World War Wednesdays: Christmas at Auschwitz

SS officer Karl Hoecker lights a candle on a Christmas tree only weeks before the liberation of Auschwitz, USHMM

     Thanks for bearing with me through some weird technology weeks! As of now I believe things are back to normal and hopefully that won't ever happen again. I realize that this week's topic is a bit dark for the holiday season, but I've been doing some work on the Holocaust lately and happened upon this story. It's important to point out before we start that the Jewish prisoners would not have observed the holiday, but Christian Polish inmates did celebrate to the best of their ability during the five Christmases during the camp's operation. In addition, the Nazis employed at the camp held their own horrific festivities, as will be mentioned. These descriptions come from the testimonies of Polish prisoners who survived the infamous death factory and were compiled by the Auscwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum.

     The first Christmas Eve behind the barbed wire in 1940 was one of the most tragic, and created a terrible tradition which was repeated in subsequent years. On the roll-call square, the Nazis set up a Christmas tree complete with electric lights. Beneath it, they placed the bodies of prisoners who had died while working or freezing to death at roll call. Former prisoner Karol Świętorzecki later recalled that Lagerführer Karl Fritzsch referred to the corpses beneath the tree as “a present” for the living, and forbade the singing of Polish Christmas carols.

A Christmas tree standing in front of Block 15 in Auschwitz I, Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum

     The next year, the Nazis organized another dark Christmas. During the return from slave labor on the construction of Auschwitz II-Birkenau, they killed around three hundred Soviet POWs who were too weak to walk that day. According to an eyewitness account by former prisoner Ludwik Kryński, there was a second roll call at 6:00pm after the SS men had finished the first roll call and eaten their supper. In temperatures well below freezing, the prisoners were forced to listen to Pope Pius XII's Christmas Eve proclamation recited in German. Forty-two prisoners succumbed to the cold, and numerous others were brought to the point of nervous breakdowns at the sight. 
     Prisoners also tried to celebrate in their blocks and attempted to help their fellows whose spirits had been broken. An account in the Museum collections by Józef Jędrych from Block no. 10a describes how “the singing of German carols began, and then like the waves of the sea came the powerful words [from a Polish carol] ‘God is born, the powers tremble’ and others, until the final chord in the form of the Dąbrowski Mazurka [the Polish national anthem]. Everyone exchanged warm, cordial embraces and cried for a long time. There were those who sobbed out loud. . . . Such a grand moment never fades from memory. That Christmas is fixed forever in my heart and memory.”
     Henry Bartosiewicz smuggled in a small Christmas tree, which stood in room 7 block 25. Polish Army cavalry-platoon commander Witold Pilecki, a hero of the camp resistance movement, adorned it with a White Eagle carved from a turnip.

Christmas Eve Władysław Siwek. Auschwitz State Museum (APMA-B-I-1-107)

     The Germans set up another tree at Auschwitz II-Birkenau in 1942 and once again placed the bodies