HughAHalliday
5th November 2011, 21:58
I was thinking of submitting this on the 5 November Biggles thread of RAF training in Canada, but thought better to throw it in as a new post. It was written in a previous life (that of being with the Canadian War Museum) and when published it was edited (read censored); I leave you to spot which parts were cut. Given its length, I offer it in two parts. Having been composed nearly 20 years ago, I suppose several readers will be prepared to advise me as to where I was off the rails:
CANADIANS ERRANT: CANADIAN SERVICE PERSONNEL ABROAD
As Canadians enlisted in the armed forces, they embarked upon both a crusade and an adventure. They were not without worldly experience; even in 1939 the majority of Canadians lived in cities and large towns. Moreover, before proceeding overseas, most went through a lengthy apprenticeship of training and sometimes of service in Canada itself. An aircrew trainee, for example, might be ten months in the RCAF before qualifying as a pilot, navigator or air gunner; early in the war he might also be retained in Canada, either as an instructor in the expanding British Commonwealth Air Training Plan or as part of the Home War Establishment, protecting the Atlantic and Pacific coasts or operating internal air transport services. A typical Canadian soldier had also spent a year of training at home before going overseas, including instruction in such specialist fields as signals, field engineering, vehicle maintenance and artillery observation.
Once abroad, Canadians were thrust into many and varied situations. Canadians were killed and captured in Malaya and Sumatra. Small numbers served in odd places like Australia. Canadian aircrew flew anti-submarine patrols out of West Africa; units of the Royal Canadian Engineers dug tunnels in Gibraltar. The crew of HMCS Uganda fought briefly in the Pacific campaign of 1945. Several hundred members of the RCAF were stationed in Ceylon and Burma as members of Nos.413, 435 and 436 Squadrons as well as scattered through RAF units. Canadian sailors were engaged on convoy runs to northern Russia as well as the more common routes between North America and Europe. The bulk of Canadians, however, came to know two areas abroad; some 500,000 spent time in Britain (1939-1945); most of the 100,000 who served in Italy (1943-1945) had also passed through Britain.
The Army and air force had the most intimate, prolonged contact by overseas nations; most naval personnel and merchant seamen were transitory figures. The men in Canadian landing craft, motor torpedo boats, and destroyers engaged in coastal warfare were exceptions; so were the hundreds of officers and men assigned to administrative and liaison duties overseas. Otherwise, Canadian sailors lingered only when ships were under refit and repair.
At sea the hardships varied with climate, assignment, season, type of ship, and the quality of leadership. There were advantages to being on convoy runs that regularly connected with North America and the Caribbean; clearly a "48" in Jamaica had advantages over one in Belfast. Trips to Russia were infinitely more harsh (and the welcome more spartan) than runs to Britain. The general rule was that the smaller the ship, the more uncomfortable the living; the corvettes were notorious for bobbing about; it was said they would "roll in a heavy dew".
Yet even the most crowded ship could house a cheery, satisfied crew. The work itself was democratic; officer and rating alike could be wet, cold and seasick. An officer with too much interest in shining brass in port could undermine morale; a commander who bent over backwards to improve the messing even marginally could send morale soaring.
Most Canadians in Britain would remember the climate, made all the more vivid by inefficient British stoves and the near-total absence of central heating; in Nissen huts, the term "heating system" would be a virtual oxymoron. The Canadians expected hard living when in the field; they lived happily under canvas when campaigning. They were disgruntled when called upon to endure spartan conditions over several years of what amounted to garrison duty in Britain.
The fall and winter of 1944-45 were different; the Canadian Army and much of the RCAF was now fighting in Northwest Europe. Life was hard but challenging, and it was easier to blame the enemy for one's discomfort than one's own officers. The closer one came to the front, the more harsh the conditions. Soldiers lived in bunkers which they constantly upgraded, either as defences (enlarging fields of fire) or as shelters (improving drainage and even running in electricity). Beyond the immediate range of enemy guns, they were billeted in anything still habitable - farm buildings, village inns, schools, convents - which the proper civilian owners may or may not have abandoned. Some of the best billets were barracks built by the Germans over four years of occupation. At Eindhoven, RCAF airmen salvaged scrap lumber for miles about and built their own accommodation.
