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GETTING DOWN TO THE BUSINESS OF LEARNING HOW TO SOLDIER:
Where or how I'd ever picked up the notion that Basic Training would be filled with days of charging up hillsides with simulated bombs bursting on every side. and machine-gun bullets burning the air a foot or so over our heads, I'll never know. Perhaps it was because I'd sat through too many World War I movies. What else could have given me the intense interest towards battle and heroic exploits? Actually, Basic Training was nothing more than a monotonous series of lectures, parade-ground drill, route marches through town, and out in the country, and of course, fatigue duties like scrubbing dishes in the Officer's Mess and fire picket assignments at night.

In the beginning we had very little opportunity to improve on our marching skills and arms drill because of the heavy snow covering the poor excuse of a parade-ground in behind the former furniture factory. In all respects you could hardly call it that. All it was was a bit of open space not much more than 50 yards wide and 40 yards deep with a rickety wire fence running along the street side of the yard. A few yards off the drill area were a couple of weather-beaten, unpainted ramshackle sheds, used several weeks later for gas-training when we were exposed to the eye-irritating, disabling and sickening effects of non-lethal war gases. All in all, it was damn hard trying to keep step when you couldn't hear the cadenced click of boots as one would on pavement. And, with all the snow and ice underfoot, any command requiring an abrupt change in direction of march usually ended with one or more of the marchers falling on their asses or pitching forward onto their faces in the snow. For a couple of weeks, about all the square could be used for was roll calls, a form-up place for route marches and for PT, which for the most part consisted of mayhem that we called "hot-potato" football. The guy in whose arms the football was cradled was immediately and vigorously set upon by anywhere from one to a dozen guys bent on separating him from the ball, in which there was a distinct possibility of 'said' person being also separated limb from limb.

Most of what we learned in Basic Training was accomplished through lectures. But even here, the facilities for learning the craft of war were rudimentary in every respect. The lecture rooms were nothing but wall-board partitions minus doors. We had no desks to sit at, nor even chairs or benches, In fact there wasn't a stick of furniture of any kind to suggest it was a lecture room. All there was, was a small portable blackboard. Because there was no seating of any kind we had to absorb what the lecturer had to pass on to us while either lying on our sides on the floor with our arms propping up our heads, or sitting, which was hard on our rear-ends. It wasn't the best of conditions for us to maintain interest in what the Corporal or Sergeant giving the lecture had to say. Except for the instructions we got on the Bren, taking it apart and and reassembling it, the other lectures, especially on map-reading were little else but sleep inducers. The combination of having to pay attention while in the ideal position for going to sleep, along with the dull monotone in which most instructors spoke contributed to the high percentage of the class dropping off into slumberland or very near to it less than halfway through the lectures. More than a few times we could hear the sound of someone snoring away. How we managed to get through our T O E Ts2 I couldn't hope to answer. In fact how any of us learned anything at all under the poor conditions is something of a mystery. That we did was borne out in our performance out in the field.

For their limited teaching or teaching capabilities, most of our instructors did as well as could be expected under the circumstances.. Like I'd said earlier, we did learn how to strip and assemble the Bren in the prescribed time, or pretty close to it. We did learn map-reading to a degree or we'd have been lost most of the times in the countryside around Stratford. We did learn the difference between the various war gases that we might expect to be subjected to on some distant battlefield. So, all in all, the instructors, God Bless their sometimes ornery hides! did the job they were paid to do. That some of the boys in the platoon took longer to absorb the stuff they tried to drum into our heads was to be expected—it having been not much different than in our school years. In school, you had the brainy ones who did their homework, the in-between ones, like myself, who weren't that far behind the top ten even though we did little or no homework, and then you had the slow-learners at the bottom of the class. not all of whom, of course were actually dumb, they simply were not interested in grammar and arithmetic, nor did they care a lick about Jacques Cartier and Champlain or any of the other historical figures in early North American and Canada's history, nor for that fact could they get all that interested in Gen.Wolfe's great victory over the French on the Plains of Abraham.

A few of the guys in our training company proved to be washouts in every respect when it came to learning all the many things that a good soldier needs to know to become an effective one. Those that couldn't pick up all that had to be learned were sent to an Army Vocational school to learn a menial trade or other—no doubt how to push a broom, stoke a stove or dig a latrine.

