Commander Ericson (Jack Hawkins) makes life and death decision in “The Cruel Sea.”
Commander George Ericson is crouched on the bridge of his corvette warship. He’s peering through a sighting device, lining up his counterattack against an enemy he can’t see, a submerged U-boat in the Atlantic waters directly ahead of him.
“What’s it look like now, Number One?” Ericson calls to his first officer, who is on a sonar device.
“It’s the firmest contact we’ve ever had,” the sonar operator shouts back from below deck.
There’s sudden consternation on Cmdr Ericson’s face. Merchant sailors whose ship has just been torpedoed are thrashing about in the water. They’re shouting for help. “There’s men in the water just about there,” Ericson says.
Veteran John Watson shares a lighter moment before my book talk in Swift Current, July 19, 2023.
I was told he was coming. John Watson arrived a few minutes before I began a presentation about a major Second World War story, last Wednesday night in Swift Current, Sask. Watson is a tall man. He wore a red jacket, a scarf, and had a twinkle in his eye as we shook hands.
“Thank you for coming, Mr. Watson,” I said. “I understand you’re a veteran, that you served overseas in the last war with the Regina Rifles.”
“Yes, I did,” he said. “But don’t forget the ‘Royal’ part.”
“The Royal Regina Rifles,” I corrected myself, then added, “No doubt ‘Royal’ because of you.”
He laughed and said, “I was just a rifleman.” (more…)
Anita Anand, minister of national defence, addresses 204th Toronto Garrison Officers’ Ball on Feb. 11, 2023.
The evening was all about military pomp and circumstance. Hundreds of Canadian Armed Services personnel had gathered last Saturday night at the Beanfield Centre on the CNE grounds for Toronto’s premier social event in the military community. I actually landed a ticket and was seated at a table of Navy regulars and reservists. The 204th edition of the Garrison Officers’ Ball was well underway, when the Minister of National Defence arrived in time to address guests at the ball.
“I have important news to share with you,” Anita Anand said. “Today at 3:41 p.m. aircraft assigned to NORAD successfully took down (a) high-altitude airborne object. The object, flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet, had unlawfully entered Canadian air space and posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight.” (more…)
Ron Moyes (left end) crewed up with Hugh Ferguson, Don Walkey, Stu Farmer, Alvin Kuhl and Jake Redinger in 1944. They survived 29 combat operations in Bomber Command.
It happened kind of like choosing a partner at a high school dance, where the girls all lined up on one side of the dance floor and the boys on the other.
Only in this case, during the Second World War, the Commonwealth airmen gathered in a hangar in England – pilots in one group, navigators in another, gunners in another, etc. As RCAF gunner Ron Moyes told me the other night, bomber pilot Don Walkey first picked a navigator, Hugh Ferguson.
“Then, Fergy picked the rest of us,” said Moyes, just shy of his 97th birthday (Feb. 11). (more…)
Wellington bomber crew at RCAF No. 407 Squadron, Chivenor, England. Back (l-r) second pilot Sgt H.S. Butcher; WAG Sgt A. Dunn; navigator F/Sgt G.B. Dunlop; pilot P/O D.E. Rollins. Front (l-r) WAG F/Sgt J. Mills; WAG W/O T.C. Newbury. Photo courtesy Doug Rollins.
Pilot Don Rollins likely missed it on the first reading of his overseas certification as a bomber pilot in October 1942. It was three years into WWII, and the RCAF trainee from Estevan, Sask., had successfully completed his operational training to fly Wellington bombers in daytime and nighttime missions.
All the 22-year-old Canadian wanted, however, was to fly combat operations against the Germans. Still, at the bottom of the certification, his training officer had added a further endorsement:
He is a veteran. He is the grandson of a veteran. As important to me as anything, however, Klaus Keast, a total stranger, has found a connection that’s brought us together unexpectedly. He recently wrote me an email requesting an autographed copy of my 2019 book Rush to Danger, about military medics. But in addition, he asked if I could acknowledge the military service of his mentor.
“He (was) a Jewish medic, who not only served in WWII,” Keast wrote, “but he also had to fight to be involved in the war effort when initially refused by (anti-Semitic) recruiters.” (more…)
Everybody says it at one time or another. They grapple with a personal issue, a mechanical problem, an unsolved mystery and then they toss and turn instead of sleep all night long. Well, I said it to a writer friend I called on Tuesday morning.
