The Forgotten

by Nathan M. Greenfield

  Mackenzie King’s reaction to Hitler is perhaps even more surprising given that (though neither Hitler nor Schmidt seemed to be aware of it) the prime minister spoke fluent German; he owed his first electoral victory to the fact that he could speak the language of the farmers around his home town of Berlin (Kitchener), Ontario. Available at www.collectionscanada.ca.

  65. Schmidt, 250.

  66. Mellor, 98, 99.

  67. Since immigration from France was cut off after the British defeated the French at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759, Dumais’s Quebec dialect did not develop the way the dialect of the French of Île-de-France (Paris) did. Dumais’s accent and many of the words he would have used bore similarities to the regional French of Upper Normandy. In addition, French farmers in the provinces tended to hold the governments in Paris or Vichy with equal disdain.

  68. Dumais, 70.

  69. Ibid., 76.

  70. Ibid., 77, 78.

  71. Quoted in and Dumais, 79.

  72. Quoted in Ousby, 161.

  73. Ninetta Jucker, quoted in Glass, 218.

  74. Quoted in Todorov, 66.

  75. Quoted in Roland, 13.

  76. Mellor, 102.

  77. Poolton, 55.

  78. Apologia Pro Vita Sua is Cardinal John Henry Newman’s autobiography, which charts his spiritual journey from Anglicanism to Catholicism.

  79. Larivière’s use of “conscript” is incorrect and likely stems from the fact that French Canadians had traditionally opposed conscription (as they did in the 1917 Conscription Crisis and again in the Conscription Referendum in April 1942) as well as service in the armed forces. There is no indication that Larivière knew of the Conscription Referendum.

  80. Quoted in Dumais, 88.

  81. Quoted in and Dumais, 87, 87–88.

  82. Quoted in Grogan, 23.

  83. Quoted in Mellor, 112.

  84. Quoted in Grogan, 27. The next morning, Canadian officers at Oflag VII-B, in Eichstätt, were shackled, as they were the following day and the one after that. Subsequently, each day, guards choose 20 officers to shackle. As Jonathan Vance explains in “Men in Manacles,” as soon as the British started arranging with Canada for a retaliatory shackling of German POWs in the Dominion, the Germans upped the ante by shackling an additional 4,128 prisoners, a third of whom were Canadian.

  85. Dumais, 92, 93.

  86. Ibid., 95.

  87. Prouse, 31.

  88. The debate about retaliatory shacklings also involved the government of Australia, which was alarmed, lest its own POWs be shackled. Such luminaries as the 87-year-old George Bernard Shaw and famed classicist Dr. Gilbert Murray, both of whose works were sent by the Red Cross and other organizations to the men in the camps, also opposed Churchill’s request that Canada increase the number of Germans being shackled.

  89. Poolton, 60, 61.

  90. Quoted in S.P. Smith, 119.

  91. S.P. Smith, 132.

  92. Quoted in ibid., 147.

  93. Prouse, 41.

  94. S.P. Smith, 147.

  95. Poolton, 61.

  96. Quoted in E. Nadeau, 236.

  97. Ibid.

  98. E. Nadeau, 236.

  99. None of the Kriegies knew that as their stomachs growled and they lived from Red Cross parcel to Red Cross parcel, German POWs in Canada were fed so well that some Canadians complained that the prisoners ate better than they did.

  100. Over the course of the war, more than 40 million Red Cross parcels were sent to Europe, 16.5 million from Canada. Since the parcels were sent to a central distribution point, the men could receive either an American, a Canadian or a British parcel. Although Geneva and the Red Cross intended for each man to receive one parcel per week, or 2,070 calories per day, very few POWs received parcels this often. Unlike American and British parcels, Canadian ones did not contain cigarettes; these were sent by families and various patriotic funds. Les religieux received cigarettes from such diverse groups as the Order of the Daughters of the Empire and the Ontario Chinese Patriotic Fund.

  101. Carswell, 12.

  102. This same mixture of pride and concern was felt by the families of the thousands of women who served in war zones with the Canadian Women’s Army Corps (CWACs), the Women’s Royal Canadian Naval Service (WRENS) and the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) Women’s Division.