The one subject I seemed to know more about than our instructors was 'War Gases'. Since the trade I'd chosen to make my living at when I dropped out of high school mid-term in my final year was as an Industrial Chemical Technician and the fact that I had delved into a book titled Chemical Warfare, I already had some knowledge of war gases, enough to put me above that which the lecturers had accumulated through reading their training manuals. In my extensive reading of the book covering all the chemical agents used in the 1914/1918 war I came to know all the poison gases used by both sides in that horrific war. I learned a bit about their structural and empirical formulas and their physiological properties. And because of this extra knowledge I couldn't hold back the desperate need to make myself look good in the eyes of my platoon mates. When I got a chance to show off this knowledge, I did, rattling off the chemical names of the gases we were eventually exposed to: CAP—´óÏó´«Ã½â€”DM, all acronyms for the actual chemical constituency of the gases. CAP was chloraceto-phenone. ´óÏó´«Ã½ was bromo-benzyl cyanide. DM was Dimono-chloro-benzene. The first two were the lachrymatory gases, better known as tear-gases. The latter was a sickness inducing gas. Of course we also learned of the properties of the lethal gases, chlorine, phosgene, mustard and Lewisite. The first two killed by suffocation, while the latter two were the more frightful and disfiguring blister agents. On several occasions before I entered the service I generated chlorine gas in my chemical laboratory in the shed at the back end of our property, one time even carrying my experiment a little farther by observing what it could do to a living creature. Catching a mouse in the alley wasn't a big problem in those days since there was always enough garbage lying about to draw them to it. So I caught this mouse, dropped it into a wide-mouthed jar and then pumped chlorine into the jar. The poor, frantic mouse ran in wild circles around the bottom of the jar and then collapsed and rolled on its back, its legs kicking spasmodically for a few seconds and then stiffened as it died. What a cruel thing to do! But at least I knew how men must have agonized in that war when overcome with chlorine gas.

Chlorine was the first gas released by the Germans in World War 1 at Ypres. The French Colonial troops broke from their trenches in panic in their pell mell retreat to escape the poisonous vapour. The Canadians on their left stood their ground, however. Those that didn't suffocate in the clouds of greenish-yellow gas, applied wetted hankies or any other cloth to their faces, and when there was no water around, they pissed in their hankies and breathed through it. Their actions saved the Ypres salient from being taken by the enemy. The chlorine was released from cylinders and carried by the prevailing wind to the Allied lines where its heavy, greenish-yellow clouds seeped into trenches and shellholes where it soon choked the life out of the men sheltering there. The gas most feared, though, by the infantry was the blistering agent known as mustard gas. It was delivered by shells which on explosion vaporized or was thrown out as a fine mist, spreading the droplets in a wide circle, and when inhaled or coming into contact with the skin of an unfortunate victim usually resulted in a horribly painful death, and if death didn't come, it left the poor individual disfigured with huge watery blisters and years of intolerable misery after that.

It was only natural that those in command here would not expose us to the lethal variety of war gases. But they didn't hesitate in letting us have a good dose of the non-lethal, though discomforting effects of tear gas and a sickness-inducing gas. When it came time to go beyond the lecture phase on war gases and get into the nitty-gritty of the subject we were taken out behind the barracks to a ram-shackle old shed used as the gas chamber and by sections were led into the dingy and drafty interior. We didn't know what to expect, and I'm pretty sure that everyone, except myself, of course, suffered a few moments of apprehension and uncertainty, afraid of what the gas would do to them. I smelled enough noxious fumes in my many experiments in the lab at home and at school so I found myself looking forward to the experience. Inside the cruder than crude gas chamber we gathered in a circle around a heater of some sort with our gas masks on. After a few last minute words on what to expect, the Sergeant dropped a tear-gas pellet on the hot plate. And then the Sergeant motioned for us to remove our masks. In seconds the biting fumes brought a flood of tears to our eyes, but we had to stand there exposed to the gas until the Sergeant signalled, "Okay, on with your masks." No problem. Without getting overly excited and 'all thumbs' about it we got our masks on, stayed in place for a couple of minutes, then filed out into the fresh air. As we stood outside in the snow wiping our eyes, we watched as the second group took their turn in the chamber. Less than a minute later three of the fellows burst out of the door in panic coughing and rubbing their eyes fiercely. They couldn't take it. Other than this incident and the later one where most of us were, to varying degrees nauseated after exposure to the sickness-inducing DM, the whole affair went off as well as could be expected. Our brief teary and nauseating introduction to two of the war gases had made quite an impression on everyone, something to write home about in our next letter.

