A rescue and reunion: Ottawa veteran reunites with a child he saved during World War II
A special reunion will take place in Ottawa next month, which has been 80 years in the making.
It was in 1944 in the Netherlands when Dr. Roly Armitage, who was once mayor of the former West Carleton Township, saved two children he had seen on the side of the road late at night.
“I was driving the Jeep in the Netherlands in 1944, near Eindhoven Airport,” he recalls. “I thought I saw movement as I went by, I thought it might be soldiers… so I backed up and there were two little kids in the ditch.”
According to Armitage, the boy was about six years old and the girl about three.
“So I dug them out. It was cold, cold, cold,” he said. “I took them to the field kitchen and said to the chief, ‘Get help, take care of these kids, clean them up and warm them up.'”
He says the boy eventually went home, but they took the girl to a nunnery. Armitage had to go with the troops and never knew what happened to the girl.
Armitage had an impressive military career. He was also a veterinarian, a member of the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame and is the recipient of the Order of Ontario and Ottawa’s Key to the City.
But he says he still couldn’t get the girl out of his mind. This spring, Armitage told his story to Dutch media in the hope of somehow finding out who the little girl was.
“All of a sudden this guy came up and he said, ‘I know a lady who might fit that bill.'”
Armitage first said he thought the kids might be brother and sister, but that turned out not to be the case.
“When I saw and read the paper, I immediately knew it was me, because I’ve told that story so many times in my life,” says Sonja Jobes, who is now 83 and lives in Minnesota.
Sonja Jobes says she was the young girl saved by Dr. Roly Armitage during World War II in the Netherlands in 1944. (Katie Griffin/CTV News Ottawa)
Jobes saw the post with a familiar story online. While not everything is clear from many decades ago, she is sure that she is the one Armitage has been looking for.
“I remember going to the kitchen, I remember it wasn’t a kitchen like in a house. It was a kitchen in a tent. I remember me and him [the boy] hiding in the bushes because soldiers were marching on the other side… I remember being carried on someone’s shoulders.”
Jobes grew up in the Netherlands and married an American soldier. They were married for over 50 years. She, too, has never forgotten the man who rescued her that night.
“It was amazing, it’s like a miracle to me that this happened and when I talked to him… it’s unbelievable… 80 years later it’s crazy.”
Armitage said the boy he was helping has also been identified as “Jan,” who is now 85.
Armitage and Jobes have spoken on the phone a few times and will meet again next month in Ottawa.
“I’m going to thank you and I’m going to give him a big hug and maybe I won’t let go and I’ll definitely cry because it’s been very emotional for me,” said Jobes.
“She says in four words, ‘I’m the boy,’ so the boy is coming to visit me in the first week of August this year and I’m really happy and excited,” Armitage said.
