Tag Archives: Legion Magazine

Battle of the Atlantic: A U-boat hunter remembers

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An item from the Legion Magazine.
Front Lines
Stephen J thorne

Canadianletters.ca

Battle of the Atlantic: A U-boat hunter remembers

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

The best part of my job without a doubt is meeting veterans. The vanishing generation of men and women who served in the Second World War and Korea holds a special place in my heart. They’ll soon be gone, and every opportunity to sit down with a soldier, sailor or air force veteran of those wars—of any war, to be sure—is to be cherished. Many, like Elmer Auld, are in their late-90s; some are 100 or more. For a surprising number, their wartime memories remain vivid. Such was the case with Auld, a sonar operator aboard a corvette on the notorious North Atlantic Run—a U-boat hunter, a terrific interview and my favourite column of 2022.

 

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Military Milestones

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Love bombing: the story of the last woman executed in Canada

STORY BY SHARON ADAMS

Marguerite Pitre became a footnote in history on Jan. 9, 1953, when she was thirteenth—and last—woman executed in Canada.

She might well have faded into history, as most working-class people do, were it not for an ill-fated friendship and a history-making murder half a world away.

That friendship was with Joseph-Albert Guay, a jewelry salesman in Quebec City. Guay was also a friend of Pitre’s brother, Générux Ruest.

 

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Misery, optimism and homesickness: WW II Christmas letters

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An item from the Legion Magazine.
Front Lines
Stephen J thorne

Canadianletters.ca

Misery, optimism and homesickness:
WW II Christmas letters

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

Even at the best of times, Christmas can be a confusing, bittersweet morass of nostalgia, loneliness and longing. Nowhere is this more evident than a Christmas at war.

Whether it be soldiers at the front living in filth, airmen flying flak-filled missions over Germany, or sailors running the U-boat gauntlet in the North Atlantic, a Second World War Christmas was a time of camaraderie, care packages and stinging reminders of all they were missing—and all they had missed.

For some folks back home, the season could remain a lifelong reminder of a lost loved one.

 

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Pocketpal 2023
Military Milestones

 Wikipedia

How one flying ace became the luckiest man in the war

STORY BY SHARON ADAMS

First World War flying ace John Herbert Hedley might well have been the luckiest man alive.

Captain Hedley was the observer in a Bristol F.2B biplane fighter piloted by fellow air ace Lieutenant Reginald “Jimmy” Makepeace when they were caught in a dogfight Jan. 4, 1918.

To escape machine-gun fire Makepeace put the aircraft into a steep nosedive. Hedley experienced what is known as “negative Gs,” the feeling roller coaster riders get as the car starts its steep descent and they are lifted up in their seats.

 

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