Not All of Us Were Brave

By Stanley Scislowski

This is the story of a young man’s journey through World War II. It covers a wide cross section of the strengths and weaknesses of young men not attuned to killing, and not mentally prepared to face the horror of seeing their close friends die violent deaths in battle. The story is about the hopes, the prayers, the fears, the daily miseries and even the lighter moments that the aspiring heroes of the Perth Regiment experienced on the Italian front as part of 11th Infantry Brigade, 5th Canadian Armoured Division.

As the title suggests, from his first battle inoculation Private Stan Scislowski realizes he is not destined for the heroic role to which he once aspired. His fears affect him deeply: his burning dream of returning home a national hero becomes more and more improbable, and his attempts to come to terms with his un-heroic nature make the war as much a mental battle as a physical one. His story is much like that of the overwhelming number of Canadians who found themselves in the cauldron of war, serving their country with all the strength they could find, even when that strength was fading fast.

Not All of Us Were Brave focuses not on the heroes, but on the ordinary soldiers who endured the mud, the misery, the ever-present fear, the inspiration, and the degradation. The narrative holds nothing back: the dirty linen is aired along with the clean; the light is shown alongside the dark. It shows what war is all about.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dundurn
• Release date: Mar 1, 1997
• ISBN: 9781459713345

Stanley Scislowski

Stanley Scislowski was born in Windsor, Ontario in 1923 and lived in that city all his life. He is a veteran of the Perth Regiment, and fought on the Italian front until an injury put him out of action. After the war Stan was a partner in an electroplating business. He has six children and nine grandchildren, and maintains his interest in military history and writing. A member of the Royal Canadian Legion, Branch 594, Scislowski has been editor of the Branch bulletin for 32 years.

Book preview

11

CHAPTER 1

FROM THE HOLDING UNIT

TO THE PERTHS

My hometown is Windsor, Ontario, home base of the Essex Scottish Regiment. So then, the reader might ask, How come you ended up with a Stratford based unit? Well, here’s the story:

If you were a draftee like I was, arriving overseas in 1943 you’d more than likely spent a couple of months in a holding unit in Aldershot Military District, which takes in a fairly large chunk of Hampshire County, England. After more training—actually a repetition of what you had in an advanced infantry training camp in Canada—you’d then be assigned to an infantry battalion of your choice. But for various reasons things didn’t always work out that way—as I soon found out, much to my sorrow. You might just as well end up in any one of the other forty or so Canadian infantry battalions overseas. Chances were better, though, that you’d be assigned to a regiment from the military district in which you were sworn in. In my case, when draft day arrived I had a choice of either going to the Essex Scottish, the Highland Light Infantry of Canada, the Royal Canadian Regiment or the Perths. I’ll tell you the sad story, or at least I thought it was sad at the time, of how I ended up with the Perths, and it certainly wasn’t my first choice! In fact it wasn’t my choice at all.

More than five hundred men of No. 3 CIRU (Canadian Infantry Reinforcement Unit) formed up on the grey, overcast Wednesday morning of August 4, 1943, waiting to find out to which unit each of us would be assigned. It was a day we’d all been eagerly awaiting ever since we set foot in Aldershot. The two training companies quartered in Salamanca and Badajoz Barracks were made up mostly of men from Windsor and District and neighbouring Kent County, so it was only natural that they should want to end up in the ranks of the Windsor-based Essex Scottish Regiment, and I was one of those.

The major in charge of the drafting procedure, assisted by the RSM (regimental sergeant-major) instructed us to form up on the marker representing a certain regiment, when that regiment’s name was called out. Simple enough. So, when the RSM barked out, Fall out on the Essex Scottish marker! the stampede was underway. More than three quarters of the parade broke ranks and went thundering across the square. From my position in the company formation I couldn’t help but be well back, and though I could run faster than most of the fellows I couldn’t get through the solid wall of khaki barring my way. By the time I jostled and shouldered my way to where I was able to form up, I found myself well down from the marker. But I didn’t think it would matter—we’d all be going to the Essex. Not so.

Then the RSM and the major counted files. And what do you know but they stopped counting about twenty files from where I stood. All those to the right of where the count ended had to go back to our original formation, now depleted considerably. I was one of the unlucky ones. It would be no Essex Scottish Regiment for me. I was devastated. All my hopes and dreams came crashing down. What a letdown!

I wasn’t the only one deeply disappointed. There had to be at least a couple hundred other guys like myself with long, hangdog expressions on their faces, every one of us crying the blues, moaning over the fact that we’d end up in a regiment not of our choosing. How could they do this to us? was the general feeling throughout as we waited for the next regiment name to be called out.

Second choice for most of the remainder seemed to be the Highland Light Infantry. So when the next Fall out! came, this time for the HLI, it was another mad scramble. Again the sprint. Again no luck. The regiment from Galt didn’t need anywhere near as many replacements as the Essex. Once again the count stopped a few files down the line from where I hopefully stood. I got the chop.

Two regiments left to choose from. Which one would it be for me? Since the RCR (Royal Canadian Regiment) was one of Canada’s premier regiments, and since the name had that ring of glory to it, how could I not want to march and fight in its ranks? As for the Perths, the name meant nothing at all to me except the fact that I had done some shooting on the rifle range in the basement of their Armoury in Stratford.

