Yousuf Karsh’s Churchill portrait was shot in two minutes in an antechamber off the House of Commons on Dec. 31, 1941. [Yousuf Karsh]

Stolen Churchill portrait coming home

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

An original print of one of the world’s most famous photographs, stolen during the COVID pandemic, is on its way back to the Ottawa hotel that photographer Yousuf Karsh called home for 19 years.

Pinched from the reading lounge of the Fairmont Château Laurier some time between Christmas Day 2021 and Jan. 6, 2022, and replaced with a fake, the portrait of Britain’s wartime prime minister, Winston Churchill, was found in a private collection in Italy in September 2024.

A 43-year-old man from Powassan, Ont., was arrested in April 2024 and charged with multiple offences associated with the picture’s disappearance, including theft, forgery and trafficking in stolen property. His name is under a publication ban.

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ATTENTION CANADIAN MILITARY FAMILIES : Did you or a family member receive VAC disability benefits between 2003 and 2023?

On 17 January 2024 the Federal Court approved a settlement in a class action involving alleged underpayment of certain disability pension benefits administered by Veterans Affairs Canada (“VAC”) payable to members or former members of the Canadian Armed Forces (“CAF”) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (“RCMP”) and their spouses, commonlaw partners, survivors, other related individuals, and estates (the “Settlement”).

If you received any of the disability-related benefits listed below at any time between 2003 and 2023, you may be entitled to compensation under the Settlement. As the executor, estate trustee, administrator, or family member of a deceased class member who collected VAC-administered disability benefits, you may also be able to claim on behalf of the estate.

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Zeppelin L.31 readies for launch. [Wikimedia]

Night of the Tempest: A British-Canadian pilot versus German Zeppelin L.31

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

Shortly before midnight on Oct. 1, 1916, Second Lieutenant Wulstan Tempest, soaring through English skies in a B.E.2c biplane, spotted his looming target.

At more than 14,000 feet (4,267 metres), the German Zeppelin Luftschiff 31—or L.31—looked like it rained death from the heavens, however hellish that prospect seemed. But now, of course, it was the 25-year-old pilot’s turn to wreak havoc upon the airship, crewed by 19 and, with its onboard machine guns, far from defenceless.

Tempest remained undeterred. He would be the oncoming storm.

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More from Military Milestones

• Currie’s crossing: Remembering the Battle of Canal du Nord
• My son in Spain: Canada’s last combat veteran of the Spanish Civil War
• Oakville’s Gamble: A Canadian Corvette vs. U-94

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