  103. Carswell, 39, 41, 43–46.

  104. Recent work by neuroscientists using MRI to study the brain while reading shows that Darch and other POWs were not being hyperbolic when they said that reading transported them back home. Reading always involves two parts of the brain: the language centre and, depending on what is being read, another part of the brain. Reading the word “kick,” for example, activates the part of the brain associated with the leg muscles in conjunction with the language centre. This means, says Professor Raymond Mar of York University, that “in a very real sense, especially given the extreme situation they were in, when prisoners read letters from home they were transported into a familiar zone created by their minds that was in an emotional sense tied to being ‘home.’” Personal interview with the author and email, 13 April 2013.

  105. Carswell, 58.

  106. Quoted in ibid., 67. Other POWs report similar outbursts, as did Errol Flynn and David Niven recalling a particularly upset director named Michael Curtiz; see TCM.com, “Michael Curtiz,” http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/42547%7C111394/Michael-Curtiz/notes.html.

  107. Prouse, 44.

  108. Quoted in Dancocks, 107.

  109. Interestingly, rather than name homosexuality as an offence, the regulations governing the RCAF, RCN and Canadian Army spoke of “bringing scandal on the service” or “any other disgraceful conduct of a cruel, indecent or unnatural kind.” However, according to Paul Jackson, the notes to the Manual of Military Law “made it clear that the legislation was intended to prosecute” homosexuals. P. Jackson, 81.

  110. Determining the rate of either homosexual longing or activity is at this late stage impossible. One Australian pilot at Stalag Luft III estimated the occurrence at 0.33 per cent. Many who wrote about it—Geoffrey Broom, a merchant mariner at Milag Nord, wrote that by end of 1944, a “hell of a lot of men seem to be affected here … some of them were quite obvious…. and quite out of control”—were outraged at the idea. Roger Coward, who was at an Arbeitskommando connected to Stalag Luft VIII, claims that Senior British Officers and padres “did everything possible to keep youngsters from the older perverts” and that the POWs themselves asked the Germans to break up couples.

  The fact that other men, including les religieux, did not refer to homosexuality does not testify to its absence, for most men did not mention it in their postwar interviews, memoirs or even in interviews undertaken more recently by the Imperial War Museums. Others, like A.D. St. Clair, a British soldier captured at Tobruk who moved to Canada after the war, notes that although the Kriegies were for the most part at the age which under normal circumstances would have seen “the height of our sexual energies,” food was usually much more important. Whether he is correct about sexuality in civilian prisons is less important than the cautionary note: “Do not make the mistake of comparing a POW camp with a modern maximum-security prison where, I understand, homosexual rape by ‘boss’ prisoners of young newcomers is quite common. We … were all under military discipline.” Brown and Coward quoted in Mackenzie, 213; St. Clair, 255. These angry denunciations are, however, exceptions to the general silence about homosexual activity in the camps. This silence itself is, perhaps, a better indicator of a general tolerance that also went all but uncommented upon in memoirs.

  111. Presumably the medical corpsmen to whom Fisher refers were able to engage in homosexual acts more easily because they had access to more private locations. As Eric Newby, a British soldier in an Italian POW camp, wrote of masturbation, or, as it was derisively known at the time, “self-abuse,” it was difficult to “perform the operation while lying cheek by jowl with 26 other people in a room illum
inated by searchlights, [it] required a degree of stealth which had deserted most of us since leaving school,” referring, of course, to British boarding schools. Quoted in Gilbert, 119.

  112. Prouse, 113. Toward the end of his study of homosexuality in the military during the Second World War, Paul Jackson notes that the phenomenon of “male marriages” that Pierre Berton wrote about in his memoir Starting Out also occurred in POW camps, where men became emotionally dependent on each other for years. These “marriages,” which were recognized by camp argot, were seen by some as violating the notion that men should be strong and independent, and as interfering “with the looser relationships that were transferable from comrade to comrade.” Nevertheless, they were prevalent enough to develop a nomenclature. Further, the close emotional attachments, Jackson concludes, were not always sexual (nor, of course, were assignations necessarily emotional). P. Jackson, 263–64.