Fall in for the RCRs! came the stentorian shout of the RSM. And once again I didn’t make it. Where else was there to go but the Perths? To say I was despondent was to put it in the mildest of terms. I was devastated. And so my name was recorded on the Perth Regiment draft sheet along with about a dozen and a half others who, by the looks on their faces, were about as unhappy as I was.

I might mention here one incident that happened to me as a trainee at No. 3 CIRU before I go on, in which I tried to look like a hero to the 150 other guys in the training company. This happened on the grenade range just outside Aldershot. After going flawlessly through the prescribed way of throwing the No. 36 segmented grenades, a popular and very effective weapon used in World War I, Sergeant-Major Randerson, in command of the range and a weapons expert of some note, gave us a brief instruction on the newest brainwave known as the No. 74 sticky bomb, a weapon designed to knock out tanks. When he was through he called for three volunteers to go with him and a sergeant to the beat-up old hull of a World War I tank about three hundred yards away. I promptly stepped forward along with two other glory-seekers, and the three of us, along with the Randerson and the sergeant, struck off across the barren field to see what this newfangled anti-tank weapon could do.

On reaching the blasted remains of the hull of what appeared to be a vintage-1918 tank, Randerson gave another brief demonstration on the handling and application of the bomb. One thing he stressed was to give it a good whack against the hull, not merely attach it. Then he pointed out two slit-trenches about ten yards away, telling us to take cover there. Both trenches were large enough to hold three men—one was for him and his assistant, the other for us show-offs.

Okay, you got that straight then? the unsmiling, no-nonsense company sergeant-major asked. Who’ll be the first? I wanted to be first, but lost out to one of the others.

The lad, a picture of confidence, let fly the hemispheres, then slammed the bomb against the hull with a solid crack. We were off like a shot out of hell for the trench. We’d also been warned to open our mouths wide and stick our fingers in our ears so that the blast wouldn’t rupture our eardrums. Then, BANG! What a hell of a blast! Unbelievable! It blew a sizeable hunk of metal off the hull, sending it flying through the air right over our trench in the most frightening, godawful scream. Right then and there I wanted no part of what I had volunteered to do. But there was no way I could back out of it now unless I wanted to make myself look like a big chicken in front of the entire company.

My turn came next, not by choice but simply because Randerson handed me a bomb and said, Now, soldier, do your stuff. I stood there for a moment almost mesmerized, staring at the bomb in my hand. When I returned to reality I nervously flicked off the protective hemispheres, revealing the softball-sized glass flask filled with nitroglycerine, covered with a stockinette material and coated with a thick layer of honey-coloured adhesive. As I was about to slam it against the hull, the sticky globe somehow got stuck to my right trouser leg. In rising panic I pulled it free and then applied it to the hull, but not with a smash as I was supposed to, but with what was more of a love-tap. Back in the trench, with my mouth open so wide it hurt, my fingers jammed tight in my ears I waited for the awesome blast. Five seconds went by—no explosion. Ten seconds—no explosion. Fifteen—still no explosion. What the hell went wrong, I wondered? Instead of one earth-shattering blast, there was another kind of explosion, that of Randerson running off at the mouth like no self-respecting senior NCO ought to behave. Man, was he ever mad! I peeked over the edge of the trench and saw a deep-flushed face, fulminating in fury as he strode up to the hull where I’d applied the bomb so weakly. I crawled out, a little slower than the other two, and nervously approached the hull, expecting all of us to get blown sky-high any second. Randerson lit into me with a verbal tirade that ripped me apart from asshole to breakfast. And all I could do was stand there and take it and feel myself getting smaller by the minute.

Why hadn’t the bomb gone off? The only thing I could think of that might have caused the misfire was that in the momentary panic of pulling the sticky bomb off my trousers and then getting ready to apply it to the hull, I must have relaxed my hold on the handle enough to allow the safety lever to lower the striker, so that it didn’t strike the fuze with enough force to set it off. Anyway, this brave individual who sought to impress his comrades in the art of battle had been rudely knocked off his imaginary pedestal. In fact, I was so ashamed of my lousy performance and humbled by Randerson’s heated oratory that I felt utterly worthless. My self-esteem took a dizzying plunge, and that night when I climbed into my wooden cot in Badajoz Barracks, I tossed and turned and wrestled with my conscience until well past midnight before I finally drifted off to sleep. But before I nodded off I swore to myself that never again would I try to prove I was something I was not.

Shortly after breakfast the four drafts began departing Aldershot. It was tough having to say so long to friends I’d made in Basic Training at McLagan Barracks in Stratford, in Ipperwash, and now here at No. 3 CIRU. What lucky guys they were, those that landed in the ranks of the Essex Scottish, and even those that went to the HLI and the RCR. I felt like that little weasely fellow in the Li’l Abner comic strip, Joe Btfsplk—the hard-luck guy with the wide-brimmed hat pulled down over his eyes who went around with a perpetual black cloud over his head, lightning shooting out of it. Everything went wrong for him, as it was now going wrong with me.

