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John Colwell

A black and white grainy photograph of a soldier wearing a Royal Canadian Airforce uniform smiling at the camera.

Credit: Comox Air Force Museum, Comox, British Columbia

John Colwell, c. 1943

John Colwell was an RCAF navigator who spent nearly three years in a German POW camp. He was renowned for being able to make anything, including a working clock, from whatever was around the camp. All that is left of the clock are the illustrations in the diary he kept in a YMCA logbook.