Phil Marchildon
Ballplayers Who Were Prisoners of War
| Date and Place of Birth: | October 13, 1913 Penetanguishene, Ontario, Canada |
| Date and Place of Death: | January 10, 1997 Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| Baseball Experience: | Major League |
| Position: | Pitcher |
| Rank: | Flying Officer |
| Military Unit: | 433 Squadron RCAF |
| Area Served: | European Theater of Operations |
Philip J.
Marchildon, who was born on October 13, 1913, was a hard-nosed kid who
didn't play baseball until high school, but quickly developed into an
excellent pitcher as well as a standout in football and hockey
at Penetang High School.
In 1932, at the age of 18, he began pitching
for the Penetang Rangers, the town’s entry in the tough North Simcoe
Intermediate League. Out of an awkward, unnatural delivery he had an
overpowering fastball and a hard-breaking curve, and led the team to
repeated success. However, Penetanguishene, like most other places
in North America, was hit hard by the Great Depression, and Marchildon
needed to get a job. Baseball certainly wasn't going to pay the bills,
but an offer from International Nickel - a company that operated a mine
in Creighton Mines, near Sudbury, and sponsored a baseball team in the
senior-level Nickel Belt League - meant that he could combine the two.
Marchildon quickly became the ace of the team’s pitching staff and
remained there through the 1938 season when he set a league record by
striking out 275 batters in 25 regular season games.
In July 1938,
despite being 24 (a little old to be getting started in professional
baseball), Marchildon had a tryout with the Toronto Maple Leafs of the
International League. In two innings he struck out every batter he faced
and was offered a $500 signing bonus by the Maple Leafs manager, Dan
Howley. The 5-foot-11, 190-pound right-hander joined the club the
following year (1939) but after a shaky start he was assigned
to Cornwall of the Canadian-American League, where, over a period of 17
days, he won six consecutive games and had an outstanding earned run
average of 1.20. He was soon back in Toronto and finished the year with
a 5-7 won-loss record and 4.50 ERA.
In 1940, he was 10-13 with a 3.18
ERA, and earned a late-season promotion to Connie Mack’s major league
Philadelphia Athletics. The 26-year-old made two starts for the
Athletics and lost both games but was impressive enough to join the
clubs’ starting rotation the following year. Marchildon was 10-15 in
1941 for the last-placed team, then won and exceptional 17 games the
following year despite the Athletics finishing 48 games out of first
place. There was little doubt about his ability to pitch in the major
leagues, and with a better team he was a sure 20-game winner, but the
military beckoned after the 1942 season and he began more than 30 months
of service with the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) – an all-volunteer force.
Initially, Marchildon trained as an aerial gunner at Souris in Manitoba.
From there he was later stationed at Trenton, Ontario, where he pitched
for the Trenton Air Force team, and was later commissioned a pilot
officer with No. 2 Training Command at Winnipeg on July 23, 1943. He
went on to graduate as a gunner with No. 3 Bombing and Gunnery School at
MacDonald, Manitoba, and was then stationed in Halifax, Nova Scotia –
where he briefly pitched for the Halifax Air Force team - before leaving
for England in August 1943.
Flying Officer Marchildon was stationed at the picturesque south coast
town of Bournemouth, when he first arrived in England, and it was while
walking along the main street on a Sunday afternoon that he had his
first unexpected encounter with the enemy. A German fighter plane appeared
in the clear blue sky above and proceeded to strafe the street.
Marchildon scrambled for cover in a doorway as bullets tore through the
sidewalk. It was his first of numerous life-threatening close encounters
with the enemy.
Marchildon joined the 82nd Operational Training Unit at Ossington for
intensive bomber training before reporting for active duty to 433
Squadron of the RCAF at RAF Skipton-on-Swayle in Yorkshire. As a
tail-gunner in a Handley Page Halifax bomber, Marchildon flew night-time
missions that were treacherous and uncomfortable, and in conditions that
were so cold his guns would often freeze. On one occasion, his plane
returned from an operation with 30 shrapnel holes made by enemy
anti-aircraft guns, including one that had come perilously close to the
fuel tanks in the wings.
"Some Americans went over with us one night," Marchildon recalled in The
Sporting News in July 1945, "and after that they said 'Never again at
night' [all American bomber missions were flown during the day]. In the
daytime you can't see the stuff shooting up at you. But at night, wow!
It's tracers and rockets all around that scare you to death."
Active duty offered little time for Marchildon to play baseball, but his
brother-in-law, Adam McKenzie - who was in England and played for the DeHavilland Comets (a
team based at an aircraft manufacturing plant that featured numerous
Canadians in its line-up) - persuaded him to make a handful of
appearances for the team. "I only played a few games over there and was
not in very good condition to do so," he later recalled.