Two full training companies were billeted in the McLagan Barracks. One company had arrived two weeks earlier, most of the men being those from the draft that departed St.Luke Road barracks ahead of our group. Although they were only two weeks ahead of us in training some of the guys in this company put on airs like they were some kind of long-time veterans or something, looking down on us as though we were of some lower species.

There were three platoons to the company as war establishment called for. In our company, one platoon was made up entirely of Reserve personnel, commonly referred by the Active personnel as 'Zombies'. Neither at Stratford or at Ipperwash were they looked upon with favour by the 'Actives' or the NCO instructors. As for my own views on their choosing to march in the ranks of the Home Defence Army I never harboured any deep-down ill-feelings towards them. They had a choice and they made it. It was not for me to run them down. They had to live with their conscience and if it didn't bother them in any way, so be it. In fact I got to know a few real nice guys in that scorned group, decent guys who took their training with as much enthusiasm and vigour as any of the Active crowd. Whatever their reason for not going Active was their own business. It wasn't for me to judge.

The Platoon Officer in my #3 Platoon was Lt. William Bowman. He wasn't a big man, maybe 5' 8" or thereabouts. He sported a Clark Gable style moustache, although he looked more like William Powell a somewhat less famous movie star. It didn't take us long to realize that Bowman was a decent officer who was more than fair in the way he ran the show with our platoon. Although it might not have been the right approach to command men, the fact that he didn't come down hard on us every time things didn't go the way he wanted them to go, he used a little humouring and cajoling to sharpen up the drag-asses in the platoon, and there were a few of them that found marching drill not easy to master. On looking back over the years I spent in the army I wonder, perhaps, if the NCOs and our officers weren't a little too easy on us. An infantry unit is no Boy Scout troop and should in no way have been mollycoddled if the men were expected to be the tough, no nonsense fighting soldiers the army needed when it came time to go up against the enemy. The Canadian Army was far more democratic than the German Army, and possibly every other army, both friend and foe. As good as the Canadian Army in the field proved to be, I always wonder if it couldn't have been even much better than any other when the chips were down.

The NCO instructors in Basic Training, for the most part were reasonable and easy to get along with, except of course, when you tried to get smart with them. Then they could get pretty mean and tough. But since there were no troublemakers or shit-disturbers in our company, there was no need for them to be bastards. By and large we all got along fine and dandy even though at times we tended to bitch about this or that.

At this late stage in the game, over a half century after the fact, I've forgotten some of the NCOs we had in Basic Training, but I'll try my best to describe them. First and foremost that comes to mind was Sgt. Bell (be damned if I can remember
his first name). Bell was our #3 Platoon Sergeant and a pretty decent fellow, at that. There wasn't a guy in the platoon that didn't like him, and, to be sure, he got more effort out of us by being decent than if he'd gone exactly by the book and rode our asses. Regardless of his easy-going ways, you didn't 'dog it' when he was around. If you did, first you'd get a gentle reminder to sharpen up, and if you ignored his warning, that's when he'd come down hard on you and let you know what the army was all about and what would happen to you if you didn‘t smarten up. It just so happened we didn't have this type in our midst so he didn't ever reach that point of no return. The few who did step out of line a mite got straightened out pretty quick, not daring to push Bell any further. There was no disliking Sgt.Bell. We knew the kind of guy he was and we went along with him, and this showed up in the way in which we went at our training. Sgt. Bell was topnotch with us.

