The Forgotten
Page 38
Soldiers, sailors and airmen may not have believed they would end up “rotting in a POW camp,” but at least intellectually they knew it was a possibility. By contrast, whatever concerns the Oblates and Sacred Heart Brothers may have had as they boarded the SS Zamzam, spending years behind les barbelés was not one of their imagined futures. Their evangelical calling gave les religieux a mission, albeit one very far from Basutoland. Alone among the Kriegies, the fathers and brothers were able to openly apply their training to their lives in the barren lands of Stalag VIII-B, Milag und Marlag Nord, Stalag Luft III and a dozen other camps. Yet, as Father Charbonneau’s secret communication with Oblates in Posen and Father Goudreau’s smuggling of letters shows, theirs was not “a cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed”; rather, the Oblates sallied out, albeit in secret, against their adversary, to paraphrase John Milton.282
King and country mattered. Andrew Carswell, Russ Burrows and Stuart Kettles may not have known about the Nazis’ worst sins when they climbed onto their plane, landing craft or warship, but they knew the answer to the question posed by a wounded flyer on Brian Hodgkinson’s ward during the airmen’s debate with Dr. Meinhoff: “How long before you try to gobble up North and South America and the rest of Africa and Australia?”283 As the war continued and the Canadians saw Germany’s disregard for the Geneva Convention, so starkly evident in the Reich’s murder of more than 150 Canadians in Normandy, the inhumane treatment of the Russians, and the indications of the killings of millions of Jews, Roma, Poles and others, it took on greater meaning. Forced to watch from the sidelines, Kriegies sabotaged when they could. One of the few arrows in their quiver stung: Canadians would light a Sweet Caporal or a Player’s cigarette, smoke it halfway and then, in front of the guards who had access to much inferior cigarettes, throw the half-smoked fag on the ground and ostentatiously grind it into the dirt.
Central to both to servicemen and les religieux were their ties to their families. Especially because of the delay of ten or so weeks, if it brought news of illness, mail could raise concerns. The absence of mail, however, threatened to undermine the men’s equilibrium. Reading that one’s mother had made jam, father and uncle had painted a garage, or wife or girlfriend had cried upon receiving one’s letter rebalanced the men. Giving advice, as Father Bergeron did; jesting with his mother, as MacDonald did; telling Jacqueline how much he loved her, as Jacques Nadeau did hardly appear as defiant acts. Yet they were. For each time a soldier, sailor, airmen, priest or brother did so, he affirmed his independence from the German carceral, and his life back in Canada.
Merritt was right to honour the men who fought from the “landings in Sicily to the very end.” The vice formed by the Canadian, British and US Armies (and air forces and navies), and the Russian army in the field, crushed Nazi Germany. However, the officer who earned a VC at Dieppe was too hard on himself—and by extension the thousands of other POWs—when he said that his “war lasted six hours.” Whether or not they evaded for weeks or swapped over and escaped (only to be recaptured), the Kriegies remained men at war. For them, the derring-do of battle was replaced by perseverance. Like the character of Mankind in the 15th-century morality play The Castle of Perseverance, men like Ian MacDonald, Edward Carter-Edwards, Andrew Carswell, George Reid, Russ Burrows, Stuart Kettles, Stan Darch, John Grogan, Stan Dutka, Tommy Thompson and Jack Poolton; Fathers Goudreau, Charbonneau, Juneau, Paquet, Desroyers and Barsalou; and Brothers Georges-Aimée, Antoine Lavallée and Roland Counayer … defended themselves daily against despair brought on by insults, violations of their Geneva rights, debilitating hunger and, in the winter of 1944–45, the misery of the Hunger Marches. Their resoluteness in the face all that their Nazi overlords meted out, and their love for each other—and the Allied cause—should not be forgotten.
