RESOURCES FOR CHAPLAINS AND MILITARY INSTRUCTORS
(Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Newfoundland, England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Italy)
(Also, special section on Japanese propaganda)
On this page, we will examine Combat Stress as evidenced in and among our Canadian and British allies and friends as well as some additional material on Australian and New Zealand soldiers. Our examination will include the early use of Canadian troops in a little-talked-about 'dry run' of the D-Day invasion, which went horribly wrong.  We will also examine in detail the misuse of the Canadians in a last-ditch effort to save Hong Kong and Singapore from the invading Japanese.  This is still remembered by the men and families of those who participated in those debacles, but not widely written about in books or explored in TV films and documentaries.  The men in those 'adventures,' endured horrible POW experiences at the hands of the Japanese soldiers which has gotten 'zero attention' in Japanese school textbooks.

The instructor should notice the similarity of combat stress themes on this page when compared to the previous page dealing with that of the Australian soldiers.  Students should also take note of the differences, especially when different theater's of conflict are examined, especially climate, terrain, weather, and enemy tactics.
VIEWER ADVICE:  This webpage contains some language, themes, and images that may disturb some viewers.  It was developed only for Chaplains and other military instructors.
We look first at some introductory short films and data concerning Canada's role in WW2.
Untold Canadian stories:
Canadian soldiers were sent to Hong Kong, just prior to the Japanese invasion there.
Canadian newspapers told the folks back home what was happening:
The Dieppe Debacle
The Dieppe Raid was a spectacular failure, just as Operation Market-Garden in Holland.  Some information has recently revealed that the Raid had a subrosa agenda: to insert a Commando group into the Dieppe area and secure an updated Enigma machine that had 4 rotors. This part of the raid, orchestrated by Ian Flemming, was also a total failure: no documents or machine was obtained.  Also in recent years, there has been historian apologists who state that the Raid was a rehersal or trial run of the later D-Day invasion in 1944.  This has no basis in fact.  The so-called 'lessons learned' from the failed Dieppe Raid were forthcoming from other sources.
For many years no one knew why the Dieppe Raid was proposed.  Many theories were put forth: to divert German troops from their Eastern front war with Russia or as a rehersal for D-Day landings.  The men who survived the failed operation were never told and went to their graves believing that it was all in vain. 

But that was not the Raid's sole purpose and now there is a book and documentary film that describes the true purpose for the Dieppe raid:
The book which inspired "Uncovered" the documentary film, written by a Canadian history professor and military historian:
Professor O'Keefe tells of his discovery:
Dieppe - from the History's Raiders film series:
A French film with English subtitles, details in pictures not seen elsewhere, the failed Dieppe Raid:
The Raid was featured in the "History's Raiders" series now in public domain:
A French-produced film showing the Dieppe raid and aftermath:
The raid was a massacre.......
Canadian soldier tells of his experience:
FAILURE OF THE CHURCHILL TANK AT DIEPPE
GERMAN PROPAGANDA ABOUT THE DIEPPE RAID:
CANADA STRIKES BACK
(A film series)
In 1964, CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) released a 17-part  radio program, "Flanders' Fields" which used actual veterans voices of WW1, to tell the story of how Canada entered the war and what happened.  It is now in public domain. (Some programs are illustrated with photos from the events described).

War Weariness in the Canadian Corps in the First World War:

Photos of Canadian soldiers, WW1 and WW2 that can be integrated into a slide presentation:
Hot work for Canadian soldiers manning artillery in next two photos:
Sucide prevention is explored in the main page, "CH Hughes products" concerning American troops.  
Here is some information about the problem that occurred among Canadian soldiers during and after WW1 and beyond.
After WW1, Canadian soldiers were in England for some time.  Trouble sometimes erupted, as seen in the next video.
Great Britain (England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland) also is examined on this page.  Most of the British soldiers in WW2 served in the European and North African theaters of operation.  Of course, they were also in the Far East and the RAF played a vital role in the re-capture of Port Moresby. in WW1, they were on the Western Front.
The National Anthem (God Save the Queen):
The National Anthem of the United Kingdom, (current: God Save the King):
British soldier:
1914: BRITAIN GOES TO WAR
British soldiers with their pets and recreation in their spare time:
THE ROYAL FLYING CORPS
In 1977-78, BBC Britain produced an excellent television series, "Wings," which portrayed the Royal Flying Corps.  It is now available on DVD and is also in public domain.
Sailor saved from sinking ship by a Canary
Britain in WW2

ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW WITH: Sydney Whitehead a British aircraftman with No 52 Wireless Interception Unit, RAF in Singapore, Malaya and Java, Dutch East Indies, 2/1945-3/1945; POW in Bandung Camp, Bandung and Boei Glodok Gaol Camp, Batavia, Java, Dutch East Indies, 5/1942-9/1943, aboard SS Makassar Maru from Batavia, Java, Dutch East Indies to Singapore, Malaya, 26/9/1943-29/9/1943 and in Changi and Kranji Camps, Singapore, Malaya, 9/1943-8/1945.

 

(Courtesy of the IWM)

ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW WITH: Ernest Warwick, British POW:
British soldiers were trapped at Singapore
A recent film tells the story of what happened to British troops in Singapore invaded by the Japanese.  Battlebox the film's title, refers to the underground HQ British control center in Singapore.
You can now visit the Battlebox HQ and see what it was like in WW2.  Life-size soldiers in wax are stationed around inside to show what it was like:
"BATTLEBOX" SCENES FROM THE FILM AND CLIPS:
"Battlebox" is followed by a sequel film, "Hong Kong 1942":
TROOPS ARE SEEN IN RARE FILM PREPARING IN SINGAPORE:
AUSTRALIAN SOLDIERS WERE ALSO TRAPPED IN SINGAPORE
Japan was quick to issue propaganda postcards of their victory at Singapore:
Postcard showing HMS Repulse attacked:
Japanese postcard showing HMS Prince of Wales attacked:
Japanese postcard celebrating conquest of Singapore:
Japanese propaganda postcard on the surrender of US and Allies at Bataan:
Here is the propaganda postcard Japan issued celebrating the attack on Pearl Harbor:
Japan used postcards extensively to promote the propaganda of their "Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere"
British soldiers killed at Dunkirk during evacuation:
BEFORE D DAY, THE SECRET OF THE ENTIRE OPERATION WAS PUT IN JEOPARDY DUE TO, OF ALL THINGS, A SERIES OF CROSSWORD PUZZLES.  IT ALL STARTED WITH A HEADMASTER AND ONE OF HIS STUDENTS:
LEONARD DAWE ALSO PLAYED FOOTBALL:
British troops return on 
D Day:
The British also had to be concerned with attacks on their coastline by German ships and subs.  Even Lightships came under attack, adding to the stress of those guarding the coast.
OPERATION MARKET-GARDEN
A few of the lucky Brits who made it back from the failed and flawed Operation Market Garden:
Several small reenactor groups have developed short films for the internet.  Here are two created concerning Operation Market-Garden:
"A BRIDGE TOO FAR" - excellent film gives an overview of Operation Market-Garden and uses a 'cast of thousands.'  Film Trailer:
Some Brits did not make it as seen in photo below of dead and wounded:
British and Germans during Operation Market-Garden:
Four Waffen SS troopers taken prisoners from the 9th SS Reconnaissance BN at Arnhem Bridge:
Canadian soldier at Arnhem:
Story of Major General Stanislaw Sosabowski, CBE, who was falsely blamed for the failure of Operation Market-Garden:
Chaplains at Arnhem

The Chaplains at Arnhem

On 29 September 1944 the Church Times wrote of the sorrow and disappointment of the nation on hearing of the withdrawal of Airborne Forces from Arnhem. The article concluded with these words:-
"One BBC correspondent, describing the escape, remarked that the men slipped off into the darkness after a prayer by the Padre. The Church may be proud of her clergy who go into the hazards of such battles with their men."