It might be thought that things were better in the Mediterranean; "sunny Italy" is a phrase that springs to mind. Even in Sicily, however, the dust could be stifling; the winter campaigns in central Italy were as cold, damp and dreary as any other wartime theatre. A member of the British Columbia Dragoons wrote:
"It was next to impossible to keep clean. In about six weeks I managed one bath in a pail of cold water... Finally everyone got transported to a mobile laundry and bath set-up with a wretched building. You took your dirty underwear and socks and exchanged them for clean darned ones and you had a shower with lukewarm water. It was primitive but it made you feel better."
The experiences of Canadians overseas were mixed in the extreme. C.P. Stacey and Barbara Wilson have studied the Canadian wartime presence in Britain. While many on both sides fondly remember the wartime relationship, the fact is that at the time it was a very uneven one. Canadians were not rural "colonials", although many British officers and NCOs regarded them as such. On the other hand, most Canadians came from a society steeped in Puritanical values and encountered a more easy-going British atmosphere. The contrast between a dreary Ontario "beverage room" or Manitoba "beer parlour" and the cheery English pub was evident, and many complaints were subsequently lodged about rowdy Canadians who drank excessively.
Two things tended to mitigate these problems. One was billeting procedures. When living in camps and barracks, Canadians tended to be isolated from the civilian populace and thus were more rambunctious when off duty; troops billeted with civilians were more akin to members of the community and tended to be more respectful.
The other factor was activity. The worst military-civil relations existed when the Canadians were idle, as during the "phoney war" period of 1939-1940 and during the long guard duty of 1941-1943. For aircrew, the most frustrating time was the six months spent after arriving overseas and before assignment to an operational squadron; some of this with flying lessons already learned in Canada, although much was also adapting the theory of earlier training with wartime realities and practices. Soldiers were happiest when training (including realistic exercises) was laid on; airmen were keen when sent to combat units, even though enemy action and battle fatigue might thereafter exact a toll. Above all, shared experiences such as aerial bombing brought mutual respect; the best public relations was accomplished when Canadian anti-aircraft gunners joined in defending Britain, or when Canadian demolition crews disarmed German bombs.
Relations with civilians varied not only with circumstance but with location. Naval centres like Portsmouth were more popular with Canadian sailors than dour industrial ports like Liverpool. For soldiers and airmen alike, Scotland seemed more hospitable than England. The long RCAF presence in Yorkshire, where most of its bomber squadrons were based, led to particularly close bonding with the county and its citizens. As problems were sorted out, Canadians were invited regularly to stay at British homes - some common, some stately. Flight Lieutenant George Starkey, for example, spent seven days at a Buckinghamshire estate whose owner left daily for London while his servants waited on visiting airmen. "I never had an empty glass the whole time I was there", Starkey recalls.
Once Canadians moved to the Continent, their relations with civilians changed. The troops were now fully engaged in campaigning. They might be cheered as liberators by French or Dutch crowds, buy fresh produce from farmers, host a Christmas party for children. Nevertheless, the soldiers and airmen were preoccupied with the business of war itself - more training, combat, and waiting for things to happen. Occasional 48-hour passes might be spent in Paris or Brussels, but prolonged contact with civilians had to wait until after VE Day.
Curiously, RCAF personnel stationed in Iceland were more popular (or at least less disliked) than other nationalities. Authorities were aware that many Icelandic families had migrated to Canada in the late 19th Century, and it appears that a conscious effort was made to post Canadians of Icelandic extraction to that outpost.
Many Canadian servicemen sought out their roots. Those of English and Scottish extraction frequently knew of aunts, uncles, and cousins living in "The Old Country", or at least knew from which counties their immediate ancestors had sprung. Those of Irish extraction found things much less "homey", partly because of Eire neutrality and partly because it was so time-consuming to visit even Ulster, much less the Irish Republic. French-Canadians had the hardest time, especially those with little or no command of English; they could not even claim family ties with Britain, and when they landed in Normandy it was scarcely a homecoming; they were plunging headlong into battle in a land their ancestors had left at least 200 years previously.
Lonely Canadians took up with British women; when units moved to Europe there would be contact with European women as well. The forces discouraged marriages, but the troops persisted, especially as the war ended. Between 1944 and 1947 the Department of National Defence repatriated 41,351 service wives and 19,737 children to Canada. The vast majority of the wives were British, but there were also 1,886 Dutch and 649 Belgian brides.
Unhappily, Canadian servicemen were also noted for high VD rates. For much of the war the rate of infection overseas was about 31 per 1,000 personnel, which various regulations and education programmes did not curtail. After VE Day the figure jumped alarmingly; troops on the Continent had an infection rate of 144 per 1,000 men and the figures were only slightly less in Britain itself. The figures for RCAF personnel were somewhat lower as compared to the Army but higher than their RAF counterparts. In matters sexual, the Canadians really were naive and incautious.
