May 28, 1940 I enlisted and in ten days was sent with nine others to Fort Osborne, Winnipeg, Man., to become part of the A3 R.C.A.T Center as an instructor of recruits. The A3 personnel were sent to Camp Shilo for the summer, then back to Fort Garry, Winnipeg for the winter of 1940–41. The next May the training personnel was split and half were sent to Fort Brandon, Man., to start the A4 Royal Canadian Artillery Training center, where I remained until it was broken up about May 1st, 1944, when I was sent to Camp Petawawa, Ont., to instruct batteries of the Reserve army in summer schools, lasting two weeks for each regiment.
I was offered the post of instructor at Simcoe, Ont., for the 25th Reserve Regiment before they left Petawawa and reported there on the completion of the summer schools’ schedule. I was sent home for discharge from there two years later with the rank of Battery Sergeant Major (Warrant Officer Second Class) and was discharged in Calgary October 18, 1946.
It was hard to become a civilian again so took employment in a furniture factory there for two years to become accustomed to civil life again and start paying all of my own bills, whereas I had been taken care of by the army. Several men, whom I trained in For Brandon live in Calgary and speak to me as “Hello, Sergeant Major.” I missed the army life for a long time and still wish I had made a life career of it from the time of the first war.
Shortly after entering the service, I had purchased an Artillery emblem, which I sewed on my red lounging sweater. Two chaps saw it and asked me to get them each one like it. That started a wonderful business, done in my spare time, which added immeasurably to the family income and helped me put in my time off duty. We paid for our home and many things our family needed from the profit they gave us.
Soon the little six-inch breast emblems turned into 18 inch jockey silk cushion tops with decorative braid and either an Artillery of Air Force emblem, as in both Winnipeg and Brandon the R.C.A.F. was close to us. At one time I had ten subagents selling for us across Canada, even in my own camp, as at that time I was kept busy buying silk for tops, broadcloth for the backs, also braid and having them sown together by an asthmatic old maid, then distributing them to my salesmen who got 25 cents each. I paid $1.05 plus the 25 cents if anyone else sold them, but got from $2 to $2.50 for some of the nicer ones.
Maroon, medium blue and medium tan ones went best, so I charged more. LIttle Moms sold quite a few in Calgary to stores and did a wonderful job with the family while I was gone. I cleaned out the silk supply at Eatons’ and Doings’ in Brandon and either had Moms buy and send me some from Silkolina in Calgary or took a roll with me on my bi-monthly weekend at home. Miraculously the demand stopped when peace was declared.
I qualified to drive all military vehicles at Brandon from motorcycles to heavy truck, station wagons and Bren Carriers, so when Ken was with me for a day on his way overseas, I asked my Battery Commander for the use of a Jeep and the day off duty, then told Ken to walk over the hill so he would be out of sight of the camp. I picked him up there and we continued to the hills east of Brandon which were not fenced and were used occasionally to teach drivers to manage the heavy trucks on rough country. We dogged that Jeep around the hills for several hours, enjoying every minutes, and Ken liked it so well he told me he could get a 4 p.m. train for Montreal and wished to do so instead of taking the 12 noon one. I am sure he remembers that day yet, as we surely played together with no worries.
George Wilkins telephoned me once from downtown Brandon that he had come to see me. He had just been transferred to Paulsen, Man., from an eastern school, and took a weekend pass to visit me. I took a daytime downtown pass and me him, then we returned to the camp, but I had some misgivings as to the proper proceeding, as I ate in the Sergeants’ mess and slept in their quarters, while he could not according to army custom and discipline between ranks. I took him to the gunners’ hut and introduced him to some of them asking them to take him to their mess hall for his meals. I met him again as soon as I had had my supper and we visited until bedtime when I ushered him into the sergeants’ quarters, introduced him to the fellows there and borrowed a bed of a fellow who was away on school, so that was solved.
The sergeants and sergeant-majors made no difference in his rank which was the equivalent to our gunners, but chatted with him as the son-in-law of an equal in rank, and that was what he was. I wanted to then, and have since wished I had had and Air Force crown sewn on his sleeve so he could have gone right into our mess and lounging room, but didn’t quite have the nerve as one stiff-necked person could have made things quite sticky for me and I was making too much money to risk demotion or other financial decrease. So I didn’t promote him for the night and day he was with me.
I had appealed to my seamstress to be introduced into a family which had children and the Roberts family was the answer with Dorothy 12, Jack 10 and Shirley 8. We spent many happy times together, going to a movie, swimming, having them to dinner at our mess and we did the Fair in Brandon one day. Our good times cost me some money but I was invited several times to have dinner with the whole Roberts family and the three children helped me mentally in that I missed mine terribly. Moms and I had them to supper at a restaurant one evening and allowed them to order for themselves. Shirley, 8 ordered chicken haddie, and when it came said, “It’s just fish!”
I have carried on with these army experiences as though this is my autobiography. I hope you will enjoy reading them as I relive them in my mind. Will all of the strife nowadays culminate in another manpower slaughter? Our own family is past them in age, excepting possibly Ken who is Air Force now, but what of those young huskies in high school and younger?
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