DR ROBERT MACLAUCHLAN VIA LT COL DONALD G MACLAUCHLAN: KNOWING A MAN THROUGH HIS BROTHER?

One of the most memorable lines in the famous movie Dr Zhivago is spoken by the title character’s half-brother, a Bolshevik policeman.

“I’ve always thought,” he says with a somewhat cynical smirk, “If you want to get enough on a man to arrest him, interview his brother.” That’s not the exact speech but it’s close enough for our purposes in our never-ending search to find out more information on Dr Robert Henry MacLauchlan, convicted Calgary abortionist from the 1950s and 1966 murder victim of a Mafia-linked Vancouver drug organization.

We have just found a book of about 300 pages, of which a good one-quarter have information on MacLauchlan’s younger brother, Lt Colonel Donald George MacLauchlan. Professor David Bercusson, long associated with the University of Calgary and a respected historian of Canada’s military, wrote a 1994 book called Battalion of Heroes: The Calgary Highlanders in World War II. Lt Colonel MacLauchlan, who won the DSO for some brilliant tactics during the 1944 Normandy campaign, commanded the Highlanders for much of that period.

Battalion of Heroes has much information on the military MacLauchlan and we fully expect to cultivate it to gain further sources relevant to his older – and somewhat less respectable – medical brother by a close perusal of these sources. Readers, stay tuned!