His first outing against an unsuspecting U.S. Army team, however, tells
a different story. In his autobiography, Ace, co-written with Brian
Kendall, Marchildon recounted how he threw three strikes right by the
first batter. "The poor guy hadn't lifted his bat off his shoulder." The
strikeouts continued, and one by one the American batters returned to
the bench in bewilderment, wondering who this guy was. McKenzie finally
revealed to the Americans, "That's Phil Marchildon of the Philadelphia Athletics!"
During the night of August 16, 1944, Marchildon flew his 26th mission
laying mines in Kiel Bay - he was four missions away from going home and
hoped to be back with the Athletics for the 1945 season. But, as the
bomber flew through the darkness above the Baltic Sea on the way to its
target, it was attacked and set ablaze by a German night fighter. The
pilot immediately gave orders for the crew to bail out but in the
spiralling chaos and confusion only the navigator and Marchildon
escaped.
Stranded in the icy water of the Baltic Sea, both crew members faced
death from hyperthermia before they were eventually picked up by a
Danish fishing boat and handed over to the German authorities.
Marchildon spent the following year at Stalag Luft III near the town
of Sagan, then in Germany, but now part of Poland, where over 10,000
Allied prisoners were held. Caged behind ten-foot high-barbed wire
fences, and looked upon by heavily-armed tower guards, 350 prisoners
were involved in the camp softball league in which Marchildon was a
heavy-hitting outfielder for the squad that won the camp championship.
“Looks like I’ll be missing another baseball season,” he wrote his wife
in December 1944. “We can only hope for the best now. I, for one, am
praying for the day it ends and hope it will be soon. We seem kind of
useless here and feel it deeply. We feel the people at home do not
realize our predicament as fully as they might.”
By mid-January 1945, the advancing Russian forces were only 150 miles
from Stalag Luft III. The camp was evacuated and the German guards
marched the prisoners to Bremen. Then, as the Anglo-American forces
closed in, they were moved again. Suffering from exhaustion and frost
bite, many died along the way in what became known as the infamous Death
March. On May 2, 1945, Marchildon and his fellow prisoners were finally
liberated. "We were sleeping in a field when I woke up suddenly and
heard troops passing," he recalled. "I thought they were Germans, but
learned next day that the British had us surrounded. Our guards stacked
their guns in a building and locked the door then surrendered to the
British."
By this time, he was severely malnourished and had lost 30 pounds in
weight. He was flown back to England to recuperate then returned
to Canada by boat.
Nine months as a prisoner-of-war had taken its toll. He suffered
recurring nightmares, his nerves were in tatters and, not surprisingly,
he had little interest in returning to baseball. "When I came home, my
nerves came all loose," he remembered. "First night home I took my
blankets out in the yard and slept on the ground. Couldn't sleep in a
bed."
However, the persuasive Athletics' owner, Connie Mack, eventually talked
Marchildon into re-joining the team. On July 6, 1945, he worked out with
the club in Chicago. "A new nervousness of speech and gesture suggests
something of what he went through," wrote Red Smith in The Sporting
News in July 1945.
August 29, 1945, was Phil Marchildon Night at Philadelphia’s Shibe Park,
and the official start of his comeback after almost three seasons away
from the game. Before 19,267 fans, the obviously weak hurler was
applauded during an official ceremony before throwing two-hit ball for
five innings in a 2-1 win over the Senators.
Marchildon found it difficult to focus on baseball. “I’d kind of drift
away from concentration,” he said. “I’d think about how lucky I was to
get out of it all.” He also found himself thinking about the other five
crew members who perished with the plane when it was shot down.
Marchildon didn't know of their fate until after the war ended.
The 31-year-old made three brief appearances for the Athletics before
the 1945 season ended, but was back in full stride the following year,
winning 13 and losing 16 as the Athletics finished in their familiar
last place. In 1947, he truly regained his pre-war form – something most
onlookers thought would never happen - winning 19 games with a 3.22 ERA.
“When Marchildon pitches, I might as well leave my bat in the
clubhouse,” quipped Yankees’ shortstop Phil Rizzuto.
It was, however, to be his last shining moment in baseball. Arm problems
stopped him from ever regaining his form of the summer of 1947.
Marchildon continued to pitch in the majors until 1950, and then played
for a couple of years in the Intercounty League in Ontario. He went to
work for A. V. Roe in Malton, Ontario - the aviation company that
produced the CF-105 Avro Arrow jet fighter, Canada's greatest
aeronautical achievement, the subsequent cancellation of which still
remains a story of political intrigue and controversy. He then worked
for Dominion Metal Wear Industries near Toronto, and retired, aged 65,
in 1978.
Phil Marchildon was inducted in Canada’s Sport Hall of Fame in
1976, and the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 1983. On July 1, 1995,
he was honoured at the Toronto Sky Dome. Throwing out the first ball, he
was celebrated as a Canadian hero for his baseball talent and for his
bravery in World War II. Eighteen months later, on January 10, 1997, he passed away
in Toronto,
at the age of 83.
Thanks to the late Phil Marchildon for help with his
biography.
Date Added May 16, 2020.
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