The tiny Perth draft was the last to leave, climbing aboard the trucks about mid afternoon for the short ride to Farnborough Station, where we caught the Southern Railway train for Waterloo Station. There we transferred to a train that would deliver us to an out-of-the way station about ten miles from Hunstanton-on-the-Wash, where the Perths were located. On hand to receive us was a lowly corporal, an indifferent one at that. I thought we’d be accorded some kind of formal welcome into the regimental family, with the second in command or the RSM to greet us, but all we got in the way of a reception was one disinterested Corporal and three equally indifferent drivers.

The Windsor Hotel, taken over by the British Army long before for billeting purposes, was to have been our quarters, but as it turned out, beds for only ten men were available. So eight of us made the short trek down the street with our burdensome load of full kit and two kit-bags each to take over billets above a small radio repair shop. Quite a few Perths were walking about on the streets, and I couldn’t help but notice that not one of them so much as gave a glance towards the newcomers. What a deadbeat outfit, I mumbled to myself as I struggled with my two kit bags and packs up the narrow stairs. It really wasn’t all that bad of a place, just two small eight-by-eight rooms, with a toilet and a washbasin down the hall. We at least enjoyed a measure of privacy. Otherwise, sleeping accommodations weren’t any different than in Aldershot, since we still had to put up with steel-slatted, uncomfortable wooden bunk beds, with the guy on the bottom bunk just six inches off the floor. The unlucky one who got the bottom bunk had to be blessed with the agility and flexibility of a gymnast to climb into bed and to roll out of it in the morning. And he also found out that it was a lot chillier near the floor than it was in the upper bunk.

Our first meal in the regimental mess was definitely not something to write home about unless to describe how bloody awful it was. We arrived just as the companies had finished their evening meal and most of them had gone back to their quarters. The cooks, God bless their unfriendly souls, were nice enough, though somewhat disgruntled to have to serve the latecomers what was left of the slop. And slop it was. Even worse than what we’d been served on the troopship Andes. It was so bad I wouldn’t have fed it to a starving dog. The pork and beans were cold and tasted terrible. The bacon was almost all fat, and what little lean there was was stringy and indigestible. The broiled potatoes tasted like they’d been stored a little too long in a basement or root cellar. I actually gagged trying to eat the stuff, and finally had to give up. It was a wonder the men who sat down here before us hadn’t rioted. Famished though I was, I walked over to the swill cans by the exit door and dumped the works. Even the tea was lousy. All four of the garbage-can sized receptacles were full of the slop. The only redeeming feature of this inedible meal was that the Norfolk County pigs would be having a dandy feast next day. They wouldn’t be quite as fussy as I was. I looked around hoping to see the orderly officer of the day to let him know how bad the food was, but he was nowhere to be seen. Then I thought it mightn’t be a wise move on my part, being a newcomer, to start complaining the minute I joined the regimental family. It just might be asking for trouble later on down the line.

Before retiring for the night, I learned that the Perths were in the 11th Infantry Brigade of the 5th Armoured Division, and that The Irish Regiment of Canada and the Cape Breton Highlanders were the other two units in the Brigade, with the Westminster Regiment as the motorized component. It was the first time I’d ever heard of these regiments. Nor had I been aware there were such regiments as the Lord Strathcona Horse, the British Columbia Dragoons and the New Brunswick Hussars, which made up the 5th Armoured Brigade in the division. A whole new and exciting military world was opening up for me as my first day in the Perths came to a very subdued close.

Hunstanton is situated on the northeast shoulder of Norfolk County where the North Sea enters the bay or inlet known as The Wash. This was East Anglia, targeted by the Luftwaffe in their daily strafing and low-level bombing raids. These were known as Tip and Run Raids, the planes sweeping in at wavetop level, machine-gunning as they hit landfall and then climbing abruptly as they dropped their 250 pound bombs indiscriminately. There was no military purpose to these raids. The civilian population, homes, churches, and cinemas bore the brunt of these sneak attacks. In effect, they were nothing more than nuisance raids. So here we were, front-row centre, and I was fair chafing at the bit for one of the enemy planes to show up so I could get a few potshots at the bastards.

In the two weeks we spent at Hunstanton, on only a couple of nights did an enemy plane fly over, but it was so high up that chances of getting a bead on it were nil. In fact I never was able to pinpoint one up in that starlit sky. It was the first time I heard that peculiar unsynchronized beat of German engines. After that, there was never any mistaking whose plane it was. One night on sentry duty at Battalion Headquarters (BHQ), I heard the approach of an enemy plane from the east droning high in the sky above the town. Back and forth it went in that vrum-vrum, vrum-vrum, vrum-vrum beat that became so familiar to everyone. After circling in the inky darkness for about ten minutes it flew off towards Boston on the other side of The Wash, where a trio of searchlight beams fingered the sky trying to locate the intruder. Then the sound of its engines died away as the plane turned eastward back to the continent. Fortunately for us and the town’s citizens it had only been a reconnaissance plane.

The Wash is famous for its tides. From the earliest times the irresistible sea has waged a constant eroding attack against the coast, undermining the chalk cliffs and washing away huge sections of arable land. But the hardy farmers of coastal Norfolk were not to be denied their right to farm the land, and in their determination, they fought the sea with everything in their power. Their concerted efforts eventually slowed down the erosion of their priceless land, but throughout the centuries the battle has been a neverending one, and though lessened in intensity, the fight still goes on.

