Roll Call, Volume 9, Issue 2, Fall 2023, Newsletter of the Friends of the New Brunswick Military History Museum (FNBMHM)
Roll Call, Newsletter of the Friends of the New Brunswick Military History Museum (FNBMHM)
ROLL CALL
NEWSLETTEROF THE FRIENDS OF THE NEW BRUNSWICK MILITARY HISTORY MUSEUM
AMIS/AMIES DE MUSEÉ D’HISTOIRE MILITAIRE DUNOUVEAU-BRUNSWICK
Volume 9, Issue 2 Fall 2023
Roll Call is published four times a year: Spring, Summer, Fall, andWinter. This issue is the second of 2023. More will follow as the Friends grow.Submissions or comments can be sent to the Editor, Hal Skaarup at hskaarup@rogers.com. For details on joining the Friends, please contact the Museum at506-422-1304 or email us at: friendsnbmhm@gmail.com.
Friends of the New Brunswick Military History Museum Executive:
President-Brian MacDonald
Vice-President- Hal Skaarup
Secretary- Doug Hall
Treasurer-Randall Haslett
Directors- Paul Belliveau, Gary Campbell, Robert Dallison, Brent Wilson,Harold Wright
Update
The NBMHM has acquired new staff and a great number of new artifacts. Articles to follow.
MONCTON DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR
Dr. Paul E. Belliveau
This article is based on a presentation to the PROBUS Club of Greater Moncton by the LCol “Ted” Riordan and the author on November 6, 2013. This is part one of a two-part article.
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As cities in Europe were being bombed and destroyed during the Second World War, Moncton went through abuilding boom, a population explosion, and dramatic lifestyle changes as it became a hub of activity due to Canada’s war effort.
Mark Twain once described Montreal as the first city he’d visited where “you couldn’t throw a brick without breaking a church window.” Well, if he had visited Main Street, in Moncton, during the early 1940’s, he would have said “you couldn’t throw a brick without hitting an Airman”. Why was Moncton Air Force Blue during the Second World War? The answer is that Moncton had been chosen as one site for the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP).
In the late 1930s, mindful of the need to play an important role in the loaming war, Canadian politicians conceived a plan whereby young recruits from Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand would join their Canadian counterparts in training schools to be set up across Canada. This country was seen as an ideal training ground for pilots, navigators, bombers, radio operators, air gunners and flight engineers.
Moncton was one of the few places in Atlantic Canada that had an airport, a pilot training facility, a landing/refuelling spot for amphibious aircraft on transatlantic flights in nearby Point-du-Chêne, and a railway hub for trains travelling between Halifax and the rest of Canada. In addition, the city was situated inland, away from the ocean and reasonably safe from the threat of attack or sabotage. As a result, Moncton was chosen as a suitable site for one of the 170 BCATP stations established in Canada. Between 1940 and1945, there were 21 Air Force units situated in the greater Moncton area. These units were located in either Moncton, Lakeburn, Scoudouc, or Salisbury. To accommodate these units, five major bases and two major airports were constructed.
AIR FORCE UNITS IN GREATER MONCTON AREA
No. 15 Recruiting Centre (15 RC) No. 5 Equipment Depot (5 ED)
No. 8 Service Flying Training School (8 SFTS) No. 18 Equipment Depot (18 ED)
No. 31 Personnel Depot (31 PD) No. 2 “Y” Depot, RAF
No. 17 Aeronautical Inspection District (17 AID) RCAF Station Moncton
No. 164 Heavy Transport Squadron (164 (T) Sqn) No. 21 Repair Depot (21 RD)
No. 6 Reserve Equipment Maintenance Unit (6 REMU) No. 10 Release Centre, RAF
No. 21 Sub-Repair Depot (21 SRD) No. 4 Repair Depot (4 RD)
No. 8 SFTS Relief Landing Field (Scoudouc) RCAF Station Scoudouc
No. 8 SFTS Relief Landing Field (Salisbury) No. 31 Repair Depot (31 RD)
No. 1 Maintenance Wing (1 MW) No. 101 Equipment Park (101 EP)
No. 1 Radio Direction Finding Maintenance Unit (1 RDFMU)
In the early 1940s, the population of Greater Moncton was slightly under 24,000, however, it has been estimated that at times there were over 30,000 air force personnel in the area. In other words, the city was overwhelmed with blue uniforms. For example, No. 31 Personnel Depot alone processed over 100,000 Commonwealth airmen and women on their way to training centres all over Canada and again as trained aircrew awaiting postings to active service. Air force personnel coming to Canada for training would get off the boat in Halifax and then get on a train for Moncton. They would stay here until they got their orders on where to go report next.