But I'm getting a little ahead of myself. I should have started with our officers first. Overall command of the Basic Training Centre was Major D.M. Ross, who I'd seen only once in our three and a half months in McLagan Barracks. Our Company Commander was Capt. Leckie, an unsmiling, no nonsense type with a Hitler-style moustache and the bushiest set of eyebrows I'd ever laid eyes on. I don't recall ever seeing him out on parade. Being a hard winter, I think he, along wiith every other officer preferred staying in the warmth of their offices than face the deep chill on a snow-covered parade-square. Like I said earlier, my #3 Platoon was under command of soft-spoken but firm, Lt.William Bowman. As for the other two platoons, one could have been commanded by a Lieutenant by the name of Asbury, who came to the Perth in mid-campaign in Italy, and the other by a Lt. Szumlinski, ex-star halfback with the University of Western Ontario Mustangs.
Now, let's go back to the Corporals; Again, I have to say, they were as decent and fair a group any of us could have hoped for, except for one, and I'll get to him at the end of this piece. It seems the junior NCOs floated back and forth between the three platoons. One day we might have Cpl. Lambie, a real joke-teller, calling out commands on parade or lecturing on the Bren or map-reading, and then the next day it might be Herbie Pike, the broad-shouldered young fellow who had a thick upper lip, but overall was not all that bad-looking a fellow. Cpl. Pike, as I learned some years after the war when I bought the fine history of the 48th Highlanders by Kim Beattie, ended up in this Toronto regiment and managed to survive all the heavy fighting around Ortona and elsewhere in Italy with the Hogtown* unit.

On another day we might get Cpl. Dempsey drilling us and marching us through the streets of Stratford on a short route march just to give us some exercise besides calisthenics. Corporal Garvey was another one of the NCOs taking us over on any given day. I'd say that he was the more proficient and knowledgeable of this fine group of individuals, especially when it came to lectures. Finally, there was Cpl. Walker, a small but wiry individual, friendly and full of spirit, with not a mean bone in his small stature. There was something about wee Walker, though, that told me he'd be no slouch when it came to a bare-knuckles showdown. Each in his own way, I like to think, had a positive influence on all of us. I, for one, appreciated them for what they'd done in preparing me for what was to come.

Like I said earlier on, there was one guy on the training staff who didn't hit it off all that well with the boys of #3 Platoon. Actually, Lance-Corporal Bob Grant might not have been as bad as I sometimes made him out to be. But there was something about him that didn't endear him to the men he had to work with, something that no one could seem to put a finger on to say what that something was. Let's just say there was a streak of phoniness in him and let it go at that. Since we were all of the same opinion, we couldn't have all been wrong in our evaluat-ion. Maybe it was that single stripe that gave him an air of superiority, or maybe it was the way he answered you when you asked him a question. After leaving Stratford for advanced training at Ipperwash I lost touch with Grant until I came to the Perths up in Hunstanton eight months later when I ended up with him in 18 Platoon. He was still something of a phony—not a prick—merely a phony, just someone you couldn't see yourself buddying up with. It wasn't until we were up in the mountains at Cassino where my judgment of this man turned out to be right on the button. He deserted his post and was caught on the loose in the rear area somewhere below Cassino. He was court-martialed and did time in detention.

It's hard for me to remember the names of my fellow comrades in #3 Platoon, but I'll do my best. The fellow I tended to hang around with most was Ken Mitchell. A quiet guy, didn't say too much, but easy to make friends with. Ken didn't look to be tough, but I'm sure he could have handled himself pretty damn good in a fight. He and I hit it off right off the bat when #3 Platoon was formed. Whenever I went downtown to a show or just to hang out on the main street corner ogling the girls walking by, I was almost always with Ken. Then we'd have a hamburger or hot dog or a sundae at Diana's Sweet Shoppe, and that's about it. Nothing exciting. But at least we were out of the barracks for awhile. A lot of guys, though, spent the evenings at the locals hotels sopping up beer. It was not something I cared to do, get half slopped up and feel the effects half the next day.
Then there was Bob Scott of slender build and curly hair who was about my size, maybe even an inch or two shorter. We got along very well, and I remember most of all my association with him was in going to the 'Y' every so often for a swim. I didn't care all that much for swimming, but I went anyway and we had our fun that way. Bob was a Remington Park boy—lived on South Pacific alongside the CPR tracks.
Another one I remember well was old Jim Renaud. I called him old because he must have been at least fifteen years older than most of us. He might have been a lot older than me, but I found him to be about as amiable and good company as anyone could hope for. Amherstburg was where Jim hailed from. Although I didn't pal around with him, I enjoyed listening to his stories of when he lived a good part of his younger years in the Northern Ontario bush country, hunting, trapping and fishing. Jim hadn't had much formal education, but he most certainly wasn't a dummy—not by a longshot. He had a simple way about him that made him as likeable a guy as you'd ever want to meet. I wouldn't get to know Jim better until about eight months later when I was in the same platoon with him after joining the ranks of the Perth Regiment in England . A great guy.

