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A decorated war hero from Victoria plays a featured role in a new web series for young students from Canada’s National History Society.
Kam Len Douglas Sam, who was born in Victoria in 1918, is being spotlighted in History Bits, a six-part animated web series themed to match history grade-school curriculum. The three-minute videos are rendered in comic-style animation and can be seen on the society’s website.
Sam, the most highly decorated Chinese-Canadian in the Second World War, is the focus of the series’ inaugural episode, Flying and Spying. A Royal Canadian Air Force gunner who was shot down over occupied France and initially believed to be dead, Sam’s life is certainly worth revisiting, especially given the tales of courage that come back to light each Remembrance Day.
“Like most Canadians, he was patriotic, and wanted to sign up and fight for Canada, but he was immediately rejected because he was Chinese-Canadian,” said Mark Reid, director of content and communications for Canada’s National History Society. “A year later, the rules changed, and he came rushing back to enlist.”
Sam spoke five languages, including French, which he learned as a student at Victoria High School, which enabled him to connect with the French resistance and co-ordinate the escapes of other Allied airmen. He was apprehended by German forces on two occasions, but was able to pass pass himself off as an exchange student from China. Through the French underground he was put in contact with MI9, the section of British Military Intelligence charged with aiding resistance fighters in Nazi-controlled Europe.
Sam eventually served under British spy Sir Maurice Oldfield, who was the inspiration for a series of John le Carré books, including Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
Sam was awarded the silver star by the French government for his espionage efforts leading up to the D-Day invasion of Normandy in 1944. “This is just one of six stories we are telling in comic animation format, with the idea that this will be a conversation-starter for kids who see this,” Reid said.
History Bits was inspired by articles that have appeared over the years in Kayak, a quarterly educational magazine for kids aged 12 and under. Women’s rights activist Nellie McLung, the Africville settlement in Halifax, Black labour activists on Canada’s railway, Prairie families in the 1930s and First Nations long distance runner Tom Longboat are among the other topics featured in episodes illustrated by Alex Diochon, Reid said.
Those will appear each month during the 2020-2021 school year, timed to coincide with history curriculum in schools. Educational resources and corresponding lesson plans are available online for each episode, which gives teachers an opportunity to use the series for spin-off discussions about Canadian history, Reid said.
“It’s almost like eating Cheerios — they are good for you, but they taste good as well. Kids will love this, but parents and teachers will love it as well, because it’s great educational content. History Bits was created because the kids couldn’t go to school, and parents needed some good material that was going to capture the imagination of the kids.”
Sam died in Vancouver in 1989, at the age of 71. Reid believes History Bits will play a role in bringing his story to a new generation of Canadians, which is important. Sam retired from the Royal Canadian Air Force as a squadron leader, making him the RCAF’s most decorated Chinese-Canadian to date.
“What we really want to do is make sure we had regional representation and diversity in experiences and culture,” Reid said. “This story about Doug Sam is about the military but it’s also a story from a completely different perspective from what much of Canada would have heard before.”