This large influx of air force personnel in the Moncton area had a tremendous impact on the city. Although most of the air bases in Moncton, Lakeburn and Scoudouc were virtually self-contained cities in their own right, they nevertheless effected Moncton in many ways. Thousands of service personnel at a time would throng the streets of Moncton, particularly from No. 31, where there was a frequent turnover. They had an effect on the culture, the transportation system, and the business community. They cleaned out the stores buying things to send home to their parents and families. Moncton merchants thrived on the booming business they brought, but at times the shelves would be stripped bare. Transportation and entertainment facilities were also strained, while the housing situation was one of the worst in Canada. The strain on transportation facilities aggravated many bus and taxi customers, and pleas were frequently heard for housewives to refrain from making their shopping trips at times when the city bus system was crowded with workers. In the evenings and weekends, the temporary visitors would congregate at restaurants, movie theaters, dance halls, and other public places in such large numbers that long lineups became common place, something Moncton had never seen before.
Monctonians bore the inconveniences with good grace, and the lack of friction during these years serves as a testament to Moncton’s tremendous hospitality. Airmen, thousands of miles from their own homes, many of them little more than boys, were welcomed into the homes of Moncton for evenings, weekends, and holidays. Many of these visits resulted in friendships that continued by correspondence long after the airmen’s stay in the city. The sounds of so many strange accents on the streets and in the homes of Moncton, from all over the Commonwealth, gave the city a new cosmopolitan air that accentuated the wider outlook on the world the war had brought. The material advantages these air force stations brought to Moncton were also many. The great construction projects during the building blitzes of the early years employed hundreds of local men.
The Civilian Volunteer Corps (CVC) was responsible for the air-raid drills and the first one was held on April 20, 1941, and thereafter blackouts were frequently held in the early years of the war. The CVC also organized and trained an efficient system of volunteer fire-fighters and first-aid workers to man more than seven hundred stirrups pumps in the city’s eighty Air Raid Precautionary Zones. In 1943, an evacuation committee was set up, to make up plans for the orderly evacuation of the city, should it prove necessary.
The Salvation Army’s Red Shield Hostel located on Church Steet Extension recorded over 95,000 visits by servicemen during its first year of operation. Entertainment facilities and sleeping accommodations were provided at nominal cost. The YMCA, the Legion, the Knights of Columbus, and the Jewish Congress operated service/leave huts on all bases in the area and at other strategic location in the city. The Kiwanis Club, the newspapers, and the radio station got together and organized a “Fag Fund” with the objective of supplying cigarettes to every Moncton Man overseas.
Food rationing was introduced in 1942 with coupons required for tea, coffee, sugar, butter, and other scarce eatable commodities. Butter, for example, was limited to 6 ounces per person per week. As the end of June 1943 neared, some restaurants were forced to close their doors because they had run out of their monthly allowance of rationed foodstuffs which could not be replenished until the next month began.
Gasoline was also severely rationed and by April 1942, a gasoline coupon was only good for 2 gallons of gasoline. Tires were just about impossible to obtain and many vehicles in the City spent the war on blocks. Meanwhile, scrap drives were conducted by volunteer organizations to collect paper, metal, rubber, fat, and bones, all for the war effort. For instance, anything containing metal that was expendable and movable went into the wardrive. An artillery field gun which had stood guard in the Bore View Park since the First World War ended up in an iron foundry, as did the streetcar tracks abandoned nine years before the Second World War began.
The CNR, always a key factor in Moncton’s life, symbolized the city’s involvement in the war. No railway terminal in Canada occupied a more strategic position in the war effort than that of the CNR in Moncton. It operated 24 hours a day, seven days a week to keep up with business. Most traffic between Central Canada and the Atlantic seaboard had to pass through the city. Between 1939 and 1945 the average number of cars handled in one day rose from 950 to 3,000. Nearly four million members of the armed forces passed through the city. At one time, trains were handled at the rate of one hundred a day.