THE MEN
NAME RANK/SERVICE/RELIGIOUS ORDER DATE*
Alfred Burke Thompson RAF Pilot Officer 9 September 1939
Vernon Howland Captain (British) Fleet Air Arm 13 June 1940
Andrew Cox RAF Warrant Officer 1st Class 8 September 1940
Preston Ross Merchant Mariner/A.D. Huff 22 February 1941
George Shaker Merchant Mariner/A.D. Huff 22 February 1941
Dr. Charles Fisher Surgeon Lieutenant/RCN/RN 4 April 1941
Robert Barsalou, OMI Oblates of Mary Immaculate 17 April 1941
Raoul Bergeron, OMI Oblates of Mary Immaculate 17 April 1941
Gérard Boulanger, OMI Oblates of Mary Immaculate 17 April 1941
Herménégilde Charbonneau, OMI Oblates of Mary Immaculate 17 April 1941
Roland Cournoyer, OMI Oblates of Mary Immaculate 17 April 1941
Bernard Desnoyers, OMI Oblates of Mary Immaculate 17 April 1941
Philippe Goudreau, OMI Oblates of Mary Immaculate 17 April 1941
Paul Juneau, OMI Oblates of Mary Immaculate 17 April 1941
Louis Larivière, OMI Oblates of Mary Immaculate 17 April 1941
Gérard Pâquet, OMI Oblates of Mary Immaculate 17 April 1941
Léo Parent, OMI Oblates of Mary Immaculate 17 April 1941
Pierre-Paul Pellerin, OMI Oblates of Mary Immaculate 17 April 1941
Antoine Lavallée, SC Brothers of the Sacred Heart 17 April 1941
Georges-Aimé Lavallée, SC Brothers of the Sacred Heart 17 April 1941
Maurice Nadeau, SC Brothers of the Sacred Heart 17 April 1941
Brian Hodgkinson Pilot Officer/RCAF 27 October 1941
Kingsley Brown Pilot Officer/RCAF 3 July 1942
George A. Browne Artillery Officer/Canadian Army 19 August 1942
Russ Burrows Sapper/Canadian Army 19 August 1942
Stan Darch Private/Canadian Army 19 August 1942
Lucien Dumais Company Sergeant Major/Canadian Army 19 August 1942
John Grogan Private/Canadian Army 19 August 1942
Guy Joly Private/Canadian Army 19 August 1942
Conrad Lafleur Private/Canadian Army 19 August 1942
Antoine Masson Captain/Canadian Army 19 August 1942
Jacques Nadeau Private/Canadian Army 19 August 1942
Jack Poolton Private/Canadian Army 19 August 1942
A. Robert Prouse Private/Canadian Army 19 August 1942
John Runcie Captain/Canadian Army 19 August 1942
Robert Vanier Private/Canadian Army 19 August 1942
Vincent McAuley Acting Squadron Leader/RCAF 11 December 1942
Sydney P. Smith Pilot Officer/RCAF 12 December 1942
Andrew Carswell Pilot Officer/RAF 17 January 1943
Ian R. MacDonald Sergeant/RCAF 15 April 1943
Stewart Cowan Wing Commander/RCAF 29 July 1943
Robert Brooks Sergeant/RCAF 24 August 1943
Roy McLernon Squadron Leader/RCAF 24 August 1943
George Reid Corporal/Canadian Army 13 October 1943
Ken Woodhouse Pilot Officer/RCAF 19 March 1944
Harry Hurwitz Able Seaman/HMCS Athabaskan 29 April 1944
Stuart Kettles Leading Writer/HMCS Athabaskan 29 April 1944
Harry Liznick Able Seaman/HMCS Athabaskan 29 April 1944
Norman Reid Flight Officer/RCAF 8 May 1944
Stan Dutka Lance Sergeant/Canadian Army 7 June 1944
Edward Carter-Edwards Wireless Operator/RCAF 8 June 1944
John Harvie Flight Officer/RCAF 8 June 1944
C.B. Morris Sergeant/Canadian Army 8 June 1944
Kenneth Macalister Special Operations Executive 21 August 1944
Frank Pickersgill Special Operations Executive 21 August 1944
Romeo Sabourin Special Operations Executive 21 August 1944
James G. Young Squadron Leader/RCAF 25 August 1944
Edward Blenkinsop Squadron Leader/RCAF 28 October 1944
Robert Buckham Flight Lieutenant/RCAF 28 January 1945
* The date is the day when each of these men enter our story.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
One of the pleasures of being a military historian is getting to know such men as Ian R. MacDo
nald of Halifax, Nova Scotia; Norman Reid of Sidney, British Columbia; Stan Darch of Hamilton, Ontario; and Edward Carter-Edwards of Smithville, Ontario.
