read more http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/05/world ... at-88.htmlJohn Sheardown, a former Canadian diplomat who sheltered American citizens in Tehran during the Iran hostage crisis of 1979, has died aged 88. When militant radicals seized the United States Embassy in Iran in November 1979, they intended to take all its employees hostage. But five were elsewhere in the embassy compound and escaped capture. After six tense days of furtively moving around Tehran, one of them, Robert Anders, placed a call to a Canadian diplomat with whom he played tennis, and asked for help.“Hell, yes, of course,” the diplomat, John Sheardown, answered. “Count on us.”
Mr Sheardown was born in Windsor and served as a tail gunner during the Second World War.
John Vernon Sheardown was born on Oct. 11, 1924, in Sandwich, Ontario, a small town absorbed by Windsor in the 1930s. At 18, he joined the Canadian Air Force and flew a bomber in World War II, once crash-landing near an English village after limping back from an attack on Germany. He broke both legs, but was able to crawl to a pub door at 3 a.m. and rouse the owner. He asked for a glass of Scotch, which the owner gave him. The owner then asked for payment while Mr. Sheardown waited for an ambulance — a story Mr. Sheardown relished.
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