Our Canada Our Country Our Stories
Page 11
—by Marion Fraser, Toronto, Ontario
Dodging Death
Luckily, rumours of her grandfather’s death were greatly exaggerated!
While serving in France during the First World War, my grand-father Harry Thompson MacKenzie was reported to be killed in action. Luckily, his death was reported in error. I was a year old when he actually passed away in May 1952, but his wife Dot, my grandmother, kept his memory vividly alive. Photographs and stories were abundant.
Harry was away at war from 1915 to 1918, so my grandparents’ romance took place via letters. Dot moved from Nova Scotia to Saskatchewan in 1917 to teach and didn’t return until a month before their wedding in 1921. Harry was 19 years old when he enlisted in the army in February 1915. He was with the 6th Canadian Mounted Rifles when he arrived in France that November and was soon promoted to sergeant major, serving there until August 9, 1918—the date he was wounded, and the date he supposedly had been killed.
The family, having been notified of Harry’s death, mourned for three weeks until they received a letter from Harry dated after his supposed death. The official letter from the Minister of Militia and Defence in Ottawa, rectifying the error, was dated September 27, 1918, seven weeks after he was wounded; who knows when the letter would have reached Nova Scotia.
Regarding his incorrectly reported death, my grandfather wrote, “For three weeks my relatives believed me dead, memorial services were held for me, flags were lowered, and it was not until they received a letter from me, dated three days after my supposed death, that they began to check up with authorities to find out if I really was still alive. The news that I was only wounded and not dead was soon substantiated in official circles and the period of mourning for my death ended abruptly.”
The mix-up was due to an error in the translation of the coded cable. The cable stated that he had been admitted to a hospital in Abbeville, France, with gunshot wounds to the knee—not that he’d been killed. An entry Harry made in his diary on August 19, 1918, reads: “Doc tells me that I came within an eighth of an inch of losing my leg.”
A few years afterwards, my grandfather was reunited with fellow veteran Harry Guy Ruffee, who had grown up with my grandfather in Bridgetown, Nova Scotia. He had also been incorrectly reported as killed! “Mourned As Dead, Vets Meet Again,” read the newspaper headline, and beneath that, “Nominated Today for the Mark Twain Death Greatly Exaggerated Society.” My grandfather relished the commonality with Twain and bragged that he was a member of the Mark Twain Society.
After World War I, Harry was in the Canadian Armed Forces Reserves. In 1942, while living in Toronto, he joined the army again at the age of 47. He was more than pleased when assigned the position of district salvage and disposal officer for military district No. 6 in Nova Scotia. He was promoted to captain and served in the Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps, with headquarters in Halifax and Debert, Nova Scotia.
Several years later, while visiting Montreal, Harry died suddenly of a heart attack. My mother was pregnant with my brother, who was born five days after my grandfather’s death. Mom and Dad named him Harry Thompson MacKenzie.
My grandfather rests at Riverside Cemetery in Bridgetown. The military headstone, discoloured with time, is a slab of rough-edged stone, nestled flat on the ground. The raised lettering on the smooth surface proudly displays an etched cross, below which reads: Harry T. MacKenzie, Captain, RCOC, 22 May 1952—age 57.
—by Catherine MacKenzie, Fall River, Nova Scotia
Noble Steeds
Canada sent tens of thousands of horses into battle, but only a select few returned
When I was a boy, my father always told me fascinating stories about events in history and, as a result, I developed a lifelong interest in the subject. In 2014, I happened upon a story that really caught my attention.
I was doing public relations for the Royal Canadian Air Force Association’s #427 London Wing in London, Ontario, when I first heard about the Sir Arthur Currie Memorial Project, a cornerstone of which is a life-size sculpture of the World War I general, created by Canadian artist Adrienne Alison. I contacted an organizing committee member, John Sargeant of London, Ontario, for more details. In our conversation, John mentioned that Sir Arthur Currie’s warhorse, named Brock, was buried on Currie’s brother’s farm just outside of Strathroy, Ontario. He had also heard of another warhorse buried in eastern Canada, but he couldn’t recall the location or the horse’s name.
That chat with John prompted a childhood memory. As a young boy, I would join my father, Don Martin Sr., on drives out to the Knowlton, Quebec, area to visit my grandmother. On the way, we would pass by Lt.-Col. George Harold Baker’s summer residence at Baker Pond near Knowlton, and I recalled my father saying that Col. Baker’s warhorse was buried there. After some research, I was pleased to discover that my father was correct—Col. Baker’s horse, Morning Glory, was indeed buried there.
Colonel Baker, the only member of Parliament to serve overseas during the First World War, sent Morning Glory to France in 1915. They were separated for most of the war, with Morning Glory serving as a mount for a battalion commander. Colonel Baker visited his horse for the last time a month before being killed in 1916 during the Battle of Ypres. In 1918, his friend Brig.-Gen. Dennis Draper brought Morning Glory home to the Draper farm in Sutton Junction, Quebec, where the horse lived until 1936, passing away at age 26.
