Against All Odds

by P. J. Naworynski

  The Wilk hideout high in the hills of the Gorge region was an excellent location to consolidate the resistance movement. The region’s steep overgrown slopes, wild backwoods, and deep ravines provided the perfect conditions to create dugout operating bases. From these concealed, rudimentary mountain camps the AK could plan and conduct a series of deadly sorties. They raided German food convoys, carried out assassinations of collaborators, blew up German installations, and liquidated SS officers and storm troopers.

  The Polish partisan unit Wilk (“Wolf”) in Podhale, Poland.

  Ralf Brooks

  The entire area reminded Brooks of the Laurentian Mountains back home in Quebec, where he had learned to ski as a youth. All those years of cross-country skiing back in Canada were now being put to use on the southern slopes and valleys of occupied Poland. Within the first few weeks, Brooks was strapping on the skis and racing down the hills for his early patrol missions. That first winter the AK carried out a number of successful raids and attacks, but there were also setbacks and some extremely tense situations.

  On Christmas Eve Brooks and Duncan were invited to tag along with a couple of their partisan leaders to have supper with a family of friends who lived in a nearby village. As they walked along the road towards the town of Lipowka, they saw the headlights of an approaching car. It had to be Germans as no Poles were allowed to drive or own vehicles. They dove for the ditch, cocked their weapons, and prepared to pounce, but the partisan leader named “Adam” shouted, “Nobody shoots until I take a shot!” As the car drove past, Brooks saw that it was filled with German soldiers and an officer. Adam was a tactician. He let the car pass without firing a shot, and the men crawled out of the ditch and carried on to celebrate Christmas at their friends’ house.

  Later that evening, after an enjoyable supper in pleasant company, Brooks hugged Adam and said, “Now I understand why we didn’t shoot the Germans.” Adam replied, “On a day like today I would not shoot even a German or my worst enemy.” Brooks had learned an important lesson about guerilla warfare, strategy, timing, place, and planning. There were too many unknowns in that moment on the road. Three or four dead Germans that close to town would have exposed them all to greater dangers and would have certainly put the local civilian population at risk of a swift and wicked German retaliation. They would get the Germans, just not then and there.

  Later that winter Brooks was involved in a raid on the Polish–German police station in the town of Ochotnica. The raid was retribution against the police from the garrison for an earlier attack on one of the partisan hideouts. It also served as an opportunity for the partisans to steal much-needed food, arms, and clothing from their enemies. On February 19, 1944, Brooks and thirty-one partisan fighters stormed the station and disarmed the policemen. In the melee the German station commander was killed, along with a Polish policeman and one of the partisans. Moments later a horde of German troops arrived and pinned down the partisans with heavy gunfire. Brooks and a slew of his men managed to bust free and escape, but over the next two days a bloody battle ensued in the nearby hills. Sixty German gendarmes attempted to squash the fourteen men in Brooks’s unit. Although the AK lost five more of its boys, the Germans also lost at least six men, with an unknown number of wounded. The Germans called off their pursuit. Back in town they executed an additional forty hostages in retaliation for the partisan raid on the garrison.

  While the Germans combed the area in a desperate hunt to extinguish the freedom fighters, the partisan unit retreated deeper into the forests and re-formed. By March their company had built up its numbers to 110 men, and Brooks was promoted to second lieutenant in command of a splinter platoon group of 40 men. John Duncan was Brooks’s second-in-command.

  In early spring Brooks and Duncan received their platoon’s first liquidation assignment. There was a Gestapo informer who ran the lumber mill in the village of Lacko. The man was a traitorous Pole named Sikora. His treacherous dealings with the Germans had earned Sikora considerable wealth, and he was a constant source of danger for the AK. As a Gestapo collaborator he was personally responsible for tipping off the Nazis on numerous occasions, resulting in the extermination or deportation to concentration camps of many local families. Brooks’s superiors wanted him to kill Sikora and to confiscate the large leather belts from the lumber mill. The partisan fighters could use the leather for much-needed repairs to their boot soles.