Fifteen chaplains were present at Amhem. On Sunday 17 September 1944, eight [nine]took off by glider and four [six] parachuted in.


The Rev John Rowell, with the Border Regiment took off in a thick mist from Burford. As they came out of the clouds they were so out of position in relation to their towing aircraft that the pilot had to cast off and the glider landed in a field of stubble close to Oxford. The rest all arrived safely.The Rev John Morrison, a Presbyterian Minister with the King's Own Scottish Borderers, was most heartened to hear the skirl of Pipe Major Laidlaw's pipes as he left his glider.


Late that afternoon the three Parachute Battalions moved off on their six mile approach to the bridge at Amhem. The Glider Borne troops were to secure the dropping and landing zones for the second lift. Already the chaplains were occupied in burying the dead and in assisting with the wounded. The 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment got through and held the northern end of the bridge until the Thursday morning. The fighting here was bitter, with lightly armed Airborne troops holding off repeated tank and infantry attacks. The Regimental Aid Post was set up in a cellar underneath the battalion's headquarters. Here Fr Bernard Bemard Egan SJ MC who had been the battalion's chaplain since 1941 assisted the two doctors. At one time there were over two hundred wounded in that cellar. On the Tuesday evening German tanks shelled the headquarters and the building was filled with acrid, choking smoke. Fr Egan was hit and was evacuated into captivity the next day.


The German respect of the Red Cross, even in the confusion of battle was of a high standard. The Rev George Pare on the second day went to some injured in a small clearing. A covering party was left at the edge of the clearing, and Pare, after committing himself to God, went out alone and then summoned his medical orderlies and their jeeps. As they left the clearing there was a fusillade of shots from the Germans on the far edge of the wood.


The other two battalions were increasingly pinned down on the outskirts of Amhem. Whole companies were wiped out and the situation began to be precarious. The Rev GL Phillips with the 3rd Battalion moved into the outskirts of Amhem. They went to ground and Phillips found himself in a house with the doctor, and their brigade and divisional commanders on the floor above. German tanks clanked along the sweet outside. On the Tuesday the doctor decided to visit a nearby hospital where there were British wounded. The chaplain went with him and they slipped in through the back door. A little later Phillips found that the Germans had surrounded the place, and he was taken prisoner. Fr D McGowan though, who came with the Parachute Surgical Team working In that hospital, was allowed to remain there throughout the battle. The Rev A Buchanan with the South Staffordshires was also taken prisoner in the vicinity of the hospital.


The second lift on the Monday met heavy opposition on landing. The Rev RF Bowers, with the 10th Battalion, broke his leg on the drop. He did what little he could with assisting the wounded and burials and then on the Tuesday tried to get a jeep loaded with wounded to a hospital. He came under intense mortar fire and had to turn back. He rejoined the Aid Post as it was overrun by Germans. Bowers, remaining with the wounded, found himself at the wrong end of a German bayonet and had to point firmly at his Red Cross armband. The Rev Alastair Menzies with 156th Battalion The Parachute Regiment also had the misfortune to be taken prisoner almost immediately on landing. The Rev HJ lrwin dropped with the 11th Battalion The Parachute Regiment. He moved with them towards Amhem, and ferried some wounded to a hospital set up in a hotel by the Divisional Headquarters. Here Pare encouraged him to wear a dog collar so that his men could immediately recognise him. He made one out of paper. A short time later he was killed by a mortar bomb.


By the Wednesday it was obvious that there was no hope of reinforcing the 2nd Battalion at the bridge and a perimeter began to emerge, just touching Arnhem and going to the bank of the Neder Rijn, about two miles long and half a mile wide. For the next six days this area was held by the 1st Airborne Division against continuous bombardment and repeated attacks. The Chaplains worked with the wounded with the exception of the Rev R Talbot-Watins, a Methodist minister with the 1st Battalion The Parachute Regiment, who had been with them, like Egan, from the beginning. Initially he assisted the doctor but after he was taken prisoner Watkins took over his duties. However, by the Wednesday the 1st Battalion was reduced to three officers and less than two hundred men. This remnant looked to Watkins for military as well as spiritual leadership. They were not disappointed.


