Arthur Rae, a former district sub-editor with The Courier who daringly escaped from German-occupied Europe during the Second World War has died at the age of 89.
Mr Rae retired from DC Thomson & Co Ltd in 1988 after a 47-year career interrupted by his service as a bomb aimer with Bomber Command and three years living in Canada in the early 1960s.
He was known to his many friends and colleagues as a humorous, helpful and modest man who made light of his war record, despite his heroic evasion of capture and escape after parachuting into occupied Belgium in 1944.
His report on the episode was lodged with the National Archives and was recently released and sent to his family, revealing the full extent of the danger he faced and his bravery in reaching safety.
His Halifax took off on the night of May 23 for a raid on Aachen in Germany but over Antwerp the bomber was attacked and he baled out and landed at Turnhout.
His parachute became stuck in a tree, leaving him dangling from the branches. After freeing himself he made his way south to a farm at Royen. Changing into civilian clothes, he saw the farm as his only chance of escaping.
He was taking a risk as he did not know if the farmer would be pro-German but his luck was in as the farmer was in the Belgian resistance movement. Mr Rae was given a change of clothes, food, a bicycle and a false identity card.
He made his way to another farm where he was given food and shelter until July 18 and then transferred to a house in a village where he was united with two other escaping British airmen.
The owner of the house, who was also in the Belgian underground, contacted other partisans and gave them fresh identity cards and transferred them to different houses in Brussels.
Mr Rae was moved again, given another new identity card and eventually taken to Amiens in France, where on September 6 he was flown back to Britain.
His experience meant he could not be sent back to Europe and he spent the rest of the war in India.
He reached the rank of flight lieutenant and was demobbed in 1947.
Mr Rae returned to Dundee and worked in DC Thomson’s caseroom as a linotype operator until 1966 when he joined the editorial staff of the People’s Journal.
Eleven years later he moved to The Courier and sub-edited district pages of the paper.
In his spare time he was active in cricket and golf. He was secretary and captain of the McCheyne Cricket Club, past captain of the Dundee Press Golf Club and long-time member of Broughty Golf Club at Monifieth.
Mr Rae and his wife Kathleen lived in the west end of Dundee.
He is also survived by his son Alan, who now runs his own copyright consultancy, and daughter Susan, a former journalist on the Sunday Post who moved to the BBC in London and is a Radio 4 newsreader.