Moncton was definitely a centre of immense activity with unprecedented growth during the second world war. Due to the city’s influx of thousands of airforce personnel from across the Commonwealth, business boomed in terms ofconstruction, retail, food, hospitality, and entertainment. Although Monctonians suffered minorinconveniences in their normal day-to-day activities, the citizenry stillrendered distinguish service in various war drives and volunteer work.
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Paul E. Belliveau, BSc, MSc, PhD, CD was Environment Canada’s Regional Manager of Laboratories in the Atlantic Provinces. He also served in the Reserve Army from 1960 to 1994 retiring with the rank of major as a Senior Staff Officer at the NB/PEI District Headquarters. He is the author of several military history books and essays.
A bugle led to a badge which led to hand-saws
by Harold E. Wright
This story begins with a bugle. An acquaintance of a dear friend said that she had a bugle which belonged to ar elative. She thought he was a bugler during the First World War. She had no need for it and wanted to dispose of it. I was happy to receive it.
I checked the bugle for names, numbers and any markings. Nothing. I asked for his name - William Lovatt. The first step was to get his service file and see what I could learn about him. Not only did his file tell me a lot about him, but it also opened up a wide window on the story of his wife.
William T. Lovatt was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1893. He came to New Brunswick to work on a Cossar Farm in York County.
He enlisted in the 26th NB Battalion on 15 March 1915. On his medical he was described as 5'2” and had an expanded chest girth of 36"- with the note “bugler”. That sealed the provenance of the bugler. It was a niece who owned it and it had remained in the family.
William sailed with the 26th Battalion in June 1915. He had some medical issues and the long and short of his story is that he was returned to Canada as ill on 31 March 1918. He was discharged from the Fredericton Military Hospital on 11 November 1918 after being ill with Influenza. He was released from the military on 27 December 1919.
During the Second World War William served with the Veterans Guard of Canada. His son Billy served with the RCAF during that second war.
Back to the bugle. I asked the niece if there were any photos of William. She brought to me his trio of medals, a triangular badge, four wedding photos and a document. His service file records that he was given permission to marry on 17 December 1917.
Further research showed that the lady in the photos was Elizabeth Lingham. They were married in St. Peters Church, Croyden on 20 Dec1917. His address was given as H.M. Forces, France. The one document in the collection is her “Emergency Certificate of British Nationality” stamped 24April 1918. This allowed her to come to Canada to be with her husband. This certificate includes her photograph.
The badge and the wedding photos are the focus of this collection though. The photos are of the wedding party inside the Church. The one photo outside shows two files of ladies behind the bride and groom, with the two ladies at the forefront holding crossed hand-saws. There is an unidentified man standing at the top of the stairs.
The badge has the image of some sort of tent or hut, and the initials W.G.T. Queries with military historians in Canada and the UK eventually found pay-dirt. NBMHM Friend Gary Campbell found the answer. The initials stand for Walter George Tarrant. Tarrant was a witness at their wedding and comparison of photos of him with the wedding photos confirmed that it is he standing at the head of the Church stairs.
The Surrey History Service of Surrey County Council in England provided a large file of information on Tarrant.
Walter, born in 1875 and died in 1942, was known as a Surrey master builder. His biographer described him as one of the most influential and prolific builders in Surrey in the first third of the 20thcentury.
By October 1914 Tarrant was under contract to the Director of Works (France) to build portable wooden huts for the British Expeditionary Force. To make up for the shortage of tradesmen, Tarrant employed women who he sent to France to assemble these portable huts. Elizabeth was one of these women. This must be where she met William.
The Imperial War Museum has a great collection of photos of Tarrant’s women assembling these portable huts in France. This was all new tome - finding civilian women working in France. The photographs show the women making plans, cutting and planing wood, assembling windows, assembling the huts, and even performing in a concert.`
The ending of this story is with a question. Did the Canadian Expeditionary Force employ civilian women as trades people during this war?
(Harold Wright Photo)
WilliamT. Lovatt Bugle, 26th Battalion.
WGT Badge, 1917 (Lovatt, Heritage Resources)
(IWM Photo)
Female carpenters of N. G. Tarrant Sons &Co. at work making huts in France.
William Lovatt married Elizabeth Lingham in St. Peters Church, Croyden, UK, on 20 Dec 1917.