  Armed with the necessary information on Sikora, Brooks planned the attack. He knew Sikora lived in a strongly built house with a large German shepherd as a watchdog. Sikora also had a stockpile of weapons, including a French Tommy gun, two rifles, a shotgun, and several grenades. Brooks decided against a full frontal assault. Instead, in the wee hours of the morning, he took Duncan and two of the Polish partisans with him as they crept down from the mountains to the outskirts of the village. There, by the side of the Dunajec River, they waited for Sikora to make his way down the main road that led to the mill. At 9:30 a.m., in broad daylight, Sikora approached. While Duncan and one of the partisans knocked out the phone lines in the village, Brooks and the other Pole sauntered straight up to Sikora and came face to face with him. Just as he passed by they wheeled around and shot him dead on the spot. They disarmed him, left him where he lay, and raced to his house. Brooks blazed past Sikora’s startled wife, let the guard dog have a blast of bullets, and then seized Sikora’s stash of weapons and high-powered battery radio. Sikora’s wife called out, “What’s my husband going to say when he comes back and finds what you’ve done?” Brooks replied, “I’m sorry, madam, your husband won’t be coming back.” And with that, they left. The Germans were in hot pursuit ten minutes later, but Brooks, Duncan, and the other two partisans were already in the wind.

  In the spring of 1944 the situation in the Polish countryside was getting hotter and hotter as Brooks and his platoon engaged in several assaults on German positions. On May 12, they attacked a patrol of thirty men. They killed three and wounded five. On May 14, Brooks and four of his fighters ambushed a border patrol in the mountains and wounded four of the Germans. On May 25 his platoon mounted an audacious daylight ambush on a truck filled with storm troopers. They killed several of the storm troopers and captured a couple of them to use as bargaining chips and hostages. In a brilliant act of deception, they tricked the hostages into believing that the partisan unit was heavily armed and loaded with men. Next they sent one of the hostages into the village of Kamienica, where the SS had a stronghold. The hostage carried a message to his commander at the garrison to surrender. When Brooks and his men marched into Kamienica, the entire SS company was lined up outside the garrison waiting to turn themselves in. The bluff worked. Instead of liquidating the SS company then and there, the partisans decided to show the Germans that they were honourable soldiers, not barbarians. They took their weapons, food, and equipment, but they refrained from shooting any of the unarmed men.

  Day after day, week after week, the various AK units continued their assault on the occupying German forces and those who collaborated with them. Brooks and his men ambushed more German patrols and vehicles; they destroyed bunkers and border posts, raided trains, and assassinated a slew of German officers and Nazi collaborators. As the heat of the summer intensified, so too did the engagements. Now more than ever, the freedom fighters needed to upgrade their armament and ammunition to contend with German armoured fighting vehicles, tanks, and fortified bunkers. Brooks was sent to work with a special Home Army troop known as the Pelikany, or Pelicans. His role was to help co-ordinate radio communications with the Allied forces in Italy, which were arranging airdrops of arms to supply the AK with beefier firepower to do battle against the Germans. Brooks not only helped coordinate the armament airdrops but also was the man on the ground responsible for retrieving the dropped “package” and transporting the precious goods back to base.

  In early June Brooks, Duncan, and a team of partisans made their way to the drop zone on the slopes of the Slopnice Mountain. T
hey got there early in the afternoon to make sure everything was ready to receive the nighttime airdrop. Suddenly they noticed two hunters had stumbled into the region. Although the men claimed they were hunting deer, Brooks and his team discovered when they searched the men’s papers that one of them was a notorious Nazi collaborator, the vice-president of the Polish propaganda department of the General Government. Whether he and his colleague were actually there hunting deer or not, the men had wandered into the AK’s drop zone. The fact that the vice-president was a traitor and Nazi collaborator sealed the men’s fate. Brooks, Duncan, and one of their men promptly took the pair outside the zone and shot them immediately.

