“This is the 1st Para Brigade calling Second Army. Come in Second Army. Come in Second Army.” A desperate transmission sent September 20, 1944 by St. Thomas native, Signaler Stanley Copley, 1st Airborne, British Army. The transmission was sent from then Lieutenant Colonel John Frost’s small force of paratroopers holding the bridge at Arnhem in the Netherlands. The Bridge Too Far.

The next event worth mentioning was that we were very surprised to receive Mr. Winston Churchill, whom we transported to Placentia Harbour in Newfoundland, where he met Roosevelt for what is now called the Atlantic Charter meeting. We were a private ship, no flag officer carried; however we had a tremendous amount of brass present on this occasion: all the Chiefs of Staff and a myriad of staff officers who were in Churchill’s entourage.

Our workups and test exercises on the Prince of Wales were fairly extensive but we had had only one main armament shoot, when about May 22nd, HMS Hood and ourselves had to proceed to sea to intercept the Bismarck, being shadowed with radar by HMS Norfolk and HMS Suffolk, two county class cruisers. Our Captain came on the PA system and told the ship’s company that he anticipated intercepting the Bismarck at roughly six a.m. on the 24th of May, some thirty hours away.

At exactly six a.m. on the 24th of May we encountered the Bismarck at 26,000 yards, roughly thirteen nautical miles, twenty degrees to starboard. The Flag Office was in Hood and we proceeded in line-ahead with Hood leading. The Hood was a battle cruiser, without the armour plating which the Prince of Wales enjoyed. We were doing roughly thirty knotts and opened fire at 26,000 yards.

When the war was declared in 1939, I was in Noranda, Quebec, in a gold and copper mine. I came back from there in September to complete my final year in Physics at the University of Western Ontario. We had just started the University year when we were approached by the head of the Physics department to see if we were agreeable to having our syllabus altered to give emphasis to electronics. If you recall in those days electronics, certainly at Western, was a post-grad course, not an undergrad course. We agreed.

This request had really originated with the Royal Navy, who had been unable to find any electronic talent at home because, I gather, all of it had been bought up by the RAF. The RN appealed to the Royal Canadian Navy, who in turn approached the National Research Council. Things proceeded as one might expect, until somewhere about February 1940. I then met the first naval officer I had ever seen, one Lieutenant-Commander Finch-Noyes. He made it known to us that in a relatively short time we would be proceeding to service with the Royal Navy in certain not very clear duties. There appeared to be a great deal of secrecy involved. We attested the 24th of April and I became an acting Sub-Lieutenant, in the RCNVR [Royal Canadian Navy Voluntary Reserve].

Another in the series of letters home from the files at The Elgin Military Museum. Those on the homefront were desperate for news. Many of the letters found their way into the local newspaper - in this case the St. Thomas Journal so the community could share the apprehension, joy or sorrow.

St. Thomas Journal June 26, 1915

Writing from a hospital in France, Bomb Thrower Charles Tweed, who is reported suffering from concussion, tells his mother, Mrs. Annie Tweed, 20 Weldon Avenue, a graphic story of a charge on a German trench in which he figured. He was wounded by the explosion of a German bomb and removed to a dressing station. The letter follows:

Previously, on this blog we have heard about Bomber Gunner Stan Jones Sojourn in France and how he was reunited with a man, whom he knew as a boy, while being hidden from the Germans by a French Family. On that adventure, Stan became a qualified member of the Caterpillar Club.

Stan's North Sea Adventure took place prior to those events, when he was posted to Operational Training Station Kinloss, Scotland. At OTS, the airmen with various skill sets learned to function as a team and it was on one of those practice sessions that Stan qualified for the Goldfish Club. This club was open to aircrew who were forced to 'vacate the premises' so to speak and ended up in the sea.

What follows are Stan's recollections of this time and a letter from the Scottish fisherman who found him drifting in a dinghy on the North Sea.

This item was drafted a few years ago by Jeff Booth as background material for our Land Sea and Air educational programming. However, the story of St. Thomas resident,  Bill Hough is far too compelling to be confined to a particular program, so we have added some images and further research. You will note that the survivors recounts differ on a few points, probably because they may have been in different lifeboats or just because memories are highly personal perspectives.

As the Second World War moved into the final years, Canadians on the homefront were introduced to a new way to contribute to the war effort - by donating blood. The research by Dr. Charles Best and the Connaught Laboratories in Toronto produced a safe and convenient method for transferring the essential elements of blood in serum form to combat blood loss and shock on the front lines and military hospitals. In 1944 alone, Canadians contributed a million pints of blood destined for overseas.  The St. Thomas Times Journal took the call for donations to their subscribers by illustrating how local serving men benefited from the life saving gift - they did not shrink from raising the curtain on the severity of the injuries that required such a donation.  Captain Wynne Baldwin (wounded during D-Day operations), Captain Jack Jennings, (member of the Devil's Brigade-lost a leg when taking Rome), and Corporal Frank Oke, (lost a leg in Normandy while serving with the Hussars) all take the time to attest to the life-saving properties of this Canadian research.

A place setting for a guest who will never arrive - A tradition which acknowledges the sacrifices of war. There are several versions; this one along with the image, comes from the commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the Battle for Vimy Ridge in London, Ontario April 1, 2017.

His mention of the horrors of the Somme are compelling and  the toll on his body led to a Voluntary Aid Hospital near Chester in England. It is from this location that he writes to old friends in Canada.  Interestingly, although he was about 29 when he left England for Canada, he refers to himself as a Canadian. His letter appeared in the Aylmer newspaper under the title Calton Man was in the Battle of the Somme as set out below (with images added for the reader of today)

Sgt. Jack Stollery, from St. Thomas, Ontario was one of a very few who got to share his war with the whole country as an integral member of the Canadian Army Film Unit. While he also served on the Western Front, he was awarded the Military Medal for his exceptional service at the battle for Ortona in Italy. The English newspaper, the London Evening Standard put it this way on August 15,1944.

"Sgt. Jack Arnold Stollery, a Canadian Army photographer, has been awarded the Military Medal for gallantry which inspired the troops taking Ortona in Italy, says Reuter. The citation said:

"During the entire battle for the town his gallant conduct and devotion to duty was outstanding. His appearance with the forward troops in moments of great danger armed only with a camera was commented upon and was in no small way responsible for bolstering the morale of the fighting troops. Throughout the whole campaign, Sgt. Stollery has continually displayed great gallantry and devotion beyond the call of duty."

After the war, Jack spent some time with the National Film Board in Ottawa before returning to St. Thomas where he set up a photography business. Sadly, he died suddenly in 1974 at only 57 years old.