Dr. David Merritt: a son of Loyalist roots serving the Union
by Troy Middleton
On a cool November day in 186132-year-old Dr. David Merritt Joined the Union Army. Commissioned a Maj, he was made the regimental surgeon of he 55th Pennsylvania volunteer Infantry and the Union army would be his home for most of the next 5 years. David was heading south from his home in Philadelphia to do his part to preserve the Union. Although Philadelphia was his current residence, he was much farther away from the home he grew up in, that being Saint John New Brunswick.
The Merritt’s of Saint John go back to 1662 when they first settled in North America eventually building a life for themselves in Rye New York. During the American Revolution the Merritt’s stayed loyal to the Crown. In 1783 they among thousands of other Loyalists left the American Colonies and settled in the British North American Colonies. The Merritt’s landed in Saint John harbour that June of 1783. Saint John at the time was far from the city it is today. Other then a small British Garrison, a trading post and sawmill, a few settlers and a local First Nations village there wasn’t much but rocks and trees. The British Government issued land grants to the Loyalist like the Merritt’s for their loyalty to the crown. Over the next 25 years the Merritt’s built a life for them selves as the city grew and became successful merchant family in the city. The family built a house in the city that still stands today as a National Historic Site. Started in 1812,now known as the Loyalist House Museum, making it the oldest unaltered wooden structure in the city. Born here on 14 September1829 was Dr. David Merritt. David grew up working in the family businesses. They had a successful farm inthe area as well as 2 stores, but young David had different dreams then to follow his father’s footsteps into the merchant trade.
When at the age 19 David left home and headed to Philadelphia to study medicine, graduating from Pennsylvania Medical College in March 1851 and set up a medical practice in the City brotherly love. It appears that his father, David Jabez Merritt, from letters between the 2, he was not pleased with his son’s choice. It is possible that his father had wished for him to stay and help with the family business, being the oldest sonor perhaps he wanted him to move back to Saint John after his studies but the letters do not make this clear. This was the start of an estrangement between the 2. In July of 1852 David married Rebecca Paris in Philadelphia. Again, thisupset his father. Found in correspondence between the 2 the father points out that the young women he was to marry was “beneath him both in family andeducation”. It is sad to point out that this was the last letter David received from his father although David wrote many letters to him for the next 20 plusyears it is apparent that none had been answered.
During his military career, Dr. Merritt, like all military surgeons at the time, had his far share of woundedtroops to deal with. The 55th Penn was organized in Harrisburg at Camp Curtin. The regiment left in late November for Fortress Monroe Va. In December 1861 They were attached to Gen.Sherman’s South Carolina Expedition moving to Port royal S.C. then to HiltonHead S.C. The year 1862 had seen theRegiment taking part in many of the battles and skirmishes to lay siege toCharleston S.C. With the original enlistments of the regiment expiring aftertheir 2 years in service many re-enlisted by 1st January 1864 andwith them was their surgeon Dr. Merritt. The re-enlisted men were granted a furlough from January 22-March 23. In April 1864 the Regiment was thentransferred Virginia. They would have seen like many other Units in the easterntheatre almost constant movement and battles as Grant kept moving forward. TheMonth of May seen them moving towards Petersburg Va. Seeing battle at SwiftCreek, Drewry’s Bluff and the Bermuda Hundred. June 1-12 the battle of ColdHarbor, then by the 15th they were at Petersburg Va. By August 1864and suffering from a bout of Malaria he decided to resign his commission. Afterrecovering his health Dr. Merritt re-enlisted with Hancock’s 1stVeteran Corp and was finally mustered out in 1866.
Returning to Philadelphia and hismedical practice he and his wife Rebecca went on to raise 2 children. A Son, David, born 29 September 1864 and a daughter Alma, 6 March 1871. They had lost 5children before this and it troubled Dr. Merritt deeply his entire life. Afterhis time in Union Service Dr. Merritt led a successful medical practice for thenext 20 years. All through his time in the army and after he continued to writeto his father telling him of his time in the service and of his success as adoctor. The fact that his father never acknowledged him after that last letterin 1852 troubled him greatly. He was a son looking to repair the brokenrelationship and for acknowledgement that he was a worthy son. But no letterever came before his father’s death in 1884. Dr. Merritt suffered with recuring bouts of malaria for the rest of hislife. Dr. Merritt finally applying for a pensionfor his military service which was granted in 1880. He took ill in 1884 and pasted away on 27 May1888 and was buried in Glenwood Cemetery Philadelphia Pennsylvania. Perhaps indeath he was able to reunite with his father and repair what had been lost.