  Later that night the plane dropped the first package right on schedule. Brooks and his team were ecstatic. It worked. Now they had what they needed to be more effective in their fight against the Germans. They gathered up seven long canisters filled with Bren guns, Sten guns, pistols, hand grenades, plastic explosives, detonators, radio transmitters, and medical supplies. Some of the boxes that were parachuted from the Allied plane were so heavy they plowed into the earth and had to be dug out. When the Germans eventually found out about the liquidation of the VP of the Polish propaganda department, they executed thirty Polish prisoners in Krakow as a reprisal. They also distributed posters with a price on the heads of the two British soldiers who engineered the liquidation of the high-rolling collaborator.

  The supply drop of armaments helped infuse the men of the AK and the various partisan units with a sense of optimism and excitement. Instead of using old family rifles and stolen guns from patrol posts and police stations, they were now equipped with some serious firepower. For the next year Brooks continued to lead his platoon in battle after battle. Time and time again he narrowly averted death. He and his unit carried out a series of violent ambushes on German convoys and train stations. They also delivered swift justice to German officers as retribution for atrocious massacres like one at Porabka in July 1944. News of the atrocity incensed the partisans. The Germans had razed an entire village over suspicion the villagers had helped the AK. The Nazis had rounded up the village’s forty unarmed men, women, and children, bayoneted them all, and tossed them on the flames of the burning town.

  In August, Brooks, Duncan, and three partisans tracked down the German officer in charge of the massacre as he rolled along the countryside outside the village of Szczyrzyc. The commanding officer and another officer were busy overseeing the collection of food, beer, and supplies for the garrison back in town. Brooks and his men ensnared the German wagons in crossfire and riddled them with bullets. They gave the two Germans a quick burial by the roadside and were off.

  All through summer and into the fall big battles raged as the Nazis pulled men and resources from the front lines in their attempt to control the region and extinguish the annoying rebel forces. Brooks and his unit joined six hundred AK fighters during an attack at Myślenice, near the villages of Lipnik and Wiśniowa. Vastly outnumbered by six thousand German troops, the rebels held their ground and fought off tanks, armoured cars, spotter aircraft, and heavy artillery. After two weeks the AK partisans pulled out and retreated to the hills to rest and regroup. Eighty German soldiers were killed in the battle. In retaliation, the Germans burned Lipnik to the ground. But that wasn’t enough. All the Polish villagers they captured were forced into a large barn, tied to stakes, and set ablaze. From that day forth Brooks vowed to make sure he always had at least one bullet in his revolver, just in case he was ever captured.

  He and Duncan were staying at the house of some friends about a mile from camp one night in the middle of September. Just before dawn he shot up like a bolt when a Polish friend woke him to warn him that a troop of Germans was approaching. Brooks raced out the back door, scampered down the gulley, and sussed out the large number of troops deployed along the highway with howitzers in position. He ran to camp and warned his commanding officer of the impending assault. Although it seemed they were surrounded, Brooks led a small scouting party to seek out a gap in the enemy’s snare. While volleys of small arms fire and howitzer blasts poured onto the ridge all around them, Brooks deduced that there was an opening at the western end of the hill. He took fifty men with him and they broke through the German circle. Amazingly all the AK men made it out of the trap alive. For his heroic efforts that day, Brooks was later awarded the Polish Cross of Valour.

  Brooks continued to fight with the AK right up until they disbanded in early 1945. Despite being regularly outnumbered and outgunned, the Polish partisan army had evolved into a strong, resilient force. From small skirmishes and ambushes to larger battles, they more than held their own and successfully thwarted the Germans from pacifying the area.

  After not hearing from her son since the spring of 1942, Hubert’s mother was finally informed in March 1945 that her boy was indeed still alive. It took a couple more months for Brooks to eventually make it home to Canada. Unfortunately, his homecoming was bittersweet. Upon his arrival he learned that his father, Alfred, had died of a sudden heart attack in May 1944. Earlier that month Alfred had received news that suggested Hubert had been shot while attempting to escape and was presumed dead. The shocking news of Hubert’s death was believed to be the cause of his father’s heart attack. For Hubert, the sense of pride, excitement, and elation of coming home was offset by the heartbreaking news about his dad’s passing.

  Streatham versus Flyers program.

