May 19, 1942
“Something’s up!” announced Turnbull, one of our platoon-mates. “Basher’s here. Looks like we’re being shipped out.”
We had hardly seen our commanding officer, Lt-Colonel Hedley Basher, since we had been sent to the south coast over a year ago. I remembered him standing stiffly erect on the parade ground in Aldershot with his huge St. Bernard, Royal, beside him.
Turnbull’s news couldn’t always be trusted, of course. A few weeks ago he’d heard “for sure, for certain” that the Canadians were being sent to fight in North Africa. Which never happened. So we had learned to separate the truth from Turnbull’s bull. But it turned out that he was right this time. That morning before inspection, Lieutenant Whitman had told us to pack up our gear and report to the parade ground at 1100 hours for an address by our commanding officer. (Turnbull immediately put on his I-told-you-so expression.) During the inspection, Mackie was missing.
“I see that Private McAllister is not gracing us with his presence this morning,” said Whitman dryly. “Have him report to me as soon as he returns.”
This wasn’t the first time that Mackie had been absent without leave. He now had a girlfriend named Mavis that he saw whenever he could. It had been customary for Mackie to have several English girlfriends on the go — until he met Mavis at a dance just after we were transferred from Oldlands Hall in January to an army camp on Salisbury Plain, near the ancient monument of Stonehenge.
After a month on Salisbury Plain we were transferred south to Witley Camp, near a town called Horsham. On weekend leave, Mackie would take the train from Horsham up to Salisbury to see Mavis and sometimes he didn’t make it back to camp till Monday morning. He’d been docked so much pay for being AWOL that he practically owed the army money. I began to worry that he might not show up before we were shipped out that morning.
As we packed up our gear, Turnbull said, “This could be it, boys! The Russkies want a Second Front to take the heat off of them. Time for us to have a go at Hitler!”
Overhearing this, Sergeant Hartley retorted, “Cut the baloney, Turnbull. We’re not gonna be kicking Hitler’s backside out of Paris anytime soon. We’re just getting some special training so we can put on a show for the king and queen.”
We all groaned and Pullio wisecracked, “Gee, I hope the two princesses get to come, too!”
I knew that there were many people who agreed with Turnbull. On a weekend leave in London I’d seen demonstrators in Trafalgar Square carrying banners that said Second Front Now and Aid Our Russian Allies. They thought that Britain should attack Nazi-occupied France to help the Russians, who were battling the German invaders. But Winston Churchill wasn’t crazy enough to invade Hitler’s Fortress Europe just yet, I thought. At least I hoped he wasn’t.
By 1100 hours we were all lined up on the parade ground but there was still no sign of Mackie. Lt-Colonel Basher appeared with the other officers (and with a soldier holding Royal on a leash) and told us that the Royal Regiment was shipping out to join the entire 2nd Canadian Division for special combat training. He said that he was sure we would do the regiment proud and we all cheered and threw our caps in the air. Soon we were taking down tents and hauling our bags towards the khaki army trucks that had pulled into the camp. I was really getting worried about Mackie.
When most of our platoon was seated in a truck, I suddenly spied him sauntering among the tents. “Hey, Mack, Mack, over here!” I yelled. “See the sergeant. We’re pulling out!” Then I saw Hartley leading Mackie off to the officers’ quarters and my heart sank.
About twenty minutes passed while we all sat and waited. Then a kit bag was tossed into the truck, followed by Mackie, who swung himself down beside me. We all cheered and Mackie, looking perfectly relaxed, said, “Wouldn’t wanna miss the show!”
As we rumbled down the country roads I asked him what had happened in the officers’ quarters.
“Aw, nothin’ much,” he replied. “Twitman said he’d deal with me later and to get myself and my kit into a truck. So here I am!” He flashed his big grin and put me in a headlock, rubbing his fist in my hair.
“So how’s Mavis?” I asked.
His face darkened. “Aww, well, not so good. She wants me to marry her, but she says she’d never leave England. I like her a lot, but not enough to become English,” he said with a shrug.
After an hour or so we began to catch glimpses of the sea, and soon saw signs for the city of Portsmouth. As our truck pulled into Portsmouth harbour there were hundreds of men in khakis with 2nd Division patches milling about between jeeps, Bren-gun carriers and scout cars.
