Like many of his generation, my grandfather spoke little about the War. I know he’d been part of the Allied forces pushing up through Italy, and I knew vaguely that his tank had been hit by a rocket and, his knee busted, he had to be dragged to safety. Then, a few years before he died, he took a memoir course and somehow was talked into putting pen to paper.

Only about 5 or 10 pages came out of the effort, but they are some of the most powerful 5 or 10 pages I have read. Part one, below, comes from the class volume, “Remember When”.

The Trials and Tribulations of a Non-Hero in World War II, Part One
by Jim Allison

In April of 1941, six of us from the hometown of Vankleek Hill went to the recruiting centre on Mountain St. in Montreal with the intention of joining up. Bill Smith, Lewis Conway, Tom Bolton, and Bob Cunning were all nineteen; Bill Cunning was only eighteen, and I was seventeen. Bill and I both became nineteen there and then!

I was the youngest, and I guess I looked the part as the recruiting sergeant told me to go home and come back when I grew up. I and the others started to leave when he hollered at us. Someone said, “If you don’t take Jim, you don’t get us!” At that, the sergeant said to me, “You already look older!” It was decided that if the army accepted me, the others would join, not a bad deal in the sergeant’s mind: one kid for five capable fellows.

We were transported to Saint-Jean, Quebec, the home barracks of the Royal Canadian Dragoons. There we were issued uniforms, boots, etc., and assigned to barracks. The following morning at 6 a.m. they had us out for PT which was followed by a several-mile run. As we passed through the gate I noticed a deep ditch to the right and dove into it. Unfortunately, I landed right on top of the Regimental Sergeant Major who was also trying to avoid the run! He immediately said he was putting me on charges. Being young and brash I asked, “Me or we?”

He then asked me if I had shaved that morning, and being truthful, I said that I hadn’t. As a result, he put me on report for not shaving! The next day I was paraded, much like a convict, before the Major I/C of B Squadron. My crime was read out, and then the Major asked if I had anything to say. I said that I had neither the whiskers nor the shaving gear, and his reply was, “You are in the army now and will shave every day. Go draw the necessary shaving gear.”

My punishment was being confined to camp for the weekend, not much of a punishment under normal circumstances. However, that weekend we were getting passes to go home. After weighing the pros and cons, I decided that I would go home anyway, not the smartest decision on my part.

When we returned Sunday night, two Provost Corporals met me and escorted me to the cell block. The following morning I appeared before the same Major and was charged with being AWOL. I explained to him that I couldn’t let the other five hometown boys appear without me, as it would be embarrassing to my parents. My punishment was fourteen days confined to barracks and a very one-sided discussion on what kind of soldier I was becoming.

After that, I seemed to do all the right things and rather enjoyed the training. Mid-summer we moved to Camp Borden to continue our training. In November of 1941, we were given leave to go home as we were slated to go overseas in a couple of weeks. The final day of departure was hard, tears from my Mom and my sisters, and lots of hugs. Dad took me to the train station where we met the others and their dads, as well as the senior statesman of the area. Our goodbyes were very formal handshakes only as men in those days did not hug or get emotional. Christopher Ward, a World War I vet, gave us some final advice: “When they holler ‘Over the top,’ jump up, but make sure to slip back!”

Back at Camp Borden we boarded a train for Halifax, but the initial stop was in the train yards in Montreal. It just so happened that for several months preceding April 1941, I had worked for a chemist in a paint factory adjacent to these train yards. I told the boys this and said that we could probably all phone home from there, with the result that about thirty of us descended on the office. They not only welcomed us but did most of the dialing, all at no cost to us!

When we got to Halifax we boarded the Empress Delpacifico, a South American ship. We were part of a convoy of over one hundred ships which was to depart during the darkness of the following night. The only excitement was that the Sergeant Major, a less than pleasant fellow, was thrown overboard and had to swim to make it back to the wharf. He was then escorted to the ship by one of the port vessels. The next time he was seen was after we landed in Liverpool.

Our troop was initially assigned to quarters on E deck, a very nice place. Later some ‘brain’ decided these quarters would be ideal for the guards and we were asked to move. We said “No,” and the next thing we knew we were facing about twenty-five Cape Breton soldiers with guns drawn and bayonets attached. The sergeant again asked us to move, or else they were going to have the pleasure of moving us themselves. We moved down to the brig in the bottom of the ship!

The following day we were paraded before the Captain of the ship and our Colonel. The Captain explained that we had a choice: to accept the Colonel’s punishment or his. He then reminded us that as a Captain, he could treat us as guilty of mutiny and hang us, while the Colonel could only give us a thirty-day confinement. It was an easy choice.

We spent the rest of the trip in the brig, a very scary place to be when we were under torpedo attack as we were locked in with no way to get out if we were hit. We were fortunate, but not three other ships which were sunk by torpedoes. The food on board was terrible: tripe and bully beef! We arrived in England early on the tenth day, and then took a train to Blackdown, a village where we were to bivouac. That night, we experienced one of many German air raids.

Our training continued in various places in the south of England from Nov. ’41 to Nov. ’43. It was during this time that I had several mishaps. The first was trying to map-read in a blackout. We had to memorize the route, which was fine except that there were no street or road signs, all having been removed when the threat of a German invasion was thought possible.

On the route we were given, we were to make a left-hand turn on the next paved road and then continue on the same road to the bivouac area. Well, I instructed the driver of the armoured car to take the next left. He did as I instructed, but it turned out not to be a road but a landing strip for Bomber Command. When one plane practically took our heads off as it landed, we knew we had made a mistake! We were then met by a number of Air Corps police who told us in a not-so-pleasant way where we should go, and fast!

The second problem I encountered was on commando training: hand-to-hand combat training and running to build up stamina. We were on a five-mile run and, after a couple of miles, we were puffing like steam engines. We were directed to a hole in the side of a hill which had five blind passages and only one way out. This, and the fact that there were two canisters of DM gas and a number of canisters of phosphorus smoke spewing out their poison, was unknown to us.

Our smart Sergeant, Punchy D, wanted to toughen us up and had doubled the amount of gas and phosphorus smoke. As a result none of us came out! The instructors had to don their gas masks, go in, and start pulling out the fallen soldiers. When this task was completed, they counted heads and determined that one soldier was still inside: me. They searched again and dragged me out, and thought I had died. Apparently, I was thrown on a snow bank to await the arrival of the ‘meat wagon.’

Thankfully, a Corporal Wiseman was not satisfied that I had perished, and after some more checking decided that I was not dead, just comatose. He called an ambulance and I was taken to the 14th General Hospital. The wards in the hospital consisted of bed after bed with about forty to fifty soldiers. It just so happened that one of the nurses on duty was a former teacher of mine, while the other nurse was a good friend of my Dad! I was immediately moved up to the first bed in front of the nurses’ station, and was called the nurses’ pet.

It is interesting to note that because the phosphorus smoke attaches to the lungs in opaque flakes, it took three weeks before it cleared enough to allow the X-rays to show my rib structure. It was much longer before they could see my lungs. Anyway, as you can see, I survived a little the worse for wear.

In the fall of 1943, we were shipped to the Mediterranean theatre.

Jim Allison was born in Vankleek Hill, ON in 1924. He served with the Royal Canadian Dragoons from 1941 until 1945. He then worked for the Montreal Trust Company in Montreal, retiring as a Vice-President. He is the father of three, and he has lived in Peterborough since 1986.