Cec Vanderbeck was another fellow I sometimes hooked up with when spend-ing an evening downtown. Like myself, he was the quiet type, never said too much, and you never had to worry about him getting upset over something you said or did. And that's what I liked about him. Cec didn't seem to be 'up' on things in general, like science, literature, sports, etc., but that didn't matter with me. It was just good to be around him. He also ended up in the Perths and was in my platoon all through the Italian campaign.

A few other names come to mind: There was Fred Hoy, the former teacher at St.Genevieve School, a man who was fast on his feet, in other words, a good sprinter. I remember Hoy and Norm Piche as being fastest runners in the platoon; Leo Chartier ended up with the Essex Scottish Regiment and was wounded about the same time as I did. Our names appeared in the same casualty list in the Windsor Daily Star, his, under 'Severely Wounded', mine under 'Wounded'; Ted Richardson, a clean-cut boy, shorter than me by a couple of inches. His family owned a shoe store in Essex; Roger Lansing, along with Leo Chartier and Ted also called Essex his hometown. A good-looking fair broth of a lad, close to six feet tall, Roger struck me as being a little too gregarious, a little too outspoken, and a bit of a loudmouth. Because of this, and since I was a quiet, 'mind my own business' type of guy, I didn't make any attempt at striking up a friendship. Other than that, he really wasn't a bad sort, as I found out much later on, in fact long after the war when he called at our shop as a salesman of abrasive wheels.

Other names come to mind; Wally Tourangeau, a nice fellow, a little taller than me, quiet, unassuming, who had a slight resemblance in his voice and even a smidgen in looks of that of Walt Disney's cartoon character, Goofy. Then there was Joe Klinec, a good-looking, dark-haired guy with an upbeat manner about him, one of the very few Zombies I could relate to. Then there was Leonard Soulliere, a genial Frenchman from out Belle River way. I never did get to know him all that well. Maybe I should have. And after him comes the farmer, or at least I think he was a farmer, an easy-going lad by the name of Overholt—actually he didn't appear to me to have the necessary physical credentials to go into the infantry. Apparently he must have thought so too, because he ended up in the Ordnance Corps. Another name that comes mind is slender, pale faced, austere-looking Art Holden. He was, I think, either the smartest or at least the best-educated man in the company. I'm not sure of it, but I think he was shipped out to Brockville for Officer Training. Whether he ended up with pips I don't know. A good fellow, but not my type because of his tendency to make me feel inadequate in regards to intelligence .And finally, there was Joe Malloy who slept in the upper bunk next to mine.

Weekend passes came every two weeks. When it came time for my first, the weatherman threatened to deny me and the others this privilege. Snow began falling that Friday morning shortly after reveille and picked up in intensity as the day wore on. By noon about 8 inches of the stuff had fallen, and was deepening by the hour. Since marching was out of the question, along with any other outdoor activity, we spent the whole day in barracks listening to lectures on weapons, map-reading, gas, etc., but not paying too much attention because our eyes were on the windows most of the time quite likely trying to will the snow to stop. Things didn't look too promising. The way it was coming down and piling up in drifts all over the place, it most certainly didn't bode well for our train-ride home. In other words, it sure looked like we were going to be snowed in for the weekend. And when word came around shortly after the noon meal that all train schedules had been cancelled, morale took a nose-dive. Major Ross, however, a high-placed railway official before he entered the service, had every available man hustled out to the train station to clear the tracks of the heavy drifts that had piled up in places high enough to foil even a snowplow. Though we worked like beavers, biting into the drifts with our shovels, it looked like a losing battle and we were all resigning ourselves to a weekend in barracks instead of spending it with our families. But after three hours of steady shovelling by some three hundred or more men, things began brightening up. By four in the afternoon, with the snow no longer coming down in blizzard proportions, the hard-fought battle appeared to have been won. At five-thirty, with weekend passes in hand and in ebullient spirits we climbed aboard a coach and found ourselves seats on the train bound for London and points west. What a happy and boisterous crowd we were!

