St. Xavier veteran gets replacement after 50 years

By Eileen Connelly, OSU

ST. MARGARET MARY DEANERY - His beloved class ring for a chunk of bread. It may not have been an even trade, but it was a matter of survival for Bob Doolan, a 1935 graduate of St. Xavier High School and World Word II veteran.

COURTESY PHOTO

Surrounded by his wife, Delores Ann, and daughters, Mary Lance and Patti Schoborg, Bob Doolan examines his new class ring.

He was serving as a navigator aboard a B-17 at the time. On Aug. 12, his plane set out from England on a bombing raid over the Ruhr Valley in Nazi Germany. "We bombed the target but got hit pretty badly by anti-aircraft fire," Doolan recalled. "It took out one engine and the fuel line."

Although four members of the 10-man crew bailed out, Doolan stayed with the plane, which crash-landed in a field in Holland. Although wounded by shrapnel in his leg, Doolan and his co-pilot took off toward Spain, trading their uniforms for civilian clothes as they traveled through enemy territory.

Doolan's class ring, engraved in English with "St. Xavier High School, Cincinnati, Ohio," became a liability as the two tried to conceal their identities as Americans. "If I ever got captured, I knew I couldn't have English printing on me," Doolan explained. "I had gotten some native clothes, and I was wearing a tone-on-tone pink shirt, Dutch pants, shoes and a beret trying to fit in with the locals."

When the two hungry men happened upon a Dutch farmer who gave them bread and margarine, Doolan offered him the ring. "It wasn't exactly a bribe, but it wasn't altogether generosity either. It was a matter of practicality, and we were grateful for the bread."

They kept moving south after the exchange, aided along the way by members of the Dutch resistance and eluding capture for 21 days. Eventually, though, their luck ran out.

The Germans shipped them to Stalag Luft III, the prisoner-of-war camp in Poland that inspired the movie, "The Great Escape." Doolan spent 20 months in captivity before being liberated by the Army of Gen. George S. Patton. "He looked like God himself," Doolan said of the bombastic Patton.

Of his own service, Doolan is humble. "We didn't think we were doing anything unusual. It's what we were trained to do, and the country was behind us all the way."

After returning home from the war, Doolan contacted the Dutchman requesting his ring, but the farmer responded, saying that gold couldn't be shipped out of the country.

Decades later, his story came to the attention of Ed Brady, Jr., a 1966 St. X graduate, whose father, Ed Brady, Sr., is Doolan's classmate. The younger Brady relayed the story of the missing ring to the school's alumni office, which arranged for the surprise replacement. "I don't know that there are many places that would do something like that," said Brady. "There's such a strong bond among St. X graduates."

Doolan and a group of his fellow graduates, who gather monthly for lunch, met at the school March 16 under the guise of their regular meeting. There, Jesuit Father Walter Deye, president of St. Xavier High School, presented Doolan with a replacement ring. "It was a total surprise," said the veteran, who was joined for the special occasion by his wife, Delores Ann, and their daughters, Mary Lance and Patti Schoborg. "It's a gorgeous ring, bigger than the ones we had back in 1935."

"It was a wonderful ceremony," Brady said. "He kept looking at the ring. I think it was very emotional for him."

Doolan, who is a frequent World War II lecturer for student and community groups, now wears his new class ring with pride. When he last spoke to St. Xavier students in December, he recounted his daily prayer as a P.O.W., which inspired the students: "O Lord, let me always remember: 1. Every day I awaken is a beautiful day; 2. There is always someone worse off than I am who needs my help; 3. There is no such thing as bad food; and 4. Prayer will accomplish miracles."