By the Thursday nine chaplains remained with their units. This number was reduced to eight when a Tiger tank shelled the temporary hospital where Fr Benson was working. His right arm was shattered when he went to the help of other wounded. The arm was amputated immediately. When he heard that he would never be able to celebrate Mass in the usual way he lost the will to live and died two days later. His place in the hospital was taken by Pare, whose work typified that of the other chaplains. He constantly went round encouraging the wounded, helping them and the doctors, comforting the dying, scrounging food and water, and every evening taking a brief service on each of the packed wards.


The Senior Chaplain, the Rev AWH Harlow, was either at the Divisional Headquarters or assisting in an Aid Post. He was an older man with grey hair, whose calm and sense of humour gave a peace to those around him. Throughout the battle the chaplains reminded the others of normality. The prayers offered by those men were as much a part of that battle as each round fired. Harlow himself went into voluntary captivity on the Saturday. A truce had been arranged to enable the wounded to be handed over to the Germans, and Harlow was asked to accompany a group of these.


In the southern part of the perimeter the Gunners had set up their Aid Post in the house of a Dutch solicitor. His wife, Kate ter Horst, and their children remained there throughout the battle, living in the cellar. Eventually this was the only place providing medical care in the southern part of the perimeter. The house became so packed with wounded that it was only possible to move by walking on stretcher handles. The dead were piled outside. Mrs ter Horst never complained. Instead she offered every help possible. From the Saturday night onwards she went round even room reading the 91st Psalm from the Chaplain's Bible.


The Chaplain the Rev S Thorne was a quiet, shy man who never left the vicinity of the house and who was the exact opposite to Watkins and his more military approach. Mrs ter Host was surprised to see him clearing out a lavatory, a task which no German officer would have done. But this man had another side to him. On the second Monday German tanks broke into the perimeter and shelled the Aid Post. Thorne and a Bombardier Bolden went out and confronted the tank, holding up a Red Cross flag between them. The tank withdrew.


The withdrawal across the river took place on the Monday night. The Rev WR Chignell was the chaplain who said prayers in the cellars of The Divisional Headquarters. Then, with his boots bound to deaden the noise like the others, he joined the silent procession down to the river. It was a wild dirty night, ideal for a withdrawal, and Chignell was glad when he got to the bank of the river and found an assault boat, as he was a non-swimmer. The Rev J Rowell, who had reached Arnhem on the second day after his glider's emergency landing, took a party of wounded across the river. The Rev R Talbot-Watkins asked Bombardier Bolden to gather those wounded who could make it, and he took thirty severely wounded men across. Then he went back to look for more. He could find none on the other side but dawn broke, so he had to lie up during the day in the river bank, and swim across the river the next night.


Three chaplains remained with the wounded. The Rev S Thorne felt it his duty to stay, and once the withdrawal started he collapsed into a deep sleep. The Rev G Pare also fell asleep for the first time in days. He did not know about the withdrawal and was surprised at the silence the next morning. It was then his job to tell the wounded in the temporary hospital what had happened. The Rev J Morrison decided to stay with his wounded.


After the battle many of the wounded were moved to a converted barracks at Apeldoorn. Harlow, Pare, Buchanan and Thorne still had a vital ministry to perform. But eventually the numbers decreased and the chaplains themselves began to be moved into Germany. Thorne and Pare went together. Thorne decided that he should stay with the wounded but Pare jumped the train, and after several narrow escapes was sheltered by the Dutch underground. Fr McGowan was eventually moved to Apeldoorn from the hospital at Arnhem. Before moving  he literally buried two loads of arms which the Dutch underground later retrieved and then he escaped from Apeldoorn with a Dr M Herford. They took four days to reach the Rhine, but at the bank they got split up, and McGowan was stumbled upon by a German sentry, who almost bayoneted him, and was recaptured. He had come so close, it must have been a bitter disappointment.


