Interview: Recollections of Nuremberg during WW2

Kurt Geuder and his grandson Blake Johnson, May 2018.

Kurt Geuder interviewed by Blake Johnson, Calgary, March 2018

1. How old were you when the Second World War started, and where were you living in Nuremberg at the time?

I was close to eight years old I lived in the southern portion of Nuremberg. My parents owned a grocery store, milk store (which was separate from groceries), and a deli downtown which was run by my aunt. This is a picture of the store which my parents owned in Downtown Nuremberg”

Kurt Geuder (child on the right beside the child in the dark shorts) in front of the building that his family owned (light coloured building.) The dark coloured building was cut in half by a bomb, and all the people inside of it at the time were killed. Photo taken in 1936 (Kurt was four years-old at the time).

W. G. LeMaistre, Provincial Apiarist of Alberta, 1939-1956

William Godfrey LeMaistre was  Alberta's second provincial apiarist. Born in England, his beekeeping education was obtained  at the Ontario Agricultural College. His predecessor as provincial apiarist, Mr. Hillerud, had also spent time learning bees in Central Canada. After LeMaistre's graduation in 1926, he farmed in Saskatchewan before returning to work for the College. He obtained the nickname "Tarz" during his college days, as he excelled at wrestling among other sports. The reference is presumably to his Tarzan-like moves on the mats?

Drugging Soldiers: Bennies and Battle

Using mind-altering substances to promote combat motivation and performance has been a longstanding feature of warfare.  While the practice of drugging soldiers wasn't widespread until the Second World War, the use of alcohol to boost morale and calm nerves long precedes modern drug use.  Pharmaceutical amphetamines, however, were an innovation of the interwar years.  In 1933, Benzedrine, was first marketed as a nasal decongestant.  The euphoric effects of "Bennies" were quickly seized upon by recreational users, and it did not take long for military forces to consider their use in battle.

Vendel Era Bronze Plate

Precedents certainly exist for  non-pharmaceutical military drug use. If one expands beyond the amphetamine category, lore has it that mind-altering "drugs" go back at least to the middle ages.  The most popular legend of  stoned soldiers tells of blood-crazed Viking beserkers eating dried fly agaric (the hallucinogenic mushroom Amanita muscaria) to inspire their savage attacks.  While drugging a medieval warrior and inciting him to behave like a bear might improve his will to fight, one has to wonder about the effects on hand-eye coordination.  Instead, the adrenaline-like effects of therapeutic doses of amphetamine, such as wakefulness, increased muscle strength, improved memory, and cognitive control, made the drug much more useful on the modern battlefield than hallucinogens.

Use of amphetamines by the military, then, began in the Second World War.  Richard Holmes, in Acts of War: The Behaviour of Men in Battle (1985), writes that in that conflict, Benzedrine was commonly administered to soldiers of various nations, noting ten percent of American soldiers used amphetamines in the conflict. 

An excellent treatment of Allied research and use of amphetamines is found Nicolas Rasmussen's 2011 article "Medical Science and the Military: The Allies' Use of Amphetamine during World War II" Journal of Interdisciplinary History 42:2 (Autumn 2011) Rasmussen suggests that despite the popular conception that drugs were prescribed by the Allies as physically performance-enhancing, the reasons behind amphetamine distribution was based on mood-altering effects such as "increased confidence and aggression" and the promotion of morale.  Until very late in the war, research had yet to conclusively prove the physical effects of the drugs.

Amphetamine Molecule

Nazi Germany was the first state to embrace military amphetamine use, to keep soldiers awake.   Rasmussen notes that during the Blitzkrieg of 1940, the German's took the lead in methamphetamine distribution to soldiers, with 35 million tablets distributed in three months from April-June 1940, and a sharp decline in use thereafter.  

Spiegel

As Adam Tooze wrote in  Wages of Destruction (2006), the intense operational tempo during the Fall of France led to the need for stimulating expedients.  With the call for German armoured forces to push constantly for three days and nights, armoured crews needed "uppers" to continue operating.  As Tooze writes, "to ensure that the drivers could go without sleep, the quartermasters of the advanced units stocked up with tens of thousands of doses of Pervitin, the original formulation of the amphetamine now know as 'speed', but more familiar in the 1940s as 'tank chocolate' (Panzerschokolade)."  Amphetamine use was reported in the press which intensified research interest for the Allies.

Rasmussen records that General Bernard Montgomery was an early enthusiast for amphetamine prescription after observing the results of field trials.  A drugged ambulance unit had proven quicker on the march when administered Benzedrine, and an infantry squad had not only won a race against a "sober" squad in a variety of military tasks, but had also proven to have a certain "snap and zest". (Rasmussen, p. 216) For the 1942 Battle of El Alamein, large quantities of amphetamine were authorized.

Benzedrine advertisements, 1943 & 1944.
Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 123, No. 10; Vol. 124, No. 12. http://www.bonkersinstitute.org/medshow/benzedrinearmy.html

In 1943, the Americans came to the same conclusion on Benzedrine sulphate "pep pills" as a boost to morale and alertness and began to distribute them widely to all services. When Eisenhower learned that 100,000 six-tablet packages of "Bennies" were available for the North African theatre, he immediately requested 500,000. (Rasmussen, p. 226)  Rasmussen suggests that the drugs were widely abused for recreational purposes and may have been the cause of battlefield atrocities in the Pacific theatre.  (Rasmussen, p. 230-32)

Remixed Propaganda by Micah Wright

The use of drugs by the military continues to the current day.  The American practice of popping amphetamines like candy was continued in Korea and Vietnam, where soldiers were administered Dexedrine before action.  More recently, lawyers for two American pilots who bombed Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan, argued that errant judgment may have been impaired by amphetamines.

Drugs, then, have a long relationship with the military, especially in years after 1940 as the pharmaceutical industry and pharmacological practice expanded at pace.  Beyond stimulants for combat, medical use has been made of barbiturates, sedatives and pain-killers.  Illicit, recreational drug use extends beyond amphetamines as well, with marijuana and heroin use in Vietnam as the most notorious example.  One need not look too far to find accusations regarding the negative effects of this military narco-love-affair.  

A version of this page was first posted on 28 July 2011.

Two Siksika Soldiers and the Second World War

Of the around 3000 First Nations that fought for Canada in the Second World War, a number hailed from the Siksika (Blackfoot) First Nation, east of Calgary.  Their stories reflect the tragedy, loneliness and heartbreak of war.

A list of men enlisted from the district in the Gleichen Call during the war notes the names of Mark Wolfleg, C. Olds (Veterans Guard), Charlie Royal, Gordon Yellowfly, and Ed. Manybears as hailing from the Blackfoot Reserve.  To add to this list, the Aitsiniki Siksika newspaper lists Clarence McHugh, LF McHugh, Joseph Snake-Person, F. Turning-Robe, and A. White Pup as soldiering in the Second World War.

We know of the personal effect of war on one of these men, Mark (Ninnonista) Wolfleg, as he gave an 1983 interview to the University of Regina.  Wolfleg spoke of the happenstance behind his signing up in Calgary. 

At the time I was working at the mines, at the east end of the reserve, and I had gone up to Calgary for shopping and the next day I was still there, and I was walking up 8th Ave. heading west and I looked across the street and I saw a sign that, a recruitment sign.  So out of curiosity, I went across, went upstairs in a three story building on the top floor and I came in and there was sergeant there and he was really glad to see me and really friendly so he asked me if I wanted to sign up so just on impulse I said, "Yeah, I came to sign up." I came just by chance.  It wasn't a conscious decision.

The personal effects of war and army life on Wolfleg were  profoundly negative.  He spoke of how he was changed by the experience: 

When I first joined the army, when I first joined, enlisted, I did not really know what it was all about, the war and everything, but slowly I began to change.  I noticed a charge in my thinking, the life was very different from what I knew and back home in the Indian way of life, my outlook was a lot different then and it changed radically, especially when I went overseas.  My outlook on life became more harsh, a harder outlook.  There was anger in my life that wasn't there before and through all of the experiences I experience over there, when I came back, I had become a much angry person, a person that got angry a lot faster whereas before I never had the experience of experiencing anger...through the years I got over this.  Especially when I got into the spiritual life more and more.  I became more kindly to the elders and the youngsters because these were the ones that I saw suffer the most in the war, the older people and the children.

Mark Wolfleg Sr, visits the grave
 of Gordon Yellow Fly in 1983.
Photo: Handout/Mark Wolfleg Sr.

Reflecting on the experience of war, he claimed that, "Seeing war does not bring out any outstanding experiences.  It is all lonesome and that is what war is, it is lonesome, so I cannot really see what was very outstanding and none of the experiences stand out as being outstanding, it was all lonesome, loneliness."

When Wolfleg returned from the war, his Indian Agent told Ottawa that the First Nations veterans were being taken care of, and so he was denied benefits.  Wolfleg passed away in January 2009 at the age of 89, his obituary notes that the "old cowboy" fought with the Loyal Edmonton Regiment in Italy and that "his most treasured adventure" was a trip to Ortona, Italy, when he visited the grave of "his dear old friend" Gordon Yellow Fly.

Signature from Yellowfly's Will on his Service File

Gordon Yellowfly was known in the 1930s and 1940s as an excellent athlete.  He won third place in the Calgary Herald Road Race the year before he shipped overseas, and was active in hockey and boxing.  He had played hockey with Mark Wolfleg in the 1930s and 40s.

 His transition to army life, and army discipline was not smooth.  His service file, digitized with many others in the Killed in Action database at Library and Archives Canada, shows numerous crimes for drunkenness and being away without leave after he was taken on strength in June of 1942.  By the end of the year he was headed overseas.

Gordon wrote home on the 31st of July from Sicily claiming that it was great that he was "in the big show", but that he had to flee from German bombs.  On the 27th of December 1943, Yellowfly was killed by a sniper's bullet at the age of 27.  He was carrying two new testaments, a prayer book, his Seaforth Highlanders Glengarry, a whistle, and a few other effects.  His father was to write the Department of National Defence in July 1945: "Will you be kind enough to find out for me what became of the personal effects of my son.  Gordon. who was killed in action at Ortona Italy Dec 27 1943.  Heretofore I could not gather enough courage to enquire, but now for sentimental reasons I would certainly be glad to get his personal effects."

Adding to the sad tragedy of Yellowfly's story, he was undergoing divorce proceedings with his wife, which had not yet been finalized when he was killed.  His service file lists Winston, George and Donald Yellow Fly as his children.  Donald's name was scribbled in in March 1943, suggesting that this was a child that he never met.  The bitterness of Gordon's father Teddy is suggested in the following excerpt from a letter to the Canadian Legion in March 1944:

Like many Canadians that fell in the Moro River and Ortona conflicts, Yellowfly is buried in the Moro River Canadian War Cemetery.  His epitaph is particularly interesting, yet obscured in the photograph at wikisicily.com [link].  It reads in part, as the treaty promises of old started, "The Sun Shines, the Waters Flow, the Grass Grows.." There was clearly a feeling, both from Mark Wolfleg and TeddyYellowfly's testimony, that the promises of the Canadian state had not been honored in the Second World War, which echoes contemporary criticisms of treaty promises.

http://www.siksikanation.com/siksikafair2005.html

Gordon Yellowfly is memorialized by the Gordon Yellowfly Piiksa-pi Memorial Arbour on the Siksika reserve.  The dedication from Donald and Alphina Yellowfly reads, "We submit that my father gave the ultimate sacrifice not only for his king and country of his time, but more importantly for his people of Siksika, and since the time of his death this Nation has never given him the proper acknowledgement.[...]
My father's Blackfoot name was PIIKSA-PI; and using original Blackfoot translation his name was "Sacred Visionary""

These two Siksika men's service experience, are well worth considering for their personal insight into the lived experience of warfare.  War for these men was not that of heroism or glory.  It was the stuff of tragedy and loneliness.  Wolfleg took years to get over the anger that war brought him.  War shattered Yellowfly's life and left his children without a father.

The Innocent "Iyties": Soldiers' Perceptions of Children in the Italian Campaign

Canadian historical memory of liberated Europe during the Second World War is dominated by themes of celebration, gratitude, and co-operation.  The generously free-flowing Calvados unearthed from Normandy cellars, or the joyous Dutch street celebrations are  the stuff of safe reminiscences of victors and victims.  In the Italian campaign, however, a more uncomfortable narrative challenges these tropes.  Here, racist language towards Italians, and perceptions of Italy as dirty and barbaric are not difficult to find in soldiers' letters.  An exception to the rule, however, is found in Canadian consideration of Italian children, who are seldom included in condemnation, but often held up as innocent exceptions to an otherwise blameworthy, wayward, and unhygienic people.

UBC Press

Of the campaign in Sicily, Jeff Keshen writes in Saints, Sinners, and Soldiers (UBC Press, 2004), his critique of the Canadian "Good War", that many interactions were "cordial, even warm, as the Canadians were often greeted as liberators." (Keshen, p. 245) Others, however, distrusted Sicilians, disdained the "squalid" conditions they lived in, and stole what they wanted from them, occasionally at gunpoint.  Soldiers issued chits for payback which were signed by movie stars or cartoon characters.  While many men reportedly rejected Sicilian women for their dark complexion, this did not prevent seven rapes by the end of July 1943 (Keshen, p. 246).  The poverty of the civilian population is illustrated in the payment of several cigarettes or tinned rations to women for sex.  Children of the age of eight or nine would wander the streets to drum up business for prostitutes.  The booklet that prepared soldiers for Italy stated that in regards to women, "the less you have to do with them the better." (Quoted in Keshen, p. 248)

Racist themes continued to mix with more favourable encounters across the straits of Messina.  Of interactions on the Italian mainland Keshen records, "As in Sicily, there were many reciprocal exchanges between soldiers and civilian.  But some Canadians considered the Italians, or "Iyties" as they called them, in the same light as they saw the Sicilians: chameleon-like in allegiance, crooked, and thus deserving of little consideration." (Keshen, p. 248-49)  Here too, looting occurred, at times escalating to armed robbery, and justified by the perception that Italians were price-gouging the soldiers.

Comments in Canadian censorship reports which pertain to Italians were seldom favorable.  In December of 1943, the censors recorded that only 10% of references to Italians were positive.  Especially in Southern Italy, the general attitude of soldiers was distrust, dislike, and disgust at the squalor that Italians were living in.

A comment from a member of the 3rd Field Regiment of Royal Canadian Artillery may serve to express the ethnocentrism of those familiar with sanitary conditions in Canada towards those in war-torn Italy: “These wops are a dirty filthy bunch, I wouldn't trust them as far as you can smell them and that's a fair distance.” (December 1943, Library and Archives Canada, RG24 Volume 12,323)

There was, however, an exception to these harsh sentiments, found in sympathies expressed towards children.  In December 1943, a British war correspondent wrote an account of sharing shelter in a home in Ortona with a handful of Canadian soldiers.  He reported, "The children clambered around the Canadian soldiers and clutched at them convulsively every time one of our anti-tank guns, located only half a dozen paces from the door of the house, fired down the street in the direction of one of the remaining German machine-gun posts.   Soon each one of us had a squirming, terrified child in his arms." (Quoted in GWL Nichols, The Canadians in Italy (Queen's Printer, 1956), p. 331.

Pte. Alex Livingstone Handing Biscuits to Italian Children .Copyright belongs to the Crown ; Credit: Canada. Department of National Defence / Library and Archives Canada / ecopyLibrary and Archives Canada Item no. (creator) ZK-552

Archival reference no. R112-1459-1-E

(Credit: Members of the Seaforth Highlanders
 sit down for their Christmas dinner.
Photo: Terry F. Rowe / Canada.DND
 / Library and Archives Canada / PA-152839)
Toronto Public Library

The Christmas in Italy of 1943 was one which has gone down in the lore of Canadian military history, largely due to the press reportage of the time.  The official historian G.W.L. Nicholson broke from his battle narrative to describe the occasion.  He accounted, "Long after the lessons of Ortona recede into the pages of military textbooks men who were there will remember how, despite their joyless surroundings, the two Canadian battalions [the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada and the Loyal Edmonton Regiment] observed Christmas day.  Nothing could be less Christmas-like than the acrid smell of cordite overhanging Ortona's rubble barricades, the thunder of collapsing walls and the blinding dust and smoke which darkened the alleys in which Canadians and Germans were locked in grim hand-to-hand struggle." (GWL Nichols, The Canadians in Italy (Queen's Printer, 1956), p. 329)  Of the men who were rotated out of the line for a Christmas feast, the Seaforths' war diarist wrote, "The expression on the faces of the dirty bearded men as they entered the building was a reward that those responsible are never likely to forget.  (Quoted in Nicholson, p. 330)

For most soldiers of the 1st Canadian Infantry Division, letters included more references to children than Christmas parties in and of themselves.  A member of the 2nd Canadian Armoured Regiment wrote of the feasting, 

Most of us had an Italian child with us – they were very happy Darling believe me but they were so glad to get a dinner. They would have framed the plate if they could of. It makes one feel like crying to see them eat. (Dec. 1943, RG24, Vol 12,323)

 

Trooper Ralph Catherall of The Calgary Regiment giving food to an Italian child, Volturara, Italy, 3 October 1943.Credit: Lieut. Jack H. Smith / Canada. Dept. of National Defence / Library and Archives Canada / PA-144105 

Canadian letters generally blamed Italians for the state of their war-ravaged country, but were willing to make exceptions for youth.  The postal censors wrote in February 1944:

The plight of small under-nourished children is often mentioned and children are regarded with sympathy and understanding as the unfortunate victims of conditions for which their parents are wholly responsible. Although certain individual kindnesses are appreciated, the general attitude to the adult population never seems to be free of a feeling of suspicion and distrust.

         Men are very often appalled with the insanitary and dirty conditions existing in the Italian villages and it forms a never-ending theme in letters home. (Feb. 1944, RG24 Volume 12,323)

Praise for children was not universal.  In March 1944, a member of 2nd Canadian Armoured Regiment wrote, “It doesn't matter how good you treat the Wops they will always come right back and stab you in the back. We feed all the kids around here but they still steal everything they can get their hands on.” (March 1944, RG24 Volume 12,323)

It seems that it was involvement with partisans in the battles breaking the Gothic Line and beyond that finally changed the opinions of  soldiers towards Italians.  The censor wrote in November 1944, “A number of forward units have recently been in contact with Italian partisans, and, in their case, a marked change in the usual unfavourable attitude towards local inhabitants has been noted. They have nothing but praise for the work done by these guerrillas.”

Troopers W. Balinnan and A. Gallant of a Canadian reconnaissance regiment speaking to partisans Louisa and Italo Cristofori after the capture of Bagnacavallo, Italy, 3 January 1945.  Credit: Capt. Alex M. Stirton / Canada. Dept. of National Defence / Library and Archives Canada / PA-173569

In December 1944, the chief censor's report wrote that relations with Italians in the villages of the North were cordial, and the mail contained frequent reference to the hospitality and cooperation of partisans.  An officer of the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada wrote of a kindness alongside racist references, writing, “Despite what these rough tough Canadians say about these 'gawdamn Wops' they treat them royally and the kids never go without chocolate.”

Attitudes towards Italians were mitigated by the passage of time since their co-belligerency against the Allied cause, and by partisan willingness to risk their lives fighting against the Germans.  The ethnocentric judgement of living conditions found in early letters from the campaign tapered off as Canadians themselves were forced to live in the mud and ruined remnants of Italian homes. 

Children encountered in the campaign were treated with a generosity often not extended to adults.  Young people were interpreted as innocent of Italian transgressions earlier in the war, and reminded soldiers of young friends and family members left behind on the homefront.  They served as ambassadors between two cultures, softening soldiers to a "foreign" people, and providing a way to break down tensions and hostilities between Canadians and Italians.

Hyperbole, Sarcasm and Fatalism: Canadian Humour in the Italian Campaign 1943-45

Stephen Leacock wrote in Humour and Humanity that humour approaches indifference or cruelty, but is softened by its link to pathos in its compassion and pity.  This union, he claimed, was what prevented humour from "breaking into guffaws" in callous mockery, or "subsiding into sobs", in commiseration. (Gerald Lynch, Stephen Leacock: Humour and Humanity McGill Queens: 1988.) Both the anger and the sadness of humour is found in the censored letters of Canadian soldiers in the Italian campaign.  Men on campaign wrote home with exaggerated criticism of army policy, and told stories of their fellow soldiers' humour relieving the most pitiable circumstances.  Both the cruelty and the sorrow of war lies sublimated below the rough surface of their sarcastic and often biting humour.

Tim Cook gave a lecture at Trent in 2009 on Soldiers' Humour.

Tim Cook recently published an interesting article on humour in the Canadian Expeditionary Force during the First World War, arguing that humour was a way to release tension and survive the horrific conditions and experiences on the Western Front.  The article, "'I will meet the world with a smile and a Joke': Canadian Soldiers Humour in the Great War" in Canadian Military History, (Spring 2013) argues that while the lasting memory of the First World War, constructed by poets such as Siegfried Sassoon and perpetuated in print and on film ever since, has been that of pointless carnage and suffering, that soldiers' writings provide an important adjunct to this somber tone.  Cook writes that soldiers' humour was by no means uniform, but that themes can be drawn from the wide corpus of personal testimony including: justification of the killing process; masculine teasing; gallows humour which hoped to "trivialize the terrifying"; mockery of the heroic and patriotic rhetoric of the war; masculine teasing; and plain bawdy lewdness and silliness.

In Italy, attempts to relieve the stress of battle are clear in an account of the crossing of the Moro River.  In December 1943, a member of the 3rd Field Company of Royal Canadian Engineers wrote at length of the sappers under his command who made light of his attempts to sooth their concerns at being under fire while bridging the river on the outskirts of Ortona:

We have been having a ding-dong, knock-em-out-drag-em out battle with Jerry the last little while and are still advancing so I guess we are better than he is at this war game. All the advantage is on his side. Hills and rivers forming natural obstacles for him to defend and we to overcome. We had quite a job about a week ago getting over a river but did get over it amid much praise from General Montgomery down. I was explaining to the boys that getting to the job was the worst part and on the job we would be as safe as in a church. A sapper pipes up and wants to know if I have any particular church in mind, quite humorous under the conditions. When we got to the job we came under machine gun fire and again the great fatalist tried to explain that if one had your number on it you got it, if not you would not. A sapper said he wasn't ascaird of the one with a number on it, it was the one addressed 'To whom it may concern' which worried him. Humor comes out in the strangest places. (Library and Archives Canada, RG24 Vol. 10,705)

Poppy on the Moro Approaches.  2009 Gregg Centre Battlefield Tour. Copyright Will Pratt.

Using humour to relieve stress and misery is particularly apt in front-line conditions.  As one soldier from 3rd Field Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery wrote in April 1944, “There may be lots of mud and rain and the unpleasant thoughts of what we are engaged in but there is always humour. Men are irrepressible – there is always the brighter side for the picture.” (RG24 Volume 12323)

As men found more problems with administrative policies later in the campaign, the humour in censorship excerpts was increasingly of the sarcastic variety.  Men frequently complained about lack of leave back to Canada.  The Zombies (the nickname for National Resources Mobilization Act conscripts who were for the time still allowed to serve in Canada) were continually criticized.  One trooper's comment suggests that suspicions and jealousy lay close below the surface. He sarcastically wrote in August 1944,

How are those Zombies doing back in Canada? They must really have a tough battle over there. Trying to keep away from beer parlours or keeping form having too delightful a time. Or keeping a fighting man's wife company. (RG24 Volume 12,323)

Jealous worry about women on the homefront is a major theme in soldiers letters, and has been identified as prevalent in the Eighth Army in earlier postal censorship by Jonathan Fennel in his work Combat and Morale in the North African Campaign (2010).

Something funny was definitely going on here.  

Troopers of the Governor General's Horse Guards displaying distinctive haircuts before the advance on the Hitler Line, Italy, 26 May 1944. Credit: Lieut. Strathy E.E. Smith / Canada. Dept. of National Defence / Library and Archives Canada / PA-189923

Cook noted that First World War soldiers used humour to raise grievances, and the tradition continued for the next generation of Canadian soldiers.  In Italy, the policy of putting towns out of bounds to Canadians after the Battle of the Hitler Line as an attempt to reduce venereal disease rates was a notable hit on troop morale.  Again in August, as the I Canadian Corps prepared to breach the Gothic Line, signs bearing "Out of Bounds to Canadian Troops", came under sarcastic criticism.  A private wrote home,

Every damn place is out of bounds to the Canadians. It is getting beyond a joke now. Most of the boys are wondering if Canada will be 'Out of bounds.' I guess the only place they can trust them is at the front. (RG24, Vol. 12,323)

Private W. Sutherland (left) of The Westminster Regiment (Motor) 

and Private V.A. Keddy of The Cape Breton Highlanders

 repacking compo rations at a supply depot, Cassino, Italy, 18 April 1944.

Credit: Lieut. Strathy E.E. Smith / Canada. Dept. of National Defence 

/ Library and Archives Canada / PA-151177 

The old saw that the army marches on its stomach seems to be as true for the General ELM Burns' troops as it was for Napoleon's.  Those in the Chief Censor's office got in on the joke by labelling some grousing about the tinned rations of Meat and Vegetables the "Gourmet's Resolve".  A private soldier wrote, “I'm still on that balanced diet of M. & V. I'll get even with Argentina someday.” (RG24 Vol 12,323)

The connection with the homefront and longing to return there was observed in many letters as a second winter in Italy began.  By the end of 1944, the lack of home leave was criticized by many soldiers.  A new points scheme had been put in place, but many correctly assumed they wouldn't see Canada until after the war.  One gunner wrote home using a little hyperbole about his expected leave date:

Guess the papers have quite a write-up about the '39 boys coming home for Christmas leaves. At the rate they are going about it, I'll likely be home about 1960. We have sent two men out of about 500. (RG24 Vol. 12,323)

Maple Leaf, 24 January 1945.

While criticism of officers and superiors was not a general feature of Canadian mail, in 1945 the visit of John Bracken, the Progressive Conservative leader of the opposition, came in for griping against politicians who visited the front and later spoke in the press on behalf of soldiers.  As the censorship report for early February wrote, Bracken need not have taken these grouses personally as comments were “characterized by a certain impatience with politicians as a class.”  Lamenting the long campaign in Italy, a private wrote,“Bracken is here in Italy – the opposition chief. I wonder if he comes to bring us our Italian naturalization papers.” (February 1945)  Another private's note home bordered on mania.

I won't be qualified to come home for another six months or so as the powers that be have decided that the Cdns are the toughest solider on earth and as a result they can stand five years overseas when Br. Forces only stay three and a half, N.Z.'s three years and American 18 mos. Yeah, we're tough and we love it. Yeah!!! (February, 1945)

The marriage between pathos and cruelty that Leacock identified as the essence of humour certainly existed in Canadian letters from the the Italian front.  Men joked their fear away, and used sarcasm to complain of policies that restricted them.  The strain of humour that Cook identified as mocking the patriotic or heroic discourse of the war is related to the complaints against leave policies that kept soldiers in Italy.  Considering that longing to return home was a major theme of wartime letters, and that unlike trench newspapers, the audience for these writings was friends and family at home, the sublimation of homesickness with a wry joke at the Army's expense comes as no surprise.

Mediterranean Musings: 5th Canadian Armoured Division Medical Humour

Amidst the quarterly medical returns and operational message logs in the 5th Canadian Armoured Division's medical services war diary, a comic account of the Italian campaign awaits those studying medical aspects of the Canadian Army during the Second World War.  Captain Brian Murphy's "Mediterranean Musings" is a witty reminiscence of his experiences with the No. 13 Canadian Field Dressing Station which acts as a tonic to the otherwise deathly serious account of daily medical operations.

The bulk of the war diary of 5th Canadian Armoured Division's Assistant Director Medical Services is what one would expect from a medical headquarters in the Italian Campaign.  The documents deal mainly with the operations of the field ambulances under its command, and the evacuation and treatment of casualties.  A number of interesting modifications to jeeps and carriers were made to accommodate stretchers to take the wounded from the battlefield, but in no quarter did battle casualties exceed sickness.  Major drains on manpower included infective hepatitis (jaundice), influenza, and venereal disease.  Captain Murphy's "Musings", however, were no treatise on epidemiology, nor a statistical rending of gonorrhea and syphilis rates in the Division.  Instead, Murphy opted for a humorous review of his campaign with the medicals.

Writing from the North-West Europe campaign, in the summer of 1945, Murphy started with a complaint to his editor which devolved into a description of a local Dutch elixir, which had the ability to raise the spirits of those awaiting repatriation.  The "Musings" begin,

Dear Ed;

You said I was becoming morose; you said let's have something gay for a change; and cut it down to a thousand words; you said gaiety is the spice of life and brevity is its container...Please don't ask me to be gay.  But then gaiety can be acquired artificially, so gather round and allow me to pour you a drink of Moose Milk...an old Dutch remedy for rheumatics contracted whilst awaiting transport to Canada.  Incidently the above-mentioned 'Lait de Moose' consists of gin, milk and eggs in proportions depending on whether you wish to stay in your billet and play 'Button, button, who'se got the button', or desire to sally forth and destroy single-handed a town, say of 20,000 inhabitants.  A list of such towns can be obtained by writing to the Moose Milk Dairies.  Only one town allotted per customer.

After this strange aside on the benefits of the local egg nog, Murphy cuts to the chase, but continues charting his alcoholic course, recalling the that the trip to the Italian theatre, code-named Operation TIMBERWOLF, was far from dry.

In September '43, we boarded the Cap Paradan a ship that was decidedly wet, outside and in.  I have never travelled with so many lawyers, everybody seemed to be called to the bar.  Cases weren't defended.  They were opened.  The juries were vicious, they kept yelling "Let's Kill It."

"Finito Signor???", Bing Coughlin, Herbie!, (Nelson: 1946).

After three weeks at sea, the troop transports arrived in Phillippville and the division then started the tedious train trip to Bizerta, which Murphy suggested was an excellent way to develop battle exhaustion symptoms.  The train travelled at 15 miles per hour, and Murphy noted sarcastically that this was, "fast I admit, but this is the modern age." A fire broke out on one of the train cars which set off small arms ammunition and in the insuing chaos locals began looting the train.  Murphy recalled, "a few natives had decided they were in dire need of blankets and boots, and more small arms ammo went off, only this time it was aimed in the general direction of the said culprits."

Once the 5th Division was in Italy, Murphy recalls several interesting tales about interactions between medical officers and Italian civilians.  When it became known that Canadian doctors diagnosed civilians, the line ups resembled those at London fish and chip stands.  Eggs were the usual payments for treatments, which usually involved assuring patients that they could not expect imminent death.  Murphy wrote, "At this realization, Guiseppe's or Maria's face would light up and with shrugging shoulders and clasped hands they would exclaim 'Grazie, grazie Dottore Canadesi buona' (translation: Gracious thanks, as a physician you are not bad.)" Murphy noted if patients were "very impressed by roadside manner", they might welcome the medical officer into their home for a spaghetti meal.   Returning to a familiar theme, he wrote, 

the spaghetti is not good food to get stiff on.  But with said filaments of flour and water, is served wine, of which the Canucks were very fond. Italy was no place for a chap with alcohic [sic] tendencies, water was just a place to wash clothes in.

"Think I'll Have M'Lunch.  Who's got a cork-screw?"
, Bing Coughlin, Herbie!, (Nelson: 1946).

Murphy's account continues to spin humorous yarns of housecalls to remove worms from Italian children, and intimacies in crowded rooms during air raids.  He even coins a term for a new affliction called "airmenorrhea", in which young Italian women mysteriously stop menstruating for months after spending an hour or two in close confines sheltered from bombers.

After a long campaign in Italy, suffering through two wet winters in the mud and snow, it comes as no suprise that Murphy was pleased to leave the theatre.  In closing his account, he wrote, "Christmas came late last year.  In fact it didn't happen until we sailed away from the land of the mud, mountains, mosquitoes and mines...and that was in February."

Captain Brian Murphy's account is found in the June 1945 War Diary of 5th Canadian Armoured Division's ADMS HQ, Library and Archives Canada, Record Group 24, Vol. 15,664.

"To suffer death by being shot": Canada's sole military execution of the Second World War

Up to a few years before Confederation, there were vast array of crimes that colonial governments in British North America saw fit to hang people for.  Some 200 activities could get one executed including sodomy, stealing turnips, or wearing a disguise in the woods.  By 1865, only murderers, traitors, and rapists were considered loathsome enough to hang.  Soldiers, however, were subject to military law, and those who were found guilty by courts martial of desertion, cowardice, or murder could be sentenced to death.  Clearly, when it comes to punishment for one's transgressions, soldiering has its disadvantages.  The distinction between military law and civil law is critically assessed by Chris Madsen in Another Kind of Justice:

With little pretence to lofty ideals, military law serves strictly utilitarian and practical purposes in the maintenance of discipline within armed forces. Its endearing qualities are few. The application of military law is sometimes arbitrary and is heavily influenced by situation; it places the interests of service and group before the individual, and tends toward severe punishments. (Madsen, p. 3)

In the First World War, twenty-five (or twenty-six depending who is counting) soldiers were executed, largely on charges of desertion.  These soldiers' fate, and the administration of courts martial was largely trusted to British officers.  By the end of the conflict, the lack of a supreme Canadian authority to oversee courts martial decisions was trumpeted as unjust by advocacy groups who wished to abolish the death penalty.  While the end of death penalty for murder in Canada would have to wait until 1976, by the Second World War authority to execute a soldier had been transferred to Canadian hands.

The Canadian Army sentenced three soldiers to death during the Second World War, but only one unfortunate soul, Harold Pringle, was actually executed.  Harold Joseph Pringle was born on January 16th, 1920, at Port Colborne, Ontario, and had enlisted in early 1940.  By late 1940 he was overseas and was beginning to tally up what would become a large number of convictions for absence without leave.  In February 1944, he was dispatched to the Italian theatre, corroborating the (somewhat exaggerated) complaints of officers there that the theatre was being used as a dumping ground for undesirable personnel.  After serving with the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment in the Liri Valley, Pringle again went away without leave and in June of 1944 joined a gang of black marketeers in Rome.  Association with these outlaws would be his ultimate undoing.

ENTRY OF ALLIED TROOPS
 INTO ROME, 5 JUNE 1944
© IWM (TR 1844) Capt. Tanner.

It was in Rome on the 1st of November, 1944, that a fight erupted between Pringle and other members of the gang, which resulted in the shooting of Private "Lucky" McGillivary, a fellow criminal.  The gang took Lucky outside of the city, where they riddled the body with bullets and left it for dead.  On the 12th of December 1944, Pringle was taken into custody by the military police and charged with murder.  While his defence attempted to argue that McGillivary had died of his previous wounds when Pringle later shot him, and that there was insufficient evidence to convict him, the officers at the court martial were not convinced, and Pringle was sentenced "to suffer death by being shot." (Army Headquarters Report No 91, p.97)

The report of the Chief of Staff at Canadian Military Headquarters (London) to National Defence Headquarters (Ottawa) of May 1945 regarding the review of the Pringle case shows the legal grey areas in a case of murder or other civil offenses, especially, at the end of the war:

The fact that the accused and the victim were both members of the Canadian Army, and that the trial was by a Canadian Court Martial, is not, in my view, the controlling feature of this case.  In essence, this is a case which arises out of the shooting of one Canadian citizen by another Canadian citizen.  Considering the matter in this way, I have come to the opinion that the fact that the war is now over and won should not influence me to treat the matter otherwise than simply as a case of murder. (Chief of Staff, CMHQ to NDHQ, 12 May 1945, DVA (WSR) file C-5292 as cited in Army Headquarters Report No 91, p.98)

Three other cases of Canadian personnel sentenced to execution by British civil courts show that the murder of civilians was treated as a civil offence.  (See Jonathan Vance, Maple Leaf Empire, p.178)

A Telegram confirming Pringle's sentence.  RG24 Vol 12718. Library and Archives Canada

British courts martial had meanwhile tried two others in the Pringle case, and in the Spring of 1945 Sapper CHF Honess and Fireman WR Croft were executed. It took until 5 July 1945 for the Pringle sentence to be conveyed by order in council.  A post-war Army Headquarters Report recorded, in its dry prose, "The finding and sentence were promulgated at Avellino, Italy, at six o'clock on the morning of 5 July, at which time Pringle was informed of the disallowance of his petition by the Governor General in Council.  Exactly two hours later the sentence was carried out by a firing squad." (Army Headquarters Report No 91, p.99)

Sympathy for Pringle greatly varies among historians.  Andrew Clark wrote a biography which writes of Pringle in a sympathetic light portraying him as a victim of the war and the military system.  (Review by Lukits) He would likely agree with Chris Madsen, who noted that those executed in the previous war were not "bad apples", but ordinary men pressed into extraordinary circumstances who simply could not bear the strain.  (Madsen, p.46)  Jack Granatstein, however,  was not convinced that we should pity the deserter, criticizing Clark's "overly sympathetic treatment of Pringle, which all but demeans the suffering and sacrifice of those who stuck it out and fought."

Find a Grave Photo by Mark South

Granatstein's comment brings to light a philosophical question about honoring soldiers and commemoration.  Pringle is buried in Caserta cemetery with the honours accorded all Canadian soldiers by the Commonwealth War Graves Commision.  On first glance, this seems to be a place of respect which was not earned by this deserter and murderer.  When we think of the Commonwealth War Graves cemeteries, with their symmetric rows of identical tombstones, we consider their eternal residents' memory in relation to their sacrifices as soldiers.  A murderer who was put to death by the military seems rather out of place in this context.  Certainly many other soldiers buried in the cemeteries would have had military rap sheets, and civilian cemeteries bury the good with the bad, but the very fact that Pringle was killed by the military he served for seems problematic in light of the meaning of military cemeteries.  

The Great Fly-Killing Competition: Sudan 1941

A recent edited volume of primary documents, Combat Stress in the 20th Century is an excellent addition to the literature on psychiatry at war.  Editors Terry Copp and Mark Humphries have selected a broad range of articles from medical journals, archived reports, and accounts by medical officers and laymen alike which show the development (or some would say lack thereof) of military thought on mental breakdown and treatment in the commonwealth armies.

For those of more eccentric historical taste (you've come to the right place!), there are plenty of accounts of the more extreme sides of the subject, including electroshock therapy, barbituate sedation, or insulin shock therapy.  On the scale of strange, however, it is hard to top the account of FM Richardson's competitive health preservation.  It seems that to remove the risk of malaria and the sheer annoyance of the omnipresent fly, all Second World War British officers needed to do was start counting:

In a camp in Sudan where fly infestation was very bad and made life intolerable despite intensification of all the usual measures and the efforts of a strong daily fly-swatting patrol almost unbelievable results were achieved in little over a month by a fly-killing competition.  The unit was divided by tents and other convenient groups into teams of ten to twelve men and a running total of the number of flies killed by each team was published weekly.  A standard tin of which the fly content was known was kept by the G.M. Havildar to whom the teams brought their daily bag to be counted, recorded and burned.  The results soon became apparent and it was not long before the 100,000 mark was passed.  The I.H.C. sepoy would do a lot for a few rupees and a good curry bat, and enthusiasm soon rose so high that the best hunting grounds had to be allotted on an official programme like the blocks in a shooting jungle.  Finally the few remaining flies were being stalked by the more resolute competitors and one could see none where recently they had been swarming.

Allied Advances in the East African Campaign. Image by historicair

 This may all sound rather ridiculous but I was later discussing it with a man who had lived in Rumania, where, he said, flies had been innumerable.  A similar competition on a village basis for big money prizes was organized by the Government, and the results, he assured me, were so remarkable that flies virtually disappeared from the country and the disposal of the rubbish which the flies would have eaten became quite a problem.  I accept no responsibility for this statement which may have been merely a dramatic way of emphasizing the success of the scheme, but it is a stimulating thought for medical entomologists.  (FM Richardson, "Competitive Health Preservation in the Army", text of a presentation at the USAREUR and Seventh Army Medical Surgical Conference at Garmisch, Germany, 18 May 1981.)

In civilian life, cold hard cash was necessary to promote fly-killing! 
 Mansfield Advertiser, Mansfield, Penn., June 24, 1914
via State Library of Pennsylvania via
 Questionable Advice and Advertisements

Richardson is best known for his work Fighting Spirit which is a socio-psychological look at men in combat.  He suggested applying the  health competition to battle exhaustion cases.  This seems like a questionable cure for the malady.  If soldiers took the competition seriously, and paid attention to the publicized battle exhaustion rates of various competing units and formations, they would condemn those with symptoms of breakdown.  Hence, it is more likely that those suffering from combat stress would be under even more pressure from their peers, complicating their malady further.  In consideration of how important acceptance by the group is to soldiers, letting their unit down further in the competition may have increased their shame, reducing the already low chances of rehabilitation and return to unit.

Airminded Patriotism: Second World War social history takes flight

Studies of the Canadian home-front in the Second World War are becoming increasingly frequent, indicating that military historians in the country are becoming comfortable with the previously terrifying methodologies of social history. The wartime citizens of Saskatoon, Winnipegand Verdunhave all been the subject of recent scholarly examination and the University of Calgary has a brand new edition to the literature in Sarah Sewell's masters thesis, "Making the Necessary Sacrifice: The Military's Impact on a City at War, Calgary, 1939-1945."

A rising star in the constellation of published works is Jeff Keshen's Saints, Sinners and Soldiers, which is finding its way onto the lists of graduate seminars and comprehensive examinations alike. Keshen's work is a mirror image of your typical Second World War survey, as it crams the fighting overseas into a single chapter, a treatment traditionally reserved for the impact of the war at home. Keshen challenges the notion of a patriotic consensus, showing resistance to growing government control by farmers and workers, along with the selfish actions ofprofiteers. In Keshen's account, "The Good War" loses much of its moral lustre.

Another recent work by an undisputed heavyweight champion of Canadian military history, who has long sparred with social theory, is Jonathan Vance's Maple Leaf Empire. Vance's work is beginning to be assigned as an undergraduate text, as it conciselysurveys the Canadian military relationship with Mother Britain from confederation to the Second World War. While Vance does touch on moments of dissent, noting friction and misunderstanding between Canadians and Britons in the early years of the second war, his account is largely focused on Anglo-Canadian solidarity. The major Canadian presence in Aldershot, the Vale of York and Londonderry, are shown as a kind of reverse colonization, where, (especially after those damn Yankees arrived), the Canadians were welcomed with open arms.

Members of the "Eager Beavers" entertainment troupe from Montreal, who are visiting Aldershot, England, 4 July 1945.  Lieut. Arthur L. Cole / Canada. Dept. of National Defence / Library and Archives Canada / PA-152136

Vance notes that one expression of solidarity with Britain on the Canadian homefront was particularly air-minded. With the major threat to Britain in the early war coming from the Luftwaffe, it is no surprise that Canadians wished to purchase aircraft to do their part in defence. In 1939 the Wings for Britain Fund was established to channel patriotic contributions to the Air Ministry, and in August 1940 the cause was given a great leg-up by Canadian millionaire Garfield Weston. Upon hearing of the loss of 16 Spitfires in August 1940, Weston signed a cheque for ₤100,000. Weston claimed, "As a Dominion man, I've dug deep into my jeans to help with the war [...] But I've got my money on a winning horse." (Cited in Vance, p. 164) Others soon stepped forward, with the publisher of the Montreal StarJ.W. McConnell donated $1 million for a whole squadron built in Canada.

Even prisoners contributed! Globe 1940

Elites were not the only ones to respond to the call for money for machines. A particularly novel approach came from one Dorothy Christie of Montreal, who sold some of her finer apparel to start a mailing campaign to every other "Dorothy" she could find. Her card's read, "Is your name Dorothy? If so, rally around and help buy a Spitfire for Britain." (Vance, p. 166) Dorothys across the country held some 20,000 tea parties, concerts, car washes and yard sales.  Presumably the presentation Spitfire named "Dorothy of the Empire and Great Britain" was the result.

The UK film "The First of the Few" was known as "Spitfire" in the United States. http://thegoldenagesite.blogspot.ca/2013/01/blog-post_808.html

Wings for Britain eventually purchased more than 2,200 aircraft, including 1,600 Spitfires, speaking to that model's ability to capture the public imagination. Similar campaigns such as the Buy-A-Tank campaign, capitalized on the popular fascination with the machines of war, and contributed to a discourse of mechanization which pervaded the era. Added incentive for those that purchased a whole plane (the Air Ministry put the cost of a fighter at ₤5,000 for fighter, which actually only payed for the airframe), was selection of the name of the craft. Vance notes a puzzling choice of one Herbert Morris, who dubbed his spitfire "Dirty Gerty Vancouver"!

Advertisements featuring "Canada's New Mechanized Army", stirred the imaginations of young Canadians as well. As Cynthia Comacchio notes in her chapter, "To Hold on High the Torch of Liberty: Canadian Youth and the Second World War." in a recent edited volume, Canadian youth supported the war effort with an eye to the skies. Around 40,000 high school boys worked on modelling ninety different aircraft for British Commonwealth Air Training Plan purposes. (Comacchio, p. 43) The models were to be used to familiarize aircrew with a variety of allied and enemy planes. Comacchio notes that girls got in on the building as well, perhaps tiring of knitting socks for soldiers overseas. In some schools girls protested that boys were delegated modelling duties, and demanded participation. As Saturday Night magazine noted, "In these cases the knitting needles are idle while the young ladies cut patterns and paint up the finished models." (Saturday Night, 19 December 1942, as cited by Comacchio) Comacchio, as can be expected for a scholar with a keen eye for the construction of gender roles, notes, "Their participation, however, clearly stayed within the domain of traditional feminine skills."

The "Little Happy Gang" children's knitting club, who are knitting for Canadian soldiers and for the Canadian Red Cross Society.  Victor Bull / National Film Board of Canada. Photothèque / Library and Archives Canada / C-053880

These patriotic responses offer a counter to Keshen's mirror image of the "Good War".  Far from offering a black or white picture of the conflict, however, new works show that, despite the tankers of ink spilled examining the Second World War, complex new approaches may still be found. For Vance, "The speed and efficiency with which the Canadian community in Britain mobilized to support charitable causes like the Wings for Britain Fund demonstrates that Canada's empire in Britain from the First World War had never really disappeared." (Vance, p. 166) With a nod to Veronica Strong-Boag's A New Day Recalled, Comacchio's study notes that "what imprints individual and collective memory, is not the universality of experience so much as the fundamental elements of age and life stage." (p.28) War could become a shortcut to adulthood, yet also "inspired generational solidarity". (p.56) There is no questioning that the shared experience of the war shaped the Class of '45 in schools across the nation.

Further Reading:

A article from Legion magazine further elaborates on the Spitfire funds and patriotic contributions:

http://legionmagazine.com/en/index.php/2012/09/the-gift-of-air-power/

One of the Garfield Weston spitfires was discovered in an Irish bog:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2009347/Spitfire-recovered-Irish-peat-bog-70-years-crashing-Ireland.html 

Hayes, G., M. Bechthold, and M. Symes. Canada and the Second World War: Essays in Honor of Terry Copp. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2012. http://books.google.ca/books?id=ksabpwAACAAJ.

Keshen, Jeff. Saints, Sinners, and Soldiers: Canada’s Second World War. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2004. http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/toc/fy051/2004541329.html

Vance, Jonathan.F. Maple Leaf Empire: Canada, Britain, and Two World Wars. OUP Canada, 2012.