Standing on the wet sand of The Wash when the tide is out, you can see at once what centuries of sea action have done to the cliffs. The everlasting pounding of the waves at high tide has crumbled the face of layered chalk into great mounds of rubble. We transients knew nothing of this serious problem confronting the good people of Norfolk, as they strove to save their land and livelihood from the sea’s relentless pounding. Unaware of the geophysical history of Norfolk County, all we were concerned about was what the Daily Syllabus and Part II Orders had in store for us, and what pleasures and comforts might come our way in the evenings or on the weekend. Very few, if any, took the time to look into the town’s or the region’s history.

Hunstanton had been a popular seaside resort in peacetime when throngs of people came from all over England for a weekend or a summer’s vacation. The hotels, restaurants and stores did a land-office business. Then the war came, followed by Dunkirk, and suddenly the town was empty except for its own citizens. Only when army units began to be stationed here did the town slowly come alive again, but it wasn’t a merry-making crowd that walked about on the streets, or promenaded along the seafront, or lolled about on the great spread of greensward sloping gently down to the promenade. The khaki-clad newcomers, although they could be boisterous and fun-loving at times, were a far cry from the colourful and happy crowds that had populated the town before the war. With the pleasure seekers long since gone, successive waves of army units came, stayed for a time, and went on to other destinations. And now, with the fortunes of war turning slowly in our favour, it was 11th Brigade enjoying the scene and the little amenities the town offered. Like other units, they would leave their mark, insignificant as it might be, in the collective memory of the friendly citizens of Hunstanton.

What wonderful times they were, to go idly strolling about, without a care in the world, along the waterfront, lolling about on the greensward, or watching with interest as townsfolk plucked periwinkles out of the sand and ate them. They dug them out of the shell by inserting a pin, extracted them and popped them into their mouths. How they could do it was beyond me.

And then there were the pleasant hours spent sitting on the greensward ogling all the pretty girls strolling along the waterfront, and watching the tides come in at night. Like everyone else, I was forever on the lookout for some pretty and accommodating young lady to spend the evenings with. But this was easier said than done. Competition was simply too stiff, what with something like five thousand like-minded specimens of virile young Canadian manhood stationed in and around the town. Any attractive young lady worth being seen with had already been latched onto, leaving the overwhelming rest of us unfulfilled and having to find some other less exciting and pleasurable means to fill out our free time.

My first night in Hunstanton was of the shorter variety. Reveille came at 0400 hours instead of the usual 0600. Someone came busting into our cozy little rooms over the radio repair shop hollering Wakey! Wakey! Wakey! Everybody up! Hey, hey, hey! Let’s get cracking! Nip, nip, nip! It took a minute or two of rubbing the sleep out of our eyes to wonder what the hell was going on. Who’s that yappy sonofabitch waking us up at this ungodly hour? Keerist! it’s only four o’clock! Bugger off you bastard! From every bunk the comments rang out. Someone had to be playing a game on us. But it was only too true. A corporal entered our domicile in a more civilized manner and explained to us in a quieter, more measured and civilized tone, Okay, fellas, let’s get hustling now. This is no joke. Fall in outside for roll call in fifteen minutes.

With sleep still heavy in our eyes we dressed in a hurry and trooped slowly and reluctantly out to the street where we were confronted by a crowd milling about. What the heck’s going on? I wondered. Shouting NCOs gradually brought us out of chaos and we fell into some semblance of parade-square order. I still didn’t know what the heck was coming off until word got around that we were going on an exercise and that as reinforcements we were being parcelled out to the three rifle companies. I ended up in 9 Platoon, Able Company, with Corporal Bob Turnbull as my section leader. Much later on in Italy, Bob was 18 Platoon Sergeant for a short time until he was transferred to another company and much later on, at the Gothic Line in Italy, he was severely wounded. (A good man—I hated to see him go.)

For the present, the regiment was organized on a three-rifle company basis, having gone through several changes since mobilization, from three-to four-company pattern and back to three. For SNAFFLE, as the upcoming exercise was code-named, it would carry out its role with a three rifle-company pattern, but on returning it would go through its final transformation to a four rifle-company organization in which it would remain throughout the balance of the war.

Exercise Snaffle

Every exercise, scheme and major operation was given a code-name, such as BATTLE, VIKING, SPARTAN, TORCH, OVERLORD, etc. These made sense and were at once strong and appropriate. On the other hand, there were names given to exercises and schemes that made no sense at all, like MOUSE, NIGHTIE, DITTO, MOPSY and FLOPSY. SNAFFLE fell in this latter category of uninspiring, silly code-names. This exercise, by the time it was finished, would have been more aptly named SNAFU, the acronym for SITUATION NORMAL ALL FUCKED UP. It turned out to be an example of troop movement brought to the height of confusion and ineptitude. Nothing went right. From beginning to end it was nothing but a complete bollocks.