“Holy cow,” said Mackie, “this is some big shindig we’re in for.”
As we climbed down from the truck and hoisted our kit bags, Sergeant Hartley held up his hand and we followed him towards another group of Royals. We were then lined up and marched towards a large ferry. As we walked up the gangway, I asked a sailor where we were headed.
“To the Isle of Wight, chum,” he replied. “You’re all off on a little ’oliday!”
I’d heard about the Isle of Wight, just off England’s south coast. I knew that it was a popular place for summer holidays, but was pretty sure that our combat training would be anything but a vacation. And yet we all felt in a holiday mood. After we got off the ferry in a town called Fishbourne, we climbed into trucks that took us through tiny, quaint villages with thatched cottages and square stone church towers. Someone started singing the Basher’s Dashers song and we all joined in. Then the sun broke through between the clouds and sent shafts of light onto hillsides dotted with spring wildflowers and grazing sheep.
I could see why they called the Isle of Wight “England in miniature.” Only 23 miles wide and 12 miles deep, the island is shaped like a teapot. We were heading towards Freshwater, a west coast village at the tip of the teapot’s spout. There we were billeted in tiny holiday cottages that had sweeping views of a curving beach and white chalk cliffs. Our holiday mood was boosted even higher when we learned that the Royals were the first regiment to arrive on the island. Old Basher had acted so smartly when he received his orders that we had even landed a few hours ahead of General Hamilton Roberts, the 2nd Division’s commanding officer.
The next day the other regiments began arriving. The Essex Scottish were bunking down in a holiday camp just up the road and the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry (nicknamed “the Rileys”) were stationed in a village a few miles inland called Shorwell. Turnbull announced that the Calgary Tanks regiment was unloading Churchill tanks on Queen Victoria’s former private bathing beach.
That afternoon we had time off so I took a long walk along the white cliffs above the sea. I discovered a tall granite cross that was a memorial to Alfred Lord Tennyson, the famous Victorian poet who had once lived nearby. The area was called Tennyson Down after him. I remembered old Miss McRae, my high school English teacher, reading his poem, “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” to us in her quavering voice:
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
That fatal cavalry charge had happened over eighty-five years ago — yet “theirs not to reason why” still seemed the British army’s way of doing things, I thought to myself. I hoped that the “theirs but to do and die” part of the poem didn’t still apply.
That evening we were told that the Isle of Wight had been sealed off to all visitors and that our mail would be strictly censored. Then we were shown a film called The Next of Kin that told of a commando raid that had failed because of careless talk. There was lots of whistling at the seductive blond actress who coaxed military secrets out of young soldiers and passed them to the enemy. But we were all quiet at the end when the troops were cut down by enemy gunfire.
The next day our training began in earnest at 0600 hours. And it was fiercer, tougher training than anything we’d experienced so far. For twelve hours each day we crawled through ditches and obstacle courses, made yelling bayonet charges at sandbag dummies and learned how to scale the white chalk cliffs using ropes and aluminum tube ladders. There was also a daily speed march that was a killer — 11 miles doing double time in full battle dress in hot weather. And every day they set faster targets for us. Sometimes old Basher would drive by and give orders from his car.
By the second week they were firing live bullets over our heads as we crawled under rolls of barbed wire — a quick lesson in how to keep our heads down. We practised with automatic weapons like Bren guns and Tommy guns and learned how to fire from the hip while running. We were also given a new submachine gun that everybody hated, called the Sten gun. We called it “the plumber’s nightmare” because it looked like an odd assortment of pipes. Sten guns often jammed and would go off if they were dropped. One day a lieutenant was leading his men over a fence carrying his Sten when it went off and the bullet went right up his arm.
We also used live ammunition and threw grenades like baseballs while training in house-to-house fighting. For this we used a ruined village that had been bombed out during a raid by German planes. By early June, most of our time was spent doing practice runs of beach assaults. About thirty of us would be loaded into each of the blunt-ended landing craft that would then roar towards the beaches until grounded. The ramps would be kicked down and we would charge into the water carrying our weapons above our shoulders. Sometimes the water would be neck-high or even over our heads. Once I saw Mackie, who couldn’t swim, floundering in deep water, but within minutes he was on the beach holding his rifle triumphantly over his head.
