War and the forces
IN MEMORY OF LOUIS STREET
|
In the new year, we will be approaching the 60th anniversary of many significant battles in World War II.
This will be a moment in history that I anticipate with great emotion and I intend to make the journey to several battlefields to commemorate the losses along with all of those remaining veterans who will be making their final pilgrimage.
For me, it will be an emotional journey as well as an historical one. It will be the culmination of three years of research into my family's past, of digging into memories that were long ago buried.
Shortly before my Grandfather's death, at about the time he became confined to his chair, he gave to me a family heirloom that, very unpredictably, was to be life altering.
He and I had been going through all the old albums and letters in the drawers when I came upon his brother's war medals. At 95, my Grandfather, was sharp as a tack yet was unable to tell me any stories about his youngest brother, Louis.
Perhaps it was the fact that he had been twelve years his senior or perhaps it was because after Louis' death nobody spoke of him. There were only three distinct memories that he'd attached to his brother: that his father, a veteran officer of the Boer War, had been terribly proud to lose a son in the war, that his mother had been devastated and never recovered and that he'd had a girlfriend in the UK while stationed there before the Italian campaign who kept in touch with his sister for several years after his brother's death.
Had I not asked a few questions his memory would have been all but lost. There are no letters, there had been no documents saved and no anecdotes fondly passed down through aunts and uncles, simply a name on a family tree.
Only my Grandfather remained from the wartime generation so I interviewed everyone still alive in the next generation that might have remembered Uncle Louis or at least remembered hearing stories of him. No one knew anything.
Puzzled by my curiosity, some members of my family had inquired as to why I would care about a common foot soldier. This statement shocked me to the core. Had nobody bothered to remember an uncle's sacrifice for his country because he wasn't a General or hadn't performed any heroic deeds for the annals of history?
I felt that surely this man deserved to be honoured reverently. What began as a simple quest to please my ailing Grandfather had become a passionate obsession that burned within me long after my Grandfather's death. Someone needed to vindicate Uncle Louis' life in service.
As a gesture toward my Grandfather in his last days, I took the medals down to our local Museum of the Regiments to see if there were any significance to them. I found there that they were medals given for various tours of duty during the war. The medals, in effect, told the story of his career.
The veteran that was helping me out suggested that if I could locate my great uncles' service number that I could apply to the National Archives in Ottawa for his records. This appealed to me greatly but I was at loss as to how to get that number. My Grandfather certainly would have no idea what it was so I began to dig a bit deeper.
When, some time later, we had reached the very bottom of his bureau drawer we found the only other memento belonging to my Uncle Louis. Somehow his photo album from the years of training in England had found it's way into my grandfather's bedroom although he didn't remember ever seeing it before.
As well as a few photographs and postcards, there was a lovely drawing rendered by a fellow soldier of my uncle while he slept in his bunk. On close inspection I discovered a kind of inscription on a duffle bag behind the figure of my uncle. As I turned the sketch on end it very clearly revealed a five-digit number, carefully inscribed by the artist.
I immediately filled in the form to be sent to the National Archives, hopeful that this might just be the number I was looking for, and within a few weeks a package was returned to me, the complete veterans' file on Louis Street. I was absolutely elated.
Armed with a wealth of new information I was compelled to retrace every footstep of his journey, to unearth every detail of his life in service.
The next year was spent voraciously reading various versions of Regimental History; the official history as well as the soldier's story. I now knew that Uncle Louis had been a proud member of the Seaforth Highlanders (based out of Vancouver, B.C.) and one of the very first men to enlist on September 15, 1939 after Canada had officially declared war on Germany.
He had been one of the "originals" as they called them. He was a highly trained member of the Mortar Platoon and courageously fought through a full year of almost constant battle with the 1st Canadian Division during the Italian Campaign until the day of his death, May 23rd, 1944 when the Seaforth's engaged in a massive effort to break through the Hitler Line enabling the allies to take Rome.
The Seaforth's suffered 210 casualties, the heaviest in one day that the battalion ever experienced throughout the entire war. The Hitler Line victory was to be the hardest won battle honour awarded the unit during the Second World War.
Through the Regimental Association I was able to find two veterans that had served with my uncle, one was his platoon commander and the other a comrade who was with him in his last moments. They have both provided me with valuable testimony that my Uncle had been a great soldier and that I should feel terribly proud of his sacrifice.
Uncle Louis had lived twenty-seven years of life and all that remains are a few medals and a small album. I suppose that most lives pass this way, with very few memories or keepsakes to pass on but something touched me about this man.
He has become my war hero and my children speak about him fondly and ask to hear more stories as though he were with us still today. He had been almost forgotten but never again.
by Karen Koonar
© Copyright 2001 Newsquest Media Group - A Gannett Company