  113. Quoted in Dancocks, 107.

  114. Carswell, 77.

  115. Quoted in Brown, 68, 67.

  116. Carswell, 84, 88.

  117. Brown, 69.

  118. Harry Jay in Britain at War, 41 (September 2010): 65.

  119. The line from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (Act 2, Scene 2) is Caesar’s: “Cowards die many times before their deaths; / The valiant never taste of death but once.” If anything, the escaper is an avatar of the valiance. Later, Prouse appears to misremember Falstaff’s famous line (Henry VI, Part 1: Act 5, Scene 4) “The better part of valour is discretion,” which is more popularly remembered as “Discretion is the better part of valour.” No one can remotely consider Prouse and his companions as acting cowardly.

  120. Prouse, 60, 61.

  121. Grogan, 38, 39, 40.

  122. Prouse, 67.

  123. Grogan, 41, 42, 49.

  124. Carswell, 113, 115.

  125. Quoted in Glass, 311.

  126. Grogan, 46, 53.

  127. Earlier that day, Vincent McAuley and his escape partners landed in Barcelona, in neutral Spain. To travel from Vatican City to Ciampino airport—that is, through Rome, an enemy capital—they were likely taken in cars registered to the Holy See onto the tarmac. Once aboard the Spanish plane, they were technically on Spanish soil.

  Also on a home run were nine Canadian officers who, along with 47 others, had climbed out of a tunnel that ended in a chicken coop a short distance from Oflag VII-B, in Eichstätt, Germany. Most of the escapers, including Lieutenant Colonel Cecil Merritt, who commanded the South Saskatchewan Regiment and earned a Victoria Cross at Dieppe, headed southeast toward Switzerland, 150 miles away. All nine were recaptured but, as historian Jonathan Vance notes, “unchastened by the experience; a few weeks later, two of the Canadians escaped from their punishment cell by cutting the window bars and lowering themselves on stolen ropes to the ground below” (Objects of Concern, 158–59). For their troubles, the Canadians were sent to the forbidding POW camp in Colditz Castle.

  128. Prouse, 77.

  129. Brown, 142. One can only imagine what Kipp and his partner would have said had they known that German POWs being held in Canada had access to the Eaton’s catalogue and were able to send such items as stockings and underwear back to Germany in parcels paid for by the Canadian government.

  130. Brown, 143.

  131. Later in the year, inflation almost ruined Brian Hodgkinson’s distillery business. When he started it, a box of prunes cost 7 cigarettes and one of raisins 20. After two other combines joined the moonshine-making business, demand for “raw materials” doubled their prices. One of his competitors dismissed the Canadian’s complaint blithely: “The market is simply responding to demand.” Quoted in Hodgkinson, 161.

  132. Brown, 144.

  133. G. Smith, 27.

  134. Ibid., 59.

  135. According to Church historian Professor Michael Attridge at St. Michael’s College at the University of Toronto, “Father Juneau’s actions would have certainly shocked most present and would have symbolized important theological and pastoral considerations. Theologically, in this period, the Church was understood to be represented in its hierarchy, especially in its priesthood. Having the priest face the congregants in this most solemn encounter between Church and people—indeed, for many, between God and people—would have shown them that the Church is with them in these horrific times. Instead of feeling isolated and detached from the Church, people would have felt themselves to be a part of a single community.” Personal interview with the author and email, 20 November 2012.

  136. Søren C. Flensted, “Halifax V DK261 crashed near the island of Mandø on 24/8 1943,” Airwar over Denmark, www.flensted.eu.com/19430084.shtml.

  137. G. Smith, 70, 69, 70.

  138. Quoted in Vance, Gallant Company, 164.

  139. Quoted in G. Smith, 84.

  140. Plenderleith and Welters, who were captured almost immediately, were already at Stalag IV-B. Unlike most pilots who escaped after being shot down over Europe, McLernon went on to fly over Occupied Europe again, completing 31 missions, earning a Distinguished Flying Cross and promotion to wing commander of RCAF’s 408 “Goose” Squadron.

  141. Prouse, 86, 89.

  142. G. Smith, 105, 108, 109, 111.

  143. Because of the shackling of the Dieppe POWs, there were no repatriations in 1942 and most of 1943. Two groups, one of 42, the other of 48, were repatriated in 1944. In early 1945, 81 prisoners (not including, as will be seen below, les religieux) were repatriated.