CANADIANS ERRANT: CANADIAN SERVICE PERSONNEL ABROAD
As Canadians enlisted in the armed forces, they embarked upon both a crusade and an adventure. They were not without worldly experience; even in 1939 the majority of Canadians lived in cities and large towns. Moreover, before proceeding overseas, most went through a lengthy apprenticeship of training and sometimes of service in Canada itself. An aircrew trainee, for example, might be ten months in the RCAF before qualifying as a pilot, navigator or air gunner; early in the war he might also be retained in Canada, either as an instructor in the expanding British Commonwealth Air Training Plan or as part of the Home War Establishment, protecting the Atlantic and Pacific coasts or operating internal air transport services. A typical Canadian soldier had also spent a year of training at home before going overseas, including instruction in such specialist fields as signals, field engineering, vehicle maintenance and artillery observation.
Once abroad, Canadians were thrust into many and varied situations. Canadians were killed and captured in Malaya and Sumatra. Small numbers served in odd places like Australia. Canadian aircrew flew anti-submarine patrols out of West Africa; units of the Royal Canadian Engineers dug tunnels in Gibraltar. The crew of HMCS Uganda fought briefly in the Pacific campaign of 1945. Several hundred members of the RCAF were stationed in Ceylon and Burma as members of Nos.413, 435 and 436 Squadrons as well as scattered through RAF units. Canadian sailors were engaged on convoy runs to northern Russia as well as the more common routes between North America and Europe. The bulk of Canadians, however, came to know two areas abroad; some 500,000 spent time in Britain (1939-1945); most of the 100,000 who served in Italy (1943-1945) had also passed through Britain.
The Army and air force had the most intimate, prolonged contact by overseas nations; most naval personnel and merchant seamen were transitory figures. The men in Canadian landing craft, motor torpedo boats, and destroyers engaged in coastal warfare were exceptions; so were the hundreds of officers and men assigned to administrative and liaison duties overseas. Otherwise, Canadian sailors lingered only when ships were under refit and repair.
At sea the hardships varied with climate, assignment, season, type of ship, and the quality of leadership. There were advantages to being on convoy runs that regularly connected with North America and the Caribbean; clearly a "48" in Jamaica had advantages over one in Belfast. Trips to Russia were infinitely more harsh (and the welcome more spartan) than runs to Britain. The general rule was that the smaller the ship, the more uncomfortable the living; the corvettes were notorious for bobbing about; it was said they would "roll in a heavy dew".
Yet even the most crowded ship could house a cheery, satisfied crew. The work itself was democratic; officer and rating alike could be wet, cold and seasick. An officer with too much interest in shining brass in port could undermine morale; a commander who bent over backwards to improve the messing even marginally could send morale soaring.
Most Canadians in Britain would remember the climate, made all the more vivid by inefficient British stoves and the near-total absence of central heating; in Nissen huts, the term "heating system" would be a virtual oxymoron. The Canadians expected hard living when in the field; they lived happily under canvas when campaigning. They were disgruntled when called upon to endure spartan conditions over several years of what amounted to garrison duty in Britain.
The fall and winter of 1944-45 were different; the Canadian Army and much of the RCAF was now fighting in Northwest Europe. Life was hard but challenging, and it was easier to blame the enemy for one's discomfort than one's own officers. The closer one came to the front, the more harsh the conditions. Soldiers lived in bunkers which they constantly upgraded, either as defences (enlarging fields of fire) or as shelters (improving drainage and even running in electricity). Beyond the immediate range of enemy guns, they were billeted in anything still habitable - farm buildings, village inns, schools, convents - which the proper civilian owners may or may not have abandoned. Some of the best billets were barracks built by the Germans over four years of occupation. At Eindhoven, RCAF airmen salvaged scrap lumber for miles about and built their own accommodation.
It might be thought that things were better in the Mediterranean; "sunny Italy" is a phrase that springs to mind. Even in Sicily, however, the dust could be stifling; the winter campaigns in central Italy were as cold, damp and dreary as any other wartime theatre. A member of the British Columbia Dragoons wrote:
"It was next to impossible to keep clean. In about six weeks I managed one bath in a pail of cold water... Finally everyone got transported to a mobile laundry and bath set-up with a wretched building. You took your dirty underwear and socks and exchanged them for clean darned ones and you had a shower with lukewarm water. It was primitive but it made you feel better."