Few warhorses were as lucky as Morning Glory. Canada shipped more than 130,000 horses overseas to fight with Canadian, French and British forces on the front lines, along with mules and donkeys. At least a quarter of these heroic horses died every year in battle; more succumbed to disease and starvation. There is a bond that develops between a soldier and his horse, and so I find it unfortunate that it was only officers who had the privilege of having their horses shipped home. The other surviving warhorses were either slaughtered for meat or sold to farmers as workhorses.
I was also amazed to find out that these two horses, Brock and Morning Glory, were among the very few—only about 60 in total—who returned home to Canada after the Great War. It has been said by people wiser than me that we would never have won the Great War without horses—they kept everything moving. I believe this to be true.
—by Don Martin Jr., Melbourne, Ontario
Camp X
A remote facility on the shores of Lake Ontario was home to Canada’s top-secret spy school
A top-secret Second World War spy training school was unofficially known as “Camp X.” It was established December 6, 1941, in Whitby, Ontario, through a cooperative effort between the British Security Coordination (BSC) and the Canadian government. The BSC’s chief, Sir William Stephenson, was a Canadian from Winnipeg and a close confidant of the British prime minister, Sir Winston Churchill, who had instructed him to create “the clenched fist that would provide the knockout blow” to the Axis powers. One of Stephenson’s successes was Camp X.
The camp was designed for the sole purpose of linking Britain and the United States. Until the direct attack on Pearl Harbor, which took place on December 7, 1941, the United States was forbidden by Congress to get involved with the war. How timely that Camp X should open the day before that attack by the Japanese.
The camp’s location was chosen with a great deal of thought: a remote site on the shores of Lake Ontario, yet only 30 miles straight across the lake from the United States. It was ideal for bouncing radio signals from Europe and South America, and of course, between London and the BSC headquarters in New York.
The choice of site also placed the camp only five miles from Defence Industries Ltd. (DIL), currently the town of Ajax. At that time, DIL was the largest armaments manufacturing facility in the Commonwealth. Other points of strategic significance in the camp’s locale include the situation of the German prisoner of war camp in Bowmanville, and the position of the mainline Canadian National Railway, which went through the top part of Camp X.
The commanding officers of the camp soon realized t
he impact and importance of Camp X. Requests for more agents and different training programs were coming in daily from London and New York. Not only were they faced with training agents who were going to go behind enemy lines on specialized missions but now they had been requested to train agents’ instructors as well. These would be recruited primarily from the United States for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Soon there were trainers training trainers for new camps that would be set up in the United States.
To ease the demand for experienced trainers, a very successful program of weekend courses for OSS executives was established. The psychological aspect of the training was most critical. Equally as crucial as the agent’s training in silent killing and unarmed combat was the development of his ability to quickly and accurately assess the suitability of a potential “partisan.” He had to be able to recognize a would-be recruit by being alert at all times and in any situation. He was trained to listen for a comment about the government, the Nazis or how the war was progressing, and to subsequently engage the individual in conversation, perhaps offer him a drink or buy him a meal. In this manner, he could further identify the individual’s philosophy and thoughts about the war.
Paramount among the objectives set for the operation, including the training of Allied agents for the entire catalogue of espionage activities (sabotage, subversion, deception, intelligence and other special means), was the necessity to establish a major communications link between North and South America and European operations of the Special Operations Executive (SOE). Code-named Hydra, the resulting shortwave radio and telecommunications centre was the most powerful of its type. Largely created by a few gifted Canadian radio amateurs, Hydra played a magnificent role in the tactical and strategic Allied radio networks.
When you step back and look at the 1940 big picture, you can see exactly why Canada was so important to the SOE as a base for their agents. If the agents were to be recruited in Canada, why not train them there? Soon the BSC had large populations of French Canadians, Yugoslavs, Italians, Hungarians, Romanians, Chinese and Japanese at their disposal and in a concentrated geographical area. It was easier to send a few instructors over to Canada than it was to send 500 or 600 potential agents to Britain, only to find that they were not secret agent material.
The agents who trained at Camp X would have no idea as to their future mission behind enemy lines, nor, for that matter, would the instructors or the camp commandant. Camp X’s sole purpose was to develop and train agents in every aspect of silent killing, sabotage, partisan work, recruitment methods for the resistance movement, demolition, map reading, weaponry and Morse code.
It was not until the agent completed the ten-week course that the instructors and commanding officers would assess each individual for his particular expertise and subsequently advise the SOE in London of their recommendations. For example, one agent might excel in the demolition field, while another might be better at wireless telegraph work. Upon their arrival in Britain, the agents would be reassessed and would be assigned to a finishing school where their expertise would be further refined. Once this task was completed, another branch of the SOE would take over and develop a mission best suited for each individual agent.
There were many inexplicable events that occurred at Camp X, including some strange and disturbing deaths. One involved 29-year-old political warfare instructor Kenneth Wilson, who was sent to Toronto and told to register at The Royal York Hotel, where on the morning of June 18, 1942, a staff car from Camp X would drive him to a secret location. This same staff car would return him to the hotel at the end of the day. He spent long hours at the camp training agents, and that evening, he returned to the hotel. After dinner, he retired to his room and, exhausted, was soon asleep.
Early the next morning, he telephoned the assistant manager and asked if there was a doctor in the hotel. He was told that there was no doctor present, but one could be sent for very quickly. He then said not to bother because he thought he was feeling a little better. At about 9:30 a.m., he again telephoned and asked for a doctor, who was immediately requested. The doctor stayed with him for about an hour. By this time, he appeared to have recovered completely, so the doctor left. Meanwhile, an assistant had gone down to the hotel to stay with Wilson, and at about 11:15 a.m. he suddenly became much worse. Medical assistance was called immediately, but before the doctors could arrive, Wilson died. At age 29, the brilliant BSC executive had died from sudden heart failure, leaving behind a wife and an 18-month-old daughter. Was he poisoned? Was he murdered by German Abwehr agents operating in Toronto?
Another incident involved one of the most talented silent killers in the world, the great William Fairbairn. Fairbairn was 59 when he was sent to Camp X to train men 30 years his junior. One night, after he retired early, a fire broke out in the mess, just down the hall from the room where Fairbairn was staying. Guards were quickly at his window, where flames were now climbing the wall. Two of the guards managed to pull Fairbairn through the window. Within five minutes, the entire building was razed to the ground. Could this possibly have been a coincidence, the fire happening on the same night he was staying there? Or was there a more cynical explanation?
The strange occurrences continued. Another odd death involved 25-year-old Howard Benjamin Burgess. He was excited about his new position as chief instructor in Canada when he arrived in late May 1942. On June 3, the young, healthy Burgess suddenly dropped to the ground, unconscious, while on camp property. Everyone was in shock. The camp doctor was immediately summoned. Doctor Millman quickly placed the now-bleeding Burgess into the back of his car and raced him to hospital. A guard was posted outside of Burgess’s room and told that no one was to enter the room other than Dr. Millman and the head nurse, who had now been sworn to secrecy under the Official Secrets Act. Three days later, Burgess succumbed to the mysterious illness. The official cause of death was a cerebral hemorrhage.
Years later, while writing my book Inside Camp X, I decided to investigate this strange death of someone who appeared to be in excellent health. Exhaustive research found some very disturbing facts. The official records on file at Camp X did not agree with the official cause of death. The death certificate and burial permit showed the cause of death as acute glomerulonephritis—a severe kidney disease. I took a copy of the death certificate to a doctor who advised that a person succumbing to such a disease would have been very sick, weak and emaciated—hardly the strong, healthy man that was Howard Burgess. I was also able to track down the then-retired head nurse, who confided that the injury was caused by a gunshot wound to the right temple.
There were other mysterious deaths at Camp X as well—proving that fact really can be stranger than fiction.
—by Lynn Philip Hodgson, Port Perry, Ontario
Legendary Flying Goose
The Grumman G-21 Goose aircraft has been part of Canadian history for more than 70 years
In 1936, the Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation in the United States was commissioned to design and build a roomy, luxurious, amphibious flying boat to transport wealthy businessmen in the Long Island, New York, area. They required a twin-engine, eight-seat plane with a customized interior and retractable landing gear that could operate in the air and on water. Having experience building planes and parts for the United States Navy, Leroy Grumman used this technology to design the Grumman G-21A. The first “Goose” came off the assembly line in 1937.
The aircraft was soon adopted by the United States Coast Guard and, during World War II, a total of 31 aircraft also served with the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF). The RCAF used the Goose for transport, reconnaissance, rescue and training operations. Britain’s Royal Air Force also used the G-21 for air-sea rescue duties. In keeping with their tradition of naming aircrafts, it was the RAF who originally bestowed the name “Goose” on this plane. Postwar, the Grumman Goose was in demand by commercial operators worldwide and was used by nine civil operators, including
Canada.
I have had the privilege of flying in a Goose a number of times as a passenger with Pacific Coastal Airlines. Every time is a new adventure, beginning with climbing aboard the aircraft and experiencing the sounds and vibrations of the big 450-horsepower engines to watching the pilot manoeuvre levers on both the ceiling and floor of the cockpit. But my biggest thrill was landing on the ocean amid choppy seas and windy downdrafts. The Goose seemed to barely clear the treetops on its approach to the bay, crosswinds forcing it to bounce up and down, which left my stomach in my chest. As the belly of the plane touched the surface of the bay, the spray of water covered my window for a few seconds, obscuring my view. The aircraft slowed down instantly then tipped to one side, dipping one wing tip into the water as we approached the dock. Suddenly, I noticed flames coming out of one of the engines. The pilot assured me there was nothing to worry about, that it was actually quite common! What a ride—it certainly got my adrenaline pumping.
I can almost imagine what it must have been like to be in the cockpit during World War II when there were 14 Grumman Goose aircraft patrolling British Columbia’s west coast between 1940 and 1956. Fellow G-21 aficionado Juergen Puetter owns one of the last planes built and is on the fly with his Grumman Goose, exploring some of the last true remaining frontiers of North America. His Goose affords him the opportunity to land in secluded bays, lakes and lagoons along British Columbia’s rugged coast. This enables him to launch a small watercraft to go ashore and explore remote, white sandy beaches, hike old trails, view grizzlies in the wild or discover the ultimate fishing hole.