On the 25th anniversary in 1969 twelve of those fifteen chaplains still survived. Five were parish priests, one a bishop, one a headmaster, others a school chaplain, a Circuit superintendent, a Benedictine monk, an Army Chaplain and one had resigned his orders to become a probation officer.

CH McGowan:
CH Egan:

Dutch woman who tended Scots soldier's grave dies

29 July 2020


For 75 years, Willemien Rieken tended to the grave of a soldier killed during WW2


A Dutch woman who had tended the World War Two grave of a Scottish soldier since she was a nine-year-old girl has died.

After the Battle of Arnhem in Holland in 1944, children who had lived near the scene of the fighting were given a war grave to maintain.


Willemien Rieken, 85, looked after the resting place of Trooper William Edmund from Musselburgh.


Her death has been announced by the Arnhem 1944 Fellowship.

She was one of the last surviving Flower Children, young people who laid flowers at hundreds of graves of Allied casualties in a ceremony after the end of the war.

Newspaper articles on
Operation Market-Garden
GERMANY PROPAGANDA CONCERNING OPERATION MARKET-GARDEN:
Instructors can find other sources of British military history that can provide context to their presentations, such as the "Crown & Country" series, now available in public domain.  The episode featured below, concerns "Aldershot," home to the British army.

“NINE MEN” is a British film that illustrates why training cohesiveness is important.  It is something the Chaplain needs to pay attention to when assigned a unit.  Other themes include attention to detail, obeying superior orders, taking care of one’s mates, and selfless service. Summary of plot from WIkipedia follows.

 

In a barrack room at a Battle Training Ground in England, a platoon of conscripts are complaining about blisters and are impatient to get into action with the enemy. Sergeant Jack Watson tells them that they need a little bit extra to be successful in combat, which he illustrates with a story from his experience in the Western Desert Campaign.

 

His story is then shown in flashback. Lieutenant Crawford, Sergeant Watson and the seven men under their command are travelling through the Libyan desert in an Allied convoy, when their lorry becomes stuck in the sand and the convoy moves on without them. As they work to free themselves, they are attacked by German aircraft, injuring Crawford and Johnson and setting fire to the lorry. Setting off on foot and carrying the wounded, they struggle through a sandstorm until they come across a derelict hut. Lieutenant Crawford orders them to hold out there until help arrives but then dies. With only a limited supply of ammunition and their own wits to help them survive, they are then besieged by Italian troops. By various ruses and skillful use of their weapons, they are able to hold out until the Italians make a final assault; as the British soldiers use the last of their bullets and finally resort to a bayonet charge, reinforcements arrive supported by tanks, whereupon the Italians surrender.

 

Back at the barrack room, Watson concludes his story as the bugle sounds for dinner.

MUSIC THAT INSPIRED THE BRITISH:
British soldiers in North Africa, Europe, and the Far East:
British soldiers in Burma:
British soldiers stop for a cigarette and a 'cuppa' (cup of tea):
The Brits also had their collection of trophies and souvenirs:
"Mad Jack" in photo below, (circled) leads troops ashore with sword:
"Mad Jack" leading troops playing bagpipes:
British and German soldier photos which could be used in a block of instruction with Powerpoint:
Toward the close of the war, British and American soldiers learned that the German army was utilizing under-age children as soldiers:
NOTICE THE BOYS WEARING GERMAN UNIFORMS WHO WERE CAPTURED, IN THE FOLLOWING FILM:
Hitler had plans to use the German youth organizations as a way to indoctrinate them into the Nazi party and German army.  This was a disgrace.
There were German young people who opposed Hitler and the Nazi party. Some were executed: