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John (Johannes) van Hemert
January 2, 1917 - September 15, 2014
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<div itemprop="description">John passed away at age 97 in peace after a brief illness and has joined his beloved Helen (d.2004) on that distant shore. John was a son of Captain Willem van Hemert and Cornelia van Gelder. He was predeceased by his two younger brothers, Ted and Willem. John joined the Royal Netherlands Navy in 1935 and served the full length of WWII as a submarine officer. He was based in London, New York and Halifax, serving on two early era submarines (O15 and O20) for operations in the Caribbean, North Atlantic, Dundee, Scapa Flow and Murmansk. John retired from the RNN as Senior Lieutenant and came to Canada permanently in 1946. He and Helen established in Montreal. John is survived by their three children Leslie Willem (Victoria), Valerie Helen (Colin Chedore) and Pamela Jo-Anne (Garry McCulloch), and their children John and Ted, Katherine and Bill, and Valerie and Kevan. He was the great grandfather to 10. <br /> <br />John began working in Canada for CBC International, broadcasting the news in Dutch to the heavily damaged Netherlands. He joined Canadian Car and Foundry in 1949 and rose to senior executive positions where he expanded rail transportation in South Africa, India, the US and Europe with rail cars built in Montreal. In 1972 John accepted the invitation of Royal Boskalis Westminster Group of the Netherlands to move to England as Managing Director of their UK marine construction and dredging operations. He had been their Director for Canada and the U.S. since 1951. In 1975 John returned to Canada for RBW to build offshore structures to permit winter oil exploration in the Beaufort Sea for Imperial Oil. Seven islands were built (in water depths to 60 feet), which were successfully engineered to withstand hostile ice conditions. John retired as Chairman of the Board of several RBW companies including Stuyvesant Construction in the U.S., Pe Ben Pipelines, Beaver Dredging and Beaver Dredging Western. He was a past member of the Montreal Engineer's Club, Royal Montreal Golf Club, Lambton Golf Club and the Ontario Club. <br /> <br />John was a very proud Canadian. He and Helen were a wonderful couple for 62 years and loved their lives together. Their ashes will be co-mingled and scattered at sea offshore Nova Scotia, as they wished. Friends are invited to a memorial service for John which will be held on Friday, September 19 at 2 PM at Kingsway Lambton United Church, 85 The Kingsway, Etobicoke, ON, M8X 2T6. Reception to follow.</div>