Our column of vehicles got underway with a ten-minute ride and then we stopped. Ten minutes went by as we waited—for what, we hadn’t a clue. It was a hint of things to come. We got rolling again, with the wheels on our three-ton Dodge humming for another five minutes, then slowed, then stopped again. We sat for another ten or fifteen minutes wondering what the big hold-up was. Moved for less than a mile—stop. From here on in, for the better part of the next two hours it was nothing but roll, brake, roll, accelerate, brake, pull over to the side of the road, park for a longer spell, back on the road again, five minutes freewheeling, stop for a pee break, climb back up to your seat, breathe blue exhaust fumes for ten more minutes and then get on our way again, but not for long. The same routine over and over again. Maddening! Sergeants shouting, corporals shouting, officers waving arms. MPs directing traffic and arguing with officers. It was a schamozzle! No matter which way we looked at it, the scheme, only hours old, was already a monumental screwup. Nothing made sense. Nobody seemed to have a clue as to where we were, what our objective was to be, and how we were supposed to go about achieving it. This was the first of many occasions in which the infantry were mishandled en route, not knowing what the hell was going on. What a way to fight a war!

Actually, from what I learned some years after the war when I read Lieutenant-Colonel Nicholson’s book With the Canadians in Italy, 5th Armoured Division’s role in SNAFFLE was a straightforward one. Its objective was to seize a fictional chromium mine defended by the 1st Polish Armoured Division. It resulted in one hell of a fiasco, a poorly run show in every way. There were times when the Perths and the Westminster convoys got tangled up on the same narrow road, one going one way, one the other. The air was not only blue with exhaust fumes, but also with every choice expression in the Canadians’ lexicon of swear words. Everyone above the rank of sergeant was hurrying about every which way shouting orders but getting nowhere. Somehow, though I’ll never know how, the units were untangled, sorted out and sent on their respective ways.

Although we were an armoured division, and our enemy likewise, I can’t recall having seen tanks, ours or theirs, at any time throughout the scheme. All I ever saw was Bren carriers and a few armoured cars. In fact, Able Company didn’t get to see a single Polish infantryman. And even if we had, I wondered how we would have been able to tell them apart from our own boys? We all wore basically the same battledress and the same style of helmets. Up to this point, everything I could see told me the whole show was devolving into one big dandy balls-up affair. As it was, we never did run into the Poles. What a waste of effort, fuel, and time! No one, from division commander all the way down to private, seemed to know what the hell was going on for the whole time we were chasing all over the countryside looking for an enemy. It was a classic case of the blind leading the blind.

We’d gone the whole day without a bite to eat and when the ration truck finally caught up to us in the wild scrubland somewhere out in the Norfolk boondocks it was the only time we exhibited any enthusiasm. We were famished, and literally tore open the wooden box of compo rations in our eagerness to get at the contents. The box contained enough food to feed a platoon for one full day. I don’t remember all the items, but I’ll never forget the canned bacon: crap! That’s about the best way I can describe it. It most certainly wasn’t the quality product that has made Canadian bacon famous all over the world. All it was was a solid glob of fat wrapped up tight and packed in a can. Of course there was bully-beef (the canned Fray Bentos Argentine variety), cans of meat-and-vegetable stew, steak-and-kidney pudding, packets of a tea-sugar-powdered milk mixture, a jar of marmalade so bitter it puckered the mouth, and a couple of loaves of bread. Although these rations could sustain us for a day, by no stretch of the imagination could it be said that we licked our chops before and after consuming the stuff. In fact I ate just enough to tide me over till breakfast—such as it turned out to be. I lost four pounds over the three days of our helter skelter know not what we do exercise.

Late in the afternoon of the third day the exercise mercifully came to an end. There was no mistaking our relief that it was over and done with and that we were on our way back to billets in Hunstanton. It was a time for celebration, so, the piss-cutters, the don’t give a hoot for nothing guys in the battalion (the Perths had quite a few) decided to use up their ample supply of thunderflashes. As the Perth convoy rolled slowly through King’s Lynn in the gathering darkness of evening, they lit them and tossed them at the feet of the strollers on the sidewalks of High Street scaring the bejeezus out of them. It’s a wonder these powerful dynamite-size fire crackers didn’t injure someone. It was inevitable that within an hour after the regiment’s arrival in Hunstanton Lieutenant-Colonel Lind should get a phone call from the authorities in King’s Lynn reporting the despicable incident. Since the culprits were unknown and no one owned up to the evil deed, nor would witnesses come forward to identify the guilty parties, the CO had no recourse but to write a letter of apology to the mayor of the town, assuring him that the dastardly culprits would be found out and severely dealt with. However, the CO had more important things on his mind, like getting the regiment in shape to fight a skilled enemy, than finding pranksters. The guilty persons were not found, and the incident was soon forgotten.

Dog Company Resurrected

With the redesignation of the Perths from motor to straight infantry, it was necessary to reorganize a fourth rifle company. This came about the day after we returned from SNAFFLE—August 14,1943. Most of Dog Company’s strength was made up of personnel who had been posted to the regiment from holding units over the past two months, with the balance coming from the existing three rifle companies, the so-called originals. The general feeling, or so it seemed at the time, amongst these originals was bitterness at having been thrust against their will into the ranks of the Johnny-come-lately draftees. For some unwarranted reason they looked upon us as though we were zombies, that scorned classification of home-service-only lowlife known officially as Reserves. It didn’t take them long, however, to realize we weren’t as green as grass as they thought we were, and were in fact as good at soldiering as they were. By the time we were on our way to Italy we were all pretty close to being one big happy family.