For his friendship and the hundreds of hours of telephone interviews over a number of years and for arranging with his brother to lend me the family’s collection of his and their wartime letters, I owe Ian a debt that the telling of his story of evasion, betrayal and imprisonment by the Gestapo and survival of the Hunger March can only partially repay. Norman’s story of his escape from Yugoslavia is only part of what I owe him; his engineer’s precision cleared up many technical mysteries for me. Telling of the horrors of Dieppe, of the humiliation of free men being shackled, of the deprivation of the POW camps and the misery of the Hunger March caused Stan to choke up, a testament to both the pain that had survived across seven decades and to his comrades. Ed, whose story runs from being shot down to evasion to a Gestapo prison in Paris and, along with 26 other Canadians, to Buchenwald, where, while he was there, three Canadian SOE (Special Operations Executive) agents were among 16 executed, took courage and fortitude to tell a stranger over the phone. For this I thank the man with the gentle voice who, when he visits schools to tell students about what he saw and suffered through in Konzentrationslager Buchenwald, carries with him a rail spike that once held the track that took him and hundreds of thousands more into the camp nestled in the gentle hills of Thuringia.
I must also thank Ron Beal, a medical corpsman who, like his fellow Torontonian, Leo Panatelo, was captured along with 1,900 other Canadians at Dieppe. Harry Hurwitz of Montreal shared with me his unique story of being the only Jewish member of the Royal Canadian Navy to be captured. For sharing with me the story of his father, Surgeon Lieutenant Charles Fisher of Waterloo, Ontario, I thank Dr. Hugh Fisher (Albany, New York).
Father André Dubois, director of the Archives Deschâtelets at Saint Paul University in Ottawa, did more than simply provide me with access to the hundreds of letters and memoirs written by the Oblates and Sacred Heart Brothers captured in April 1941. The dozens of questions he answered with good humour about the priests and brothers—many of whom he knew—made it seem, as I read the words they wrote on flimsy paper and postcards, that I was conversing with these brave and honourable men. Père André m’a donné une entrée dans une vision du monde depuis longtemps oublié, celui qui enrichit notre compréhension du temps derrière les barbelés.
Both my dean at Algonquin College in Ottawa, Russell Mills, and my chair, Robyn Heaten, support my writing endeavours outside the college, and for this, and their friendship over many years, I thank them.
Few writers could wish for more help from his colleagues than I have received from my fellow military historians over the years. Jonathan Vance, whose writing on prisoners of war is a model of scholarship, has helped me clarify my ideas. Dr. Tim Cook of the Canadian War Museum is both a friend and inspiration. Dr. Jeff Noakes, also at the Canadian War Museum, pointed me in the right direction at the beginning of this project. Jane Nesbitt, director of the museum’s research library, and Carol Reid and Maggie Arbour-Doucette have, as always, been extremely helpful.
I owe special thanks to two historians. The first is Dr. Bill Rawling, who guided me through understanding Dieppe and who I am collaborating with on an edition of the Oblates’ letters. The second is Dr. W.A.B. Douglas, whose wealth of knowledge about the Canadian military is an inspiration and who, despite all that he had contributed to our military history over decades, was like a kid in a candy shop when I told him about discovering the Oblates’ and Sacred Heart Brothers’ story.
Historians overseas have also helped me immeasurably. Sandra Sigmund, the director of the Buchenwald archives, graciously came in on her day off and opened the archives to me. The day my wife and I spent touring the P.O.W. Camps Museum, Stalag Luft III in Źagan (formerly Sagan), Poland, with its director, Marek Łazarz, was as perfect a day as an historian can imagine. As well, let me thank the various members of the SOE Yahoo! discussion group and especially Steven Kippax.
Father Kupka, OMI, an octogenarian Oblate priest in Poznan, Poland, who knew the two Oblates that Father Charbonneau met with secretly, was not only a gracious host and riveting raconteur, he also explained how the occupation of his part of Poland worked and the terrible costs the Polish people and the Oblates paid. Dobry ojciec, bardzo dzi kuj.
David Johnston, my agent, allowed me to get on with the work of research and writing.
Jim Gifford, my editor, embraced this project from the beginning, wielded Track Changes like a scalpel, and joined me in the joy of uncovering these forgotten stories. Allegra Robinson, Judy Phillips, Tilman Lewis and the HarperCollins production team did the yeoman’s work, making this difficult book attractive and easily readable.
Finally, as always, I must thank my children, Pascale and Nicolas, as well as Tyson Lowrie, who together transcribed the Oblates’ letters and know the pleasures of putting words together to make meaning.
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