“I didn’t sleep a wink last night,” I said to Phil Alves.
“What’s the problem?” he asked considerately.
“I’ve lost a big file.”
And he moaned a knowing moan, because he’s done it. You’ve done it. We’ve all done it. But in my case, I’d really done it. (more…)
John Birnie Dougall, a Canadian third mate aboard British merchant vessels. Jane Hutchison photo.
I never met John Birnie Dougall. But I came to know him this week, 79 years after his death. He spoke to me by way of his letters – letters he’d written as a Canadian merchant sailor keeping the supply of food, oil, munitions and hope flowing to Britain during the Second World War. As an example of his correspondence home, Dougall characterized the fate of Britain, in 1940, when it seemed Hitler’s U-boats would choke Britain’s shipping lanes to death:
“Even though England may be doomed,” he wrote in a letter to his mother Rachel, “each of us has fixed determination to do or die – a spirit that will not be beaten.” (more…)
WWII glider pilot, Martin Maxwell, attending Dutch Liberation observance, in 2015.
Early in May, almost 75 years ago, a Second World War glider pilot named Martin Maxwell tasted freedom for the first time in nearly eight months. On Sept. 17, 1944, during his second airborne operation, he had delivered British soldiers and equipment in a controlled crash landing near Arnhem, Holland, during Operation Market Garden, only to be wounded and captured days later. But on May 1, 1945, with the Germans surrendering all over Europe, Maxwell regained his freedom.
“A British tank came into our POW camp,” he said, “and we were liberated.”
This May of 2020, Martin Maxwell, a 96-year-old WWII veteran, will relive that moment, three-quarters of a century ago, as he re-joins me and our Merit Travel group for a 12-day tour marking the 75th anniversary of the Allies’ liberation of the Netherlands in 1944-45.
You can join us. Our tour plans include visiting the place where Maxwell was captured at the “Bridge Too Far” site in Arnhem. We’ll participate in the emotional “Silent March.” And we’ll tour the Scheldt estuary where 5,000 Canadians died clearing the way to the port of Antwerp and the final push against German Armies to liberate Europe.
Canadian vet Martin Maxwell receives adoring cheers and handshakes in VE Day parade at Apeldoorn, in 2015.
To this day, Martin Maxwell recalls every moment of liberation. Even with the war officially over after May 8, 1945, and now freed by advancing Allied armies, pilot Maxwell found ways to assist the oppressed people he encountered in former Nazi-occupied Europe. To speed their way home, he and a friend traded a navigation watch to a Russian officer for a jeep and six containers of fuel. They packed the jeep with biscuits and cheese and soon came upon Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
“In a small corner of the camp, called Kinder Heim (children’s home,) we found dozens of children dead and dying. A little girl ran up to my friend, threw her arms around his leg and called out, ‘Papa! Papa!’”
A woman in the home informed Maxwell that Hannah, this little girl, thought anyone in uniform was her father. Maxwell promised to return the next day with food and provisions for the children. He even traded four cigarettes for a doll he planned to give to little Hannah.
“The next day, we handed out the food and water,” Maxwell said. “And I searched for the little girl to receive this precious doll. A woman emerged shaking her head. Hannah had died in the night.”
The Second World War left deep scars on civilians and soldiers. That’s why veteran Martin Maxwell, at 96, insists that neither the freedom he and his comrades restored, nor the sacrifice Canadians made for peace, can be forgotten. If you’d like to join Martin and me – May 1-12, 2020 – seats on our Dutch Liberation Tour are still available.
Canadian all-star baseball team inside a WWII POW camp in 1943, featured pitcher Bill Paton (back row, third from left).
It wasn’t quite the fall classic, but it did happen in the fall … the fall of 1943. Sometime into the fourth of fifth inning of this baseball game, the umpire behind the plate threw up his hands and marched to the mound. A man in ordinary pants and shirt, and a pair of well-worn Air Force boots stood where the mound should’ve been (were this an official baseball park, but it wasn’t) and waited to hear what the umpire had to say.
“Bill, the Americans haven’t managed to hit the ball out of the infield,” Larry Wray said to pitcher Bill Paton. “Let’s make this game a little more competitive.” (more…)