Now I’ll attempt here to detail more or less the command structure of the company at its reformation. Taking over command was an inordinately young (21) captain, William (Sammy) Ridge of Millbrook, Ontario. We never called him by his proper Christian name, only as Sammy. Why Sammy? Well, according to the man himself, he’d been quite a power hitter on his local baseball team, and what could be more natural than for his teammates to start calling him Samson and then Sammy. And so the nickname stuck. Ridge led the company all through the Italian campaign and then through Holland with distinction and with firm and fair discipline. He wasn’t the kind to waste lives through foolhardy ventures for the sake of quick promotion. And he wasn’t the kind to go looking for medals at other people’s expense. He did what had to be done, and we did what was expected of us in a manner that showed the kind of leadership we had. This reflected on us in the growing respect shown by our senior companies. What more could we have asked?

Nos. 16, 17 and 18 Platoons were commanded respectively by Lieutenants Frank Switzer of Wallaceburg, Bill Hider of Drumbo (near Woodstock), and Laurent Menard from some small town outside Ottawa. The latter stayed with us until shortly after we arrived in Altamura, when he went to the newly formed Scout Platoon. In the short time we had Menard as a Platoon Commander we established a good relationship with him and considered him to be a sound and trustworthy leader.

Our Company Sergeant-Major was Don Habkirk of Teeswater, Ontario, while the Platoon Sergeants were stocky Ab Scammel (No. 16), scholarly looking Don Mcllwain (No. 17), and big and burly Pete McRorie (No. 18). Pete was an OHL hockey star and NHL prospect until he joined the army. He was one hell of a respected senior NCO in the short time he was with us, and I’m sure we would have liked to go into action with him. When Pete moved over to another company, his replacement, Jack Leghorn out of London, gave us no cause for encouragement when we first laid eyes on him. Jack lacked the stature and the solid, soldierly look of McRorie. His less-than-athletic physical appearance, and that long, thin, pale face of his most certainly did not instill in us the confidence a man needs in his Platoon Sergeant on the battlefield. He looked more suited to sitting behind a desk at Canadian Military Headquarters than commanding an infantry platoon. However, he sure fooled us.

And now down to the lower echelons of company command, the section leaders and lance corporals who make up the central nervous system of any platoon. Without good section leaders, no platoon can hope do an effective job in an attack or on defence. In No. 7 section there was Corporal Bob Adair from Windsor, a handsome Clark Gable type formerly with the Essex Scottish. Eight section was handled by Corporal Reg Gore of Ottawa, a tall, good-looking broth of a lad who had all the attributes of a Coldstream guardsman about him. Nine section leader was Corporal George Haynes, one of the Stratford originals. George was with us until a week before we departed Camp Barton Stacey. Replacing him was Lance-Corporal Bill Johnson, a butcher’s apprentice who worked at Loblaws in London.

Now we get down to the lance corporals: Harman (Chick) Cawley, a Hogtowner in HQ Section, bulky Mel Brown also out of Toronto in 7 Section, Bill Brant (not his real name) from Galt as 8 Section lance-jack, and George Pollock of 9 Section. Even in training, no body of troops remains constant. Men come and go on a regular basis for various reasons. Some get sick and go to hospital for short or extended periods depending on the severity of the illness. Others are sent on courses or are transferred to other companies, or occasionally transferred to other regiments. A few end up in the digger (detention barracks). These habitual troublemakers, and those who can’t or won’t conform to regimental discipline, or who show little or no enthusiasm towards training are usually shipped out to reinforcement units for reassignment. New people come in to take their places.

Later on, when the regiment is committed to battle or even simply holding down static positions, the changes in personnel come much more frequently, especially after a particularly hard piece of fighting. They arrive in greater numbers depending on the casualty rate. For all the movement of personnel in and out, the regimental character on the whole remains much as it was in the beginning. Enough of the old boys are always around to maintain that intangible quality that characterizes the performance and spirit of the regiment. It’s sort of like a heritage carried through family generations; in this case, it was the regimental family.

It’s impossible for me to give an accurate character study of every man that made up the original No. 18 Platoon, and to recall in what section he soldiered. I, for one, started out in 9 Section, but in Italy ended up in 8 Section where I stayed throughout the campaign. As with all the people you come into contact with in your lifetime, some stand out in the memory clearly, while with others you have to strain the memory cells to resurrect their name, their general appearance and how it was you got to know them. Still others have faded from the memory for no apparent reason you can think of. In the case of 18 Platoon I’ll do my best to describe them and hope I come close to what kind of persons they were. Some I’ve looked on with admiration and respect, some more so than others. Some were just nice guys to be around, nothing out of the ordinary about them. A very few with qualities of character only a mother could put up with, I never did get to admire, though I did my very best to do so. Some were quite amusing characters, while others made no special waves, but I remembered them just the same. All in all, collectively they were as good a bunch as you would find in any other regiment.

The first of the original No. 18 Platoon that comes to mind is a blocky, heavy-shouldered French-Canadian from Ottawa. This rough-hewn but likeable character was Edgar Desjardins. When I first laid eyes on him I saw at once a striking resemblance to the famous French wrestler of those days, Maurice Tillet, also known as the French Angel, from whom Desjardins naturally got the nickname Angel. As he used to say in that Quebec accent, Don’t call me H’Edgar, call me H’Angel. Although Angel didn’t appear to be blessed with an overabundance of academic intellect, he certainly was no dummy when it came to soldiering. His stamina and strength were close to legendary. If there was anything Angel loved more, outside of his family and the odd wayward girl, it had to be his Bren gun. He pampered it like one would a new car, forever wiping it down with oil till it gleamed like polished ebony.