  Tom Schroeter

  RAMPING UP IN EXHIBITION

  09

  The lady sitting behind the front desk at the Crofton Hotel that afternoon was dressed in full winter gear. She had on her fur coat, a warm hat, and a thick pair of gloves. It was about 2:00 p.m. on January 15, 1948. Inside the ancient hotel in downtown London the temperature hovered just above freezing. For the next four nights this would be home for the men of the RCAF Flyers while they got their land legs back and kicked off a series of exhibition games against a couple of top-tier British hockey clubs. After they dropped their gear and checked into their spartan, frigid rooms, the boys headed for the hotel dining room. They hadn’t eaten a bite since breakfast on the Queen Elizabeth at 8:00 a.m. They were famished.

  In a word, the food situation that greeted them at the Crofton Hotel was dire. Patsy Guzzo noted in his diary: “I shall never forget my first English lunch. The soup did everything to upset my stomach. I did not have to taste it; the aroma alone was sufficient. It reminded one of boiled fish eyes soup.” This was a far cry from the pampering they had received on the Queen Elizabeth, even in steerage class. Reg Schroeter and Ab Renaud both got food poisoning within their first day at the Crofton. Even Hubert Brooks’s iron gut couldn’t handle whatever bizarre organisms were mutating in the questionable post-war food on offer at the hotel.

  Most of the boys discovered they had absolutely no heat in their rooms. But Patsy Guzzo and his two roommates were the lucky ones. Aside from a couple of chairs, a sink, and a bathroom behind glass doors, their room also had a tiny coin-operated gas heater. For one shilling the little heater threw out puffs of warm air for a few blissful minutes. Once Patsy got his heater going, the noise of the humming contraption drew in about nine other players, who crowded into the room to catch a bit of warmth.

  Of course not all the players were in quite the same position. Silver spoon boys George Mara and Wally Halder had the resources and the ability to spare themselves the discomfort of the Crofton. While they would have happily stayed with the rest of the guys, they weren’t keen on spending the next four nights in the fleabag, second-rate accommodations with the horrific food. As civilian volunteers, Wally and George checked themselves out of the Crofton and paid out of their own pockets to stay at the swankier Dorchester Hotel on Park Lane. Sandy and Frank were none too pleased, but none of the players could blame them. If they had the cash and the freedom, they all would’ve done the same thing.

  British newspapers welcomed the team’s arrival in the United Kingdom and dubbed them “Canada’s myste
ry team.” Manager Sandy Watson, Coach Frank Boucher, and the boys on the RCAF Flyers squad were all amused. They were happy to keep the press and their opponents guessing. In fact, most of the other Olympic teams were dark horses just like the Flyers were.

  From the moment the Flyers stepped off the boat in Southampton, all their travel and lodging arrangements were handled by a guy named John “Bunny” Ahearne. He also coordinated the team’s European exhibition games. Like Sandy, Bunny had never really played hockey, but he possessed a deep love for the sport and he engineered his way to the top of the pyramid of amateur hockey in Europe.

  Bunny was born in Ireland in 1901 and had served with the British Army in World War I. He was a man of action. He was crafty, he was cunning, and he was a risk-taker. He was also the owner of a massive travel agency, and more important, Bunny was the secretary of both the British Ice Hockey Association and the International Ice Hockey Federation. If there was anyone who knew everything going on in amateur hockey in Europe it was Bunny. He had his finger firmly on the pulse of the particulars of international hockey at the Olympics. For Sandy Watson and Frank Boucher, Bunny was a fount of indispensable insight and information.

  Almost immediately after their arrival in London, Watson and Boucher held a team meeting at the Crofton during which Bunny gave them a few pointers about what to expect at St. Moritz. He told them about the bad refereeing, the inconsistent ice surfaces, the bizarre rules, and how the numbers game could be the difference between gold and silver. If at the end of the Olympics there were two teams with the same number of wins, the gold medal would be awarded to the team with the lowest goal average (goals scored divided by goals allowed). Bottom line: it was better to win a game 2–0 than 18–6. For Coach Frank Boucher, this was music to his ears. No matter what team he had played on he had always played defence. And he had always been a huge fan of playing a strong defensive game. In his mind, the best offence was a strong defence. Question was, Did he have the guys in the roster to pull it off?