Fragments of War: Stories from Survivors of World War II

268 Pages·1985·14.39 MB·English

by  Joyce Hibbert

FRAGMENTS OF WAR
Sforie§ from Survivors of World War II
by Joyce Hibberf
wifh a Foreword by Earle Birney
Dundurn Press
Toronto London
1985
© Joyce Hibbert 1985
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be repro-
duced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise (except brief passages for purposes of
review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press Lim-
ited.
Editor: Bernice Lever
Design and Production: Green Graphics
Typesetting, printing and binding:
The Coach House Press, Toronto
The Publication of this book was made possible by support
from several sources. The author and publisher wish to ack-
nowledge the generous assistance and ongoing support of the
Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council.
/. Kirk Howard, Publisher
Dundurn Press Limited
P.O. Box 245, Station F
Toronto, Canada, M4Y 2L5
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication.
Hibbertjoyce, 1923-
Fragments of war: stories from survivors of World War II.
ISBN 0-919670-95-4 (bound). - ISBN 0-919670-94-6 (pbk.)
1. World, War, 1939-1945 - Personal narratives, Canadian.
2. Canada. Armed Forces — Biography. I. Title.
D811.A2H521985 940.54'81'71 C85-099331-8
British Cataloguing in Publication.
Fragments of war: stories from survivors of World War II.
1. World War, 1939-1945
I. Hibbert, Joyce
940.53 D743
ISBN 0-9 19760-95-4
ISBN 0-9 19760-94-6 Pbk
In Memory of those who did not survive the hazards of WWII
A conference of senior officers at First Canadian Headquarters,
Amblie, France, 4 August 1944, (left to right) Lieutenant General
H.D.G. Crerar, Air Marshall A.M. Coningham, General Sir Bernard
Montgomery, and Air Chief Marshall, Sir T.L. Leigh-Mallory.
Contents
Foreword
Preface
SEA 1 Athenia Survivor. 11
2 Aboard the Algonquin. 22
3 Sinking of the S.S. Sinkiang. 32
4 Salty Old Salt. 44
5 To the Far Shore. 46
LAND 6 Acceptance. 58
7 Here and There with a Hasty Pee. 60
8 Lost Dentures and Un Peu de Bren. 68
9 Sister, Who Cares?. 78
10 Guns and Mud and Luck. 86
11 With First Overseas Draft of the CWACS. 96
12 Joking in the Face of Death. 110
13 Biscuit, Book, and Candle in Hong Kong. 115
14 Capturing Pig Swill. 120
15 Casualty Clearing. 122
16 Headaches for a Fusilier Mont-Royal. 134
17 Take Your Rosary, Son. 139
18 No Nervous Breakdowns. 147
19 It Could Always Be Worse. 155
20 Canadian Girl in the A.T.S.. 164
21 Modern Weapons. 169
22 Resistance in Holland. 171
23 War and Love - A Soldier's Lot. 181
AIR 24 Special Squadron, Special Duties. 200
25 Close Shaves and Steady Nerves. 208
26 Red-Letter Memories of an Air Gunner. 215
27 RCAF (Women's Division) One of the First. 225
28 Sand and Flies and Spitfires. 229
29 Beating the Odds. 236
30 Greenland Ordeal. 250
Bibliography. 262
Acknowledgements. 263
Photography Credits. 264
Foreword
These memories of more than thirty Canadians separately
caught up in the struggle against European fascism and its
allies disprove Walt Whitman's sceptical dictum that "the real
war will never get in the books". Certainly a remarkable
mosaic of the incredibly varied realities of World War Two, as
experienced by young Canadians, is recreated here with
matter-of-fact clarity and unpretentious vividness. These
chroniclers do not evade either the horrors or the grotesque
comedies, the boredoms or the terrors.
Here, at the war's start, is an English woman emigrating to
Canada, being chucked into a small lifeboat from the tor-
pedoed Athenia on top of seventy other civilians heaped and
vomiting on each other (except for one already dead).
Here is a Vancouver naval volunteer merely watching in
dumb excitement and frustration, from his corvette in the
Channel (as I did from a nearby shore), the aerial armada of
D-Day roaring overhead to France. And there is the lone sur-
vivor from a bomber, blasted from the skies into three years of
prison camps, enduring serious but untreatred injuries, Ges-
tapo interrogations, starvation fare, forced marches and the
daily expectation of being shot. That was a McGill student
who endured to finish his courses and practice his profession.
An 18-year-old from New Brunswick signed up with the
Royal Rifles just in time to fight and be captured in Hong
Kong. He suffered four years of lethal slavery in Japanese
hands, and then returned to Canada.
And there is a wonderfully lively Nursing Sister here from
Montreal who served in Casualty Clearing Stations in many
dangerous scenes. She is perhaps my favorite because among
her many patients in the V-2 days around Nijmegen (when I
was there) was a cheerful screwball who had been nicked in the
butt. He could well have been my young friend of those van-
ished days, Pte. Thos. L. (Topsy) Turvey.
Earle Birney
Preface
Four decades have passed, and yet for many who were
present on the massive revolving stage of an all-out world war,
memories of that time remain vivid and compelling.
These stories have been gathered together to illustrate how
a varied cross-section of Canadians met the main challenge of
their youth. Most of those featured were volunteers who
enlisted in Canada; others were caught up in the struggle
against Fascism elsewhere and chose to become Canadians
shortly after hostilities ceased.
Death and its grim retinue of terror, suffering, and impris-
onment lurked in all theatres of conflict and took their inestim-
able toll. Although not always centre stage in these brief
sketches, the ugly and brutal face of war is glimpsed time and
again among the routine and romance, the humour and hard
times, and that special comradeship which flourished through
interdependence.
I believe that these survivors have related their reminis-
cences with honesty, memories in many cases being reinforced
by publications and documents of the day. Thus, I hope that
contemporaries will read these accounts and think. "Yes, that
was how it was." Also I wish that other generations of Canadi-
ans may learn and understand more about their compatriots,
young people who were the flesh and blood associated with
place names and cold statistics of 1939-1945.
Joyce Hibbert, Drummondville, 1985
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SEA
WRENS personnel on the signal mast, HMCS St. Hyacinth e,
at St. Hyacinthe, Quebec in September, 1944.
9
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