The Bren weighed twenty-six pounds, which doesn’t seem like a heck of a lot, but when carried on the shoulder on a twenty-mile route march over hill and dale and along hard and hot asphalt roads, it could get to feel more like a ton, especially when the carrier had to break into a run. Angel handled his beloved Bren like it was a pea-shooter.

Then there was Jimmy Hanagan with his pencil-thin moustache and his Hollywood good looks. When I first met the guy I didn’t know how to take him. I mistook him for being a little queer. His hand movements and his facial expressions when speaking were somewhat effeminate, suggesting he might prefer the company of men rather than women. Even when I got to know him better I still wasn’t quite sure what his preference might be. Though I liked the guy, I was always wary of him. What made me think otherwise was his success rate at scoring with the ladies. After a while in Italy I came to the conclusion Jim was straight after all, not only as a man, but as a friend.

Bill Robotham came from the cheese country around Ingersoll and was a bit of a character in his own right in the country hick sort of way. Bill’s ongoing problem, especially after our arrival in Italy, was his feet. He could never seem to keep them warm enough for his liking. He was forever moaning about how cold they were. To look at him you’d hardly think he was the lover-boy type. Bill was gaunt, sallow, sad-eyed, spare of frame, not athletically coordinated, and had a voice with a trace of a whine to it; you wouldn’t think Bill could ever latch on to a girl and have a torrid relationship going. We underestimated him. He did far better than most of us. And as for his soldiering abilities, you wouldn’t expect him to win the stick on inspections. But the lack of parade-square smartness didn’t prevent him from being steady on the battlefield. Bill was as steady as they come in our first battle near Ortona, and he was one of the better people I’ve known in the army.

Mel Brown, one of several Toronto boys in the platoon, was close to six feet tall, and a little on the heavy side. Let’s just say his body type looked to be a little out of place in a fast-moving infantry platoon. Mel was partial to jazz music. Whenever the conversation got around to famous personalities in the world of jazz, like Gene Krupa, Glen Miller, Harry James, Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman, Mel’s eyes would light up and he’d get carried away impressing us with his vast knowledge of the subject. He was a walking encyclopedia when it came to popular music. I remember Mel getting parcels from home and invariably a couple of Downbeat magazines. Mel would leaf through these magazines even before he’d start reading his letters. He had a good singing voice, along with others in the platoon, namely Chick Cawley, Reg Gore, and Bill Johnny Johnson. This talented group of singers often entertained us in the evenings with their renditions of old favourites, harmonized to the accompaniment of a harmonica played by Art Gallant. The one we liked best by far was that nostalgia-evoking Stephen Foster melody, In the Evening by the Moonlight. It damn near brought tears to my eyes every time they sang it.

Tony Wanner, a pleasant-faced, good-looking lad from Estevan, Saskatchewan, was a quiet, unassuming type. There wasn’t a thing about him that you couldn’t like. On inspection parades or when he was on a weekend pass to London he was a regular fashion plate. No matter how I might labour in pressing and taking care of my uniform, polishing my boots, blancoing my web, setting the angle of my wedge cap, I could never approach the preciseness of Wanner’s appearance. The guy should have been a model for recruiting posters. Nothing was ever out of place. To look at him, you’d find it hard to believe that within that five-foot, seven-inch immaculate framework beat a fighting heart. The man was totally unflappable in almost any situation in battle. I know. I was never far from where Tony was at any time.

Cec Vanderbeck was one of the four in our platoon from Essex County. Jim Renaud, Cec and I had been together since we were sworn into the army. In fact Cec was the first guy I had gotten to know and buddy around with. We usually stood side by side in the ranks and would always go downtown together in Stratford in the evenings to the show and after to Diana’s Sweet Shop Restaurant for a hamburger and coffee. Sometimes we’d go to the Y for a swim or just hang around the main intersection corner to watch the people go by. There was only one thing I didn’t like about Cec, and that was to have to march behind him. He had a peculiar hesitation that made it tough to keep step. Other than that Cec was a good fellow.

Jim Renaud was from Amherstburg, downriver from Windsor, and although he had to be at least fifteen years older than me I found him to be an amiable companion. I loved to listen to Jim’s stories about his younger days roughing it in northern Ontario bush country, hunting, trapping and fishing. A hulking, slope-shouldered sort of man without much formal education, Jim nonetheless was a kind of person I could relate to, age difference be damned. I always felt comfortable in his presence.

Ken Topping was a solidly built young man whose home base was Lambeth, next to London. Ken had all the essentials of a fullback, but whether he ever played the game I don’t know. I only know he was one tough customer. His only weakness seemed to be the girlfriend he left behind. No one in this man’s army could have written as many letters to a girlfriend as did Ken. Likewise, he received more letters from his love on any given mail-call day than I would in a month from family and friends.