  144. Reid, 30, 33, 35, 36.

  145. G. Smith, 115, 135, 140, 154.

  146. Ibid., 167, 172, 182, 184.

  147. In And No Birds Sang, Mowat writes admiringly of Giovanni’s skills and honour: “If he could not find one of our people to rescue, he would bring a captured German instead…. He asked nothing from us and would accept nothing except food, most of which I suspected he gave away to needy peasants behind the German lines” (188–89).

  148. Reid, 45.

  149. Quoted in Dumais, 116.

  150. Quoted in E. Nadeau, 186.

  151. Quoted in Greenhous et al., 737.

  152. Dumais, 126.

  153. Aided by two members of the Resistance he’d turned, Pierre Napoleon Poinsot, the commissioner of the Paris police, spent 1942 patiently putting together a file of what to do to break les femmes dans la Résistance. In early 1943, 180 (including, it seems likely, the women in the Pat Line who had helped Dumais 15 months earlier) were arrested. Beatings did not elicit the desired information, nor did months of imprisonment or malnutrition that caused their stomachs to balloon. In 1943, the women were transferred to Auschwitz, where a number died almost immediately in a forced race through the January snows. Others died as a result of forced labour in draining marshes. By mid-April, only 80 of these brave women were left alive.

  154. Dumais, 129, 132, 133.

  155. Quoted in and Brown, 157, 159, 158. “Joe Ricks” was a Czech officer named Josef Bryks, who served in the British Army.

  156. Reid, 49, 48.

  157. Quoted in and Brown, 162, 163, 164.

  158. Quoted in and Dumais, 144, 145.

  159. Brown, 172.

  160. Ibid., 173.

  161. Parole tools included saws, hammers and other building equipment that would be given to the POWs on their “word of honour” (parole) that they would not be used in escape attempts.

  162. Dumais, 147, 149.

  163. Ibid., 156.

  164. Barsalou did not know that, since May 1942, when the first U-boats entered the St. Lawrence River, a “dim-out” regimen (which everyone called a “blackout”) had been in place for Canada’s east coast, including Quebec’s North Shore and Gaspé coast.

  165. Dumais, 159, 160.

  166. Quoted in Mellor, 137–8.

  167. Dumais, 165.

  168. Quoted in Lavender and Sheffe, 98, 99, 101.

  169. Ibid., 107.

  170. Ibid., 109. Unless Dumais sent two reports, there is some confusion about when this report was sent to MI9.
Dumais recalls sending it with Bonaparte I, while Woodhouse recalls it being sent with him on what was Bonaparte III or IV, though the details about having to sink it rather than letting it fall into German hands are the same. Unfortunately, a search of the British National Archives at Kew has produced only the file folder in which the report should have been; the folder does not indicate the date the missing report was written.

  171. From a Canadian point of view, the film’s greatest offence is not Steve McQueen’s famed motorcycle ride but the total absence of Canadians. Wally Floody, who served as a consultant on the film, is transmuted into American Danny Velinski, played by Charles Bronson.

  172. Quoted in Vance, Gallant Company, 231.

  173. Bullet Decree and keeping numbers. De Bello, “The Bullet Decree,” http://ww2.debello.ca/library/440304.html.

  174. Quoted in Vance, Gallant Company, 195.

  175. Ibid., 246.

  176. Ibid., 247.

  177. Quoted in Vance, Objects of Concern, 157.

  178. Quoted in Vance, Gallant Company, 261.

  179. Ibid., 255, 264, 265.

  180. Ibid., 286.

  181. From 1793 until 1919, Posen, as the city is known to Germans, was part of Germany. Despite the Treaty of Versailles, which granted the region called Greater Poland to the newly reformed Polish state, many Germans never stopped considering Posen as part of Germany. After defeating Poland in September 1939, Hitler incorporated Pozna1Ĕ, as it is known to Poles, into the Reich. Companies such as Telefunken and Focke-Wulf, whose famous Condor dive bomber terrorized Spain and Warsaw, rushed to take advantage of the well-educated—and largely German-speaking—workforce. In November 1942, Heinrich Himmler told a select crowd of SS officials gathered in Posen about the “Extermination of the Jewish People” and crowed about working 10,000 Russian women to death if it meant one more anti-tank trap.