Operation Goldflake
Nicholson,G.W.L. The Canadians in Italy, 1943-1945. Official History of the Canadian Armyin the Second World War. Vol. II. (Ottawa: E. Cloutier, Queen's Printerand Controller of Stationery, 1956)
(DND Photo)
Operation Goldflake, 1st Canadian Corps with Sherman tanks of the 8thNew Brunswick Hussars being loaded on Landing Ship Tank (LST) S263.
Operation Goldflake was the administrativemove of I Canadian Corps (in essence, all Canadian combatant units) andthe British 5th Infantry Division from Itay to NorthwesternEurope during the Second World War.
TheBritish-led forces had been fighting in Italy since the Alliedinvasion of Sicily (Operation Husky) in July 1943. The Allied commandersdecided to move the British and Canadian troops to fight in Northwestern Europein the spring of 1945.
OperationGoldflake was the codename of the plan to arrange the move and to conceal theshifting of such a large number of troops to another war theatre. The move waspublicized as a regrouping away from the Italian front to allow forrecuperation of the troops. A massive amount of planning was needed, sincetroops and administrative centres were widely dispersed in southern Italy.Trains and road convoys had to be arranged, while not leaving any of thefront-lines vulnerable to counter-attacks by the German forces. Troopsand materiel were to be moved from ports at Naples andLeghorn in Italy to Marseilles in France, at the rate of 3700 people, 40tanks, 650 wheeled vehicles, and 50 carriers each day.
Embarkation began on 22 February 1945 and most trips to Marseille took two days. It was then a five-day drive to the Belgian frontier, 1,085 km(674 mi). By the end of April, over 60,000 troops and support personnelhad been moved from Italy to North-western Europe
Speed was essential, but theAllies did not want the Germans to learn about the plans. The convoys would bevulnerable while in transit, so Operation Penknife was created to hide themovement of the Canadians out of Italy. A special, temporary organization,called 1st Canadian Special Basra Unit was created."Basra" was the code name for the cover plan and the unit included230 officers and men taken from other groups being disbanded (such as the No. 1Anti-Malaria Control Unit). Men would drive throughout the area in Italy wherethe Germans thought the Canadians were located and post location signs thatwere then moved the next day. All Canadian clubs, hostels, leave centres andhospitals were kept open. The Canadian forces newsletter, "The Maple Leaf"continued to be published in Rome until mid-March.
The Royal Canadian Corps ofSignals (RCCS) continued to maintain the normal level of wireless trafficby sending dummy messages. Their success was shown by the efforts of theGermans to jam these messages.
German documents captured after the war showed that Operation Penknife was successful in concealing the movement of Canadian troops from Italy to Belgium. Until late March, German intelligence maps showed the Canadians to be at various places in Italy. On 17 March 1944, when all Canadians were either in Belgium or northern France, the Germans still believed the Canadians were inthe Ancona area, although the exact location of the 1stCanadian Armoured Brigade was unknown. Only in mid-April did the German maps show the absence of Canadian troops.
Security was eventually broken by a Canadian journalist on 3 April 1945, announcing that all Canadian infantry and armoured troops had been reunited under the command of General Harry Crerar. Since the Allied command still had reason to believe the Germans were uncertain of the location of the Canadians, permission to make an official announcement of the transfer was delayed until 20 April. Canadians were officially informed on 23 April 1945, although media silence had only been maintained by censorship, since it had already become common knowledge for many in Canada.
(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 4166465)
LST 173carrying a cargo of vehicles and supplies entering Marseille harbour during Operation Goldflake, spring 1945. This operation involved the move of the entire 1 Canadian Corps and the 1st Canadian Armoured Brigade from Italy to Northwest Europe, where they were to join the 1st Canadian Army who had been in combat since 6 June 1944.
(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3524684)
Canadian Sherman V tanks, likely with the 5thArmoured Brigade, 2nd Armoured Regiment (Lord Strathcona’s Horse (Royal Canadians), 5th Armoured Regiment (8th Princess Louise’s (New Brunswick)Hussars) or the 9th Armoured Regiment (British Columbia Dragoons), moving out of an LST on arrival in Marseilles, France, 6 March 1945. This was part of Operation Goldflake, which involved the move of 1st Canadian Corps from Italy to North-West Europe, February-March 1945.