With all the hard training, Mackie didn’t have much time to brood over Mavis. A group of us would often go into the pub in Freshwater in the evenings and Mackie was already flirting with several local girls. By now his limp was completely gone and his dancing was as wild as ever. We also met men from the Essex Scottish and other Canadian regiments and there was a real sense of comradeship from the hard training we were going through together. We didn’t know exactly what we were preparing for, though nobody believed that it was just to put on a show for the king and queen. After so many months without action, we felt proud to be fighting men once again.
On the morning of June 11, Turnbull let everybody know that he’d heard “something big was up.” Sure enough, that afternoon the khaki army trucks started pulling in near our little beach cottages and we were taken to Cowes. There we were told that the whole 2nd Division was taking part in a practice assault landing on the English coast. Its code name was Exercise Yukon. Steamers with landing craft on board were waiting in the harbour, and Churchill tanks were being loaded into one of them.
Once on board we were given our orders. At first light, there was to be a mock attack on either side of the town of Bridport in Dorset on England’s southwest coast. We were then to advance inland and capture key targets.
By 0300 hours we were a few miles off the Dorset coast, in rough seas. A baby-faced soldier we all called Smiler became seasick and vomited on Murphy’s leg. Murphy swore at him but then the smell made him vomit too.
Before dawn, the sea had calmed a little, and the landing craft were lowered for us to go ashore. As we sped towards the coast we could just make out the pebbled beach ahead and hear the waves breaking on it. When the ramp was thrown down we charged into the water and onto the beach, just as we had practised so many times. But there was no firing from any of the English forces who were supposed to be “defending” the coast from attack. We soon overran the gun emplacements above the shore, taking the English soldiers completely by surprise. As they held up their hands, Whitman approached the sergeant in charge, who seemed completely flummoxed by the whole thing.
Another of our lieutenants, Ryerson, was poring over his map. “We’ve landed in the wrong place!” he called out to Whitman. “There should be a church steeple over there,” he said, pointing his finger. “We’re about two miles away from our target!”
Whitman vented his anger on the poor English sergeant who was standing there with his hands up and who knew nothing about Exercise Yukon.
“We could have been Germans!” Whitman spat. “What if this had been real?”
The sergeant asked if Whitman was going to report him. “No, I won’t,” Whitman replied in his best English accent, “but wake up, man, this is your country!”
“Yeah, right, Twitman,” Mackie whispered to me, “they coulda been on the alert and shot us!”
Whitman wheeled around red-faced and barked out, “Let’s go, men, on the double. We have time to make up!” We trotted off westward and, about twenty minutes later, reached the beach where we should have landed originally. But we weren’t the only ones who were late. The South Saskatchewan Regiment and the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders from Winnipeg had also been put ashore in the wrong place. And the big landing craft with the Calgary Tanks on board hadn’t even come ashore yet. Exercise Yukon seemed to be a bit of a shambles. Turnbull later reported that there had been some top-brass generals watching from the cliffs and that Ham Roberts had been very embarrassed.
“Aww, gee, I feel so-o bad for him,” jeered Pullio and we all chuckled.
“It was the British navy guys who screwed up, though,” Mackie pointed out. “They put us ashore in the wrong place.”
We returned to our camp on the Isle of Wight and the speed marches and beach assault practices resumed. Ten days later we were told there was going to be another big practice manoeuvre, to be called Yukon II. So on June 22 we were once again trucked to Cowes, put on the same ships as before and sent to the same bay in Dorset. This time the seas were calm so there was no vomiting and the British navy crew put us ashore in the right place. We landed just before dawn on the beach that had been our target before, and managed to overrun the gun positions and move inland and take our targets in the town of Bridport. Although our part of the exercise went quite smoothly, we heard that the landing craft carrying the Essex Scottish had gotten lost and that some of the troops had once again landed late.
“Way to go, Navy,” Smiler scoffed.
“Well, let’s hope the brass are happy,” said Murphy, referring to the generals who had once again been watching from the clifftops. “We did our part perfectly!”
As we sailed back to Cowes under a perfect blue sky, dozing shirtless on the decks in the hot sun, we certainly felt happy. And we felt proud of what we were able to do. I thought back to my last leave home after Camp Borden, when I’d overheard a neighbour say to my mother, “Well, the Army certainly seems to be making a man of your Alistair!” This had made me cringe at the time, but now I felt as if this just might be true.