The experiences of Canadians overseas were mixed in the extreme. C.P. Stacey and Barbara Wilson have studied the Canadian wartime presence in Britain. While many on both sides fondly remember the wartime relationship, the fact is that at the time it was a very uneven one. Canadians were not rural "colonials", although many British officers and NCOs regarded them as such. On the other hand, most Canadians came from a society steeped in Puritanical values and encountered a more easy-going British atmosphere. The contrast between a dreary Ontario "beverage room" or Manitoba "beer parlour" and the cheery English pub was evident, and many complaints were subsequently lodged about rowdy Canadians who drank excessively.
Two things tended to mitigate these problems. One was billeting procedures. When living in camps and barracks, Canadians tended to be isolated from the civilian populace and thus were more rambunctious when off duty; troops billeted with civilians were more akin to members of the community and tended to be more respectful.
The other factor was activity. The worst military-civil relations existed when the Canadians were idle, as during the "phoney war" period of 1939-1940 and during the long guard duty of 1941-1943. For aircrew, the most frustrating time was the six months spent after arriving overseas and before assignment to an operational squadron; some of this with flying lessons already learned in Canada, although much was also adapting the theory of earlier training with wartime realities and practices. Soldiers were happiest when training (including realistic exercises) was laid on; airmen were keen when sent to combat units, even though enemy action and battle fatigue might thereafter exact a toll. Above all, shared experiences such as aerial bombing brought mutual respect; the best public relations was accomplished when Canadian anti-aircraft gunners joined in defending Britain, or when Canadian demolition crews disarmed German bombs.
Relations with civilians varied not only with circumstance but with location. Naval centres like Portsmouth were more popular with Canadian sailors than dour industrial ports like Liverpool. For soldiers and airmen alike, Scotland seemed more hospitable than England. The long RCAF presence in Yorkshire, where most of its bomber squadrons were based, led to particularly close bonding with the county and its citizens. As problems were sorted out, Canadians were invited regularly to stay at British homes - some common, some stately. Flight Lieutenant George Starkey, for example, spent seven days at a Buckinghamshire estate whose owner left daily for London while his servants waited on visiting airmen. "I never had an empty glass the whole time I was there", Starkey recalls.
Once Canadians moved to the Continent, their relations with civilians changed. The troops were now fully engaged in campaigning. They might be cheered as liberators by French or Dutch crowds, buy fresh produce from farmers, host a Christmas party for children. Nevertheless, the soldiers and airmen were preoccupied with the business of war itself - more training, combat, and waiting for things to happen. Occasional 48-hour passes might be spent in Paris or Brussels, but prolonged contact with civilians had to wait until after VE Day.
Curiously, RCAF personnel stationed in Iceland were more popular (or at least less disliked) than other nationalities. Authorities were aware that many Icelandic families had migrated to Canada in the late 19th Century, and it appears that a conscious effort was made to post Canadians of Icelandic extraction to that outpost.
Many Canadian servicemen sought out their roots. Those of English and Scottish extraction frequently knew of aunts, uncles, and cousins living in "The Old Country", or at least knew from which counties their immediate ancestors had sprung. Those of Irish extraction found things much less "homey", partly because of Eire neutrality and partly because it was so time-consuming to visit even Ulster, much less the Irish Republic. French-Canadians had the hardest time, especially those with little or no command of English; they could not even claim family ties with Britain, and when they landed in Normandy it was scarcely a homecoming; they were plunging headlong into battle in a land their ancestors had left at least 200 years previously.
Lonely Canadians took up with British women; when units moved to Europe there would be contact with European women as well. The forces discouraged marriages, but the troops persisted, especially as the war ended. Between 1944 and 1947 the Department of National Defence repatriated 41,351 service wives and 19,737 children to Canada. The vast majority of the wives were British, but there were also 1,886 Dutch and 649 Belgian brides.
Unhappily, Canadian servicemen were also noted for high VD rates. For much of the war the rate of infection overseas was about 31 per 1,000 personnel, which various regulations and education programmes did not curtail. After VE Day the figure jumped alarmingly; troops on the Continent had an infection rate of 144 per 1,000 men and the figures were only slightly less in Britain itself. The figures for RCAF personnel were somewhat lower as compared to the Army but higher than their RAF counterparts. In matters sexual, the Canadians really were naive and incautious.