt. Alan Martin, RAAF, in New Guinea in August of 1942; and Sgt. (later F/O) Douglas Jones, RNZAF, at Rabaul in January of 1944. Only the Dutchman, Frederik Pelder would survive the war.
In March of 1945, the “FO. Rodolfo Mendizabal Shooting Trophy”, named in honour of the young flier, was presented during assembly in the auditorium of Sarnia Collegiate Institute, to Pte. Angus Young, of the Army Cadet Corps. The young cadet achieved the highest shooting scores in a contest held in the collegiate rifle range, among entrants from the three Sarnia cadet corps-Army, Navy and Air. Rodolfo’s father, Augustus Ranulfo Mendizabal, who was a member of the Collegiate Institute teaching staff, presented the trophy, a silver statue of an athlete upon a mahogany base.
SOURCES: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, J, L, M, N, R, 2C, 2D