In Search of Glorious Moments

Further to my commentary in the posting below, I think I might have found a "glorious moment" in Canadian history that doesn't involve burning down buildings in Washington.

I have an old photo album of my father's, with pictures of him and his army buddies in uniform at various places in Europe and Britain during WWII and in Camp Shilo, in Manitoba, where he trained before being shipped overseas.

It's a typical old photo album from that era, with black pages held together between two ornate covers with thick, black string (like shoestrings). Most of the photos are glued onto the pages, but some are held in place by insertion into little "corners", which are also black and are glued onto the pages.

In these pictures, Shilo is indeed a camp. There are rows and rows of tents that look like teepees in a big, flat field.  There's even a picture with of a bunch of naked soldiers in the distance preparing to take a dip in the Assiniboine River. The handwritten caption below reads "Swimming in "undress" uniform" and then others of what is probably the same group standing chest deep in the water, posing for a picture.

Aside from the black and white photos there are a few other tokens, war memorabilia, from that era. For example, there's an old faded French Franc (a 20 francs bill, to be specific) and a couple of Deutschmarks glued to one of the pages. There's a "War Department Driving Permit" issued in my father's name by the Secretary of State for War. (Can you imagine having a "war department" or a Secretary of State for War in Canada today? Oh the horrors!!) And a few other documents such as a record of inoculations, a record of Small Arms Range Courses which, I presume, indicated the courses Dad completed, a record of his rank and date of appointment, and so on. There's also a Pass, issued on 1/2/42 good until 23:59 (and not a minute later, apparently) 1/2/42. There is a stern warning printed across the top as follows:

If a calling-out of the whole Army Reserve is ordered every soldier on pass must return immediately to his unit without waiting for instructions.

The dates that appear handwritten in the album and on the few documents found in it range from 1939 to 1944. But perhaps the most interesting document is a newspaper clipping, undated, but with various dates in the article up to and including 1945. There is no indication of the name of the paper, but I suspect it was a Regina paper.  If the Regina Leader existed back then, perhaps that's where the article came from.  In any case, the article's title sums it up:

They got four Nazi tanks in 10 minutes
Brilliant record compiled by Regina's 18th battery

That would be my Dad's group.

The article begins:

"Regina has good reason to be proud of her 18th Anti-Tank battery, which returns to the city noon Friday with an enviable record of enemy kills to its credit.

The entire regiment of four batteries has 26 enemy tanks confirmed and the 18th knocked out 13 of these itself"

It continues: 

"Maj. B. C. Thomson saw a German Panther tank nose out ahead of them. Holding his fire in order to draw other tanks out of cover due to a feeling of false security he and his men were rewarded as three other tanks followed the leader into the open.  The tanks rumbled closer and closer until there was no doubt about hitting them. In 10 minutes these four tanks were smouldering heaps of twisted metal.

These are the boys Reginans will be welcoming home noon Friday!"

That's right. No mention of how many members of the 18th Battery had been killed. Just a proud retelling of how they had slaughtered the other guys. Wow!! How refreshing! The article is actually quite long, and goes into considerable detail about the 18th Battery and their record in the war, but I thought that little bit about them taking out so many enemy tanks is worth crowing about. You see, we do have our heroes and our heroic moments. We just don't know about them, much less celebrate them. Damn it!

And BTW, here's a ten part series about the War of 1812-1814 told from an American perspective that is really good. You can start here:

Part 1

The rest are right there, too.

Here's to letting bygones be bygones and to people who can actually get along despite past differences, or for that matter, ongoing differences as determined by having taken two separate paths in our history.

I think we should supply a box of Laura Secord Chocolates to every Yank who steps on Canadian soil in 2012.