Gord Forbes, out of St. Thomas, was a big handsome galoot of a kid with not a mean bone in his body. But it wasn’t advisable to take advantage of his easygoing ways. No one fooled around with Gord for long before he knew what Gord was capable of in a physical sense. He was only sixteen when he lied about his age to get into the army. What made it easy for him was his size. He wasn’t built like a weightlifter, just lean and tall. Really, a gawky kid. I saw soon enough how deceptively tough this guy was when he and his buddy Ken Topping were horsing around one day, playfully grappling with each other. Gord picked Ken up and swung him around and upturned him with so little effort I couldn’t believe it. Surer than hell, Gord was a lot stronger than he looked. He was my kind of guy, but I never really got to know him that well until we did our eight-week stretch of static front duty on the winter front inland from Ortona.

As for George Simeays, from Canada’s fertile truck-garden farmland around Kingsville, Ontario, where the best tomatoes on the whole continent are grown, he had to be in a class of his own. How he ever made it past the medical board with an A-1 category I’ll never know. Organically I guess he was as healthy as the rest of us. It was his architecture that was seriously flawed. Skinny legs, skinny arms, hardly any chest at all—you had to question how in bloody hell the army ever took him in. And it was an even greater mystery how he was able to go through the physically punishing route marches, especially the obstacle and assault courses. You would swear he was held together by safety pins and tape. So it was only natural for someone to hang the sobriquet Safety-Pins to his name. He had a posture that defied all the laws of gravity and comfort. His appearance on parade was enough to make even the hardest RSM break down in despair. He had a perpetual slouch, whether standing at attention or at ease. But for all these negative aspects of his physical self, George had one quality about him that amazed me no end: he never seemed to get excited or nervous when the sergeant came around bellowing for us to get on parade. He had one speed, slow-and-easy. He reminded me of that lovable comic Negro character in the ’30s movies, Steppin Fetchit.

Walter Thomas grew up in Verdun, in la belle province, Quebec. Later, in Italy, he became my closest friend, probably because we were so much alike in everything we did and did not do. We didn’t smoke. We didn’t drink. We didn’t swear much, at least not till later on in the campaign in Italy. What we did do, however, were things that very few others would dare do, or had the good sense not to do. We were always doing some outrageously stupid thing that could have killed us and perhaps a few others around us. Tomeau (pronounced Tumoh, with the accent on the last syllable) as we always called him, didn’t rate high with me when I first met him. One thing that didn’t sit well with me was his tendency to be pushy, especially in the mess queues. My first impression of this kid was that he was nothing but a spoiled brat. It wasn’t until I moved over into his section that I gradually got to know and understand him better, and realized he wasn’t all that bad a brat after all, and in fact he was so much like me I had to like him, or hate myself.

Although neither of us drank anything stronger than jungle-juice (a bland lemonade served at canteens) or smoked, we both loved to eat. Rarely did anyone ever beat us to the head of the meal queue. Most times he was first, but on occasion I was speedier of foot. If there were seconds you could be sure we were there. It seems we never could get enough. It was no wonder the others called us Guts and Gators and Mess-tins.

I got hooked up with Bob Wheatley, a round-faced burly lad from Toronto, shortly after we arrived in Italy. They made me his No. 2 man on the Bren, so we shared a pup tent. I was right beside Bob on Hill 204 when two grenades landed in our midst. Four of us suffered minor wounds, while Bob got hit in the stomach by a large fragment and died a day later in No. 1 General Hospital in Jesi.

John Trickey came out of Ville LaSalle, a suburb of Montreal. For a guy who prided himself on having been in the ranks of one of the prestigious Dragoon or Hussar Regiment before the war (when they still rode horses), he sure didn’t look the part. He reminded me more of that ungainly fictional character Don Quixote on his bony, swayback nag Rosinante. Trickey had that gaunt, hollow-cheeked, sharp-featured look of John Carradine, the actor whose role almost always was that of a dark and sinister man in western movies. Trickey looked forever to be badly in need of a shave. If he ever wore black trousers, a black full-length coat, and a tall silk hat, he’d be the reincarnation of Abraham Lincoln—but it was impossible for any of us to imagine him as a gallant and dashingly handsome Dragoon. For all of his shortcomings, though, I found him to be an agreeable fellow.

Al Demasson somehow ended up with the Perths after finding his way out of Hazel Dell, Saskatchewan. Al was one of the older types, the kind all of us young squirts tended to call Pop. He was a quiet, soft-spoken man who we all looked up to. Unfortunately I never got to know Al as much as I probably should have. He was another one of those who didn’t fit into the mold of what I thought an infantryman should be: young, tough and wiry, with a don’t give a damn attitude. Although he might not have been a killing machine on the battlefield or have come close to us younger bucks in physical performance, he never dropped out of route marches and did everything expected of him in the field.

Another Hogtowner was Bill Rainey. Unlike most of the fellows who hailed from the big city, he maintained a low profile, never bragged about how good it was to live in Toronto, never looked down his nose at us guys who came from the smaller urban centres. I’d say he had the highest IQ of anybody in the company. There were times when I tried to impress the boys with my vocabulary and my knowledge of literature, only to have Bill correct me. Had it been anyone else to pick holes in what I said I’d have been highly offended and ready to go a couple of rounds, but with Rainey, I never felt as though he was putting me down.

There were three Maritimers in the platoon: Joe and Art Gallant, and Gerry Curran. The Gallants weren’t related except possibly several generations down the line, Joe came from Prince Edward Island, while Art was from Fredericton, New Brunswick.