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Province reporter turned foreign correspondent Lukin Johnston had just scored the biggest coup of his career — a one-on-one interview with newly appointed German chancellor Adolf Hitler.

As his Canadian readers digested the veteran scribe’s impressions of the Nazi leader in November 1933, the 46-year-old Johnston was heading back to his London offices on an overnight steamer from Holland across the English Channel.

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He never made it. Johnston was nowhere to be found when the ship docked at the British port of Harwich. To this day, his B.C. family is convinced that someone pushed Johnston into the Channel, while news accounts at the time speculated that the correspondent was “giddy or tired” and simply fell.

“Highly unlikely,” said Colin Castle, author of a new biography of Johnston. “He was a very experienced ship traveller. He was never seasick.”

Castle, whose wife Val is Johnston’s granddaughter, said his best theory “is that he was pushed, I’m afraid.”