In the coach I was in, and it was most likely the same in every other coach in the train, high-spirits reigned supreme. From the time we departed Stratford, right up to when we reached the outskirts of Windsor at Belle River the laughter, the animated conversations and the singing hadly ever slowed. It was a good indication of just how we felt on going home on leave for the first time. The civilians seated around us didn't seem to mind the hilarity and the noisiness of it all, but then there were a few fellows who'd 'hit the bottle' pretty good no sooner they'd gotten aboard, and began making fools of themselves. In fact they got be pains in the ass. By the time we reached London, at least a half dozen of these drunks were staggering up and down the aisle getting under people's skins. At least they got under my skin.

I wasn't exactly a teetotaller, because I used to go every now and then with a few of the guys from the gang to the Army & Navy Club on Tecumseh and Langlois to play darts and have a beer or two, but I couldn't understand why all these young guys my age had already developed such an unquenchable thirst for alcohol in whatever form it was brewed. One of the fellows, Ed Rudbal, a tall, gangling character, and his skinny, pimply-faced drinking buddy by the name of Taylor, were the drunkest and the most obnoxious of the lot. There were more than a few moments when I literally sat on the edge of my seat hoping they wouldn't come 'round and offer me a swig or make some nasty remark. I knew damn well that it wouldn't take much to set me off. I'd be up and at 'em. I had a pretty heavy right arm and though I couldn't box a 'lick' I knew that if I hung a good one on the kisser one of them would be on his back right quick. If my first two or three punches didn't do it, I knew I'd be in trouble.
Every time we went on weekend pass it was the same thing all over again— Rudbal and his drinking buddy and a couple other 'hangers on' would go lurching up the aisle singing off-tune and making crazy noises, and by the time the train pulled into Chatham both would end up almost falling down drunk. Anyway, this one Friday evening, while another batch of us were on our merry way home, and once again having to put up with the ruckus going on around us, with the drunks hootin' up the usual storm, I said to myself, "If those dumb assholes somehow manage to make it through the war, they sure as hell won't live long enough to enjoy the peace. I'll bet my bottom dollar the cops'll find one or even all of them at one time dead of alcoholic poisoning some night in one of the doorways on sleazy Pitt Street or in an alley in downtown Windsor somewhere. And that's exactly what happened, at least to one of them. They found Ed Rudbal this one cold night in the 60s lying dead in the doorway of a store on Pitt Street. How he survived as long as he did (more than ten or fifteen years I‘ll never know. I'd seen Ed downtown on several occasions not long after the war, and he was plastered every time him, in a drunken stupor, a scruffy derelict of a man—bleary-eyed, flushed face that obviously hadn't seen soap in days, or maybe even weeks. What a sight! It had to happen.

The PT period was the most popular hour in our training day. I'm not referring to the callisthenics part, but to the rough and tumble of a game we called 'hot potato', a game resembling football in a way, except there was no goal-line to cross and no points tallied up. The game started off with a pigskin kicked out onto the snow-covered parade-square as soon as we hit the outdoors, and the man in whose arms it happened to land became instant fair game for a swarm tacklers aiming to separate him from the ball. He'd run a few steps with it and just when the ton or so of beef crashed into him he'd get rid of it like a hot potato. And there was always somebody daring to catch or pick it up and make a run for it—to nowhere in particular. If the ball came your way you had to take it, had to risk life and limb or be branded something less than what you thought you were. You caught it and ran for dear life with a pack of wild animals in hot pursuit all yelping and yowling. If you happened to have a little more guts than average, or were stupid enough, you more or less dared the screaming and hurtling mass to take it away from you. But after several bone-crunching pile-ups you didn't play hero for long, unloading it instead onto the guy nearest you. But it was fun, far more fun than playing the real game. You had no padded equipment to protect you from the vicious hits you often took. Strangely, however, no one ever got hurt except for the odd bruise or had the wind knocked out of him. Yeah, those were great afternoons. Any frustrations or pet-peeves that might have built up during the course of a training day you got rid of on these occasions after you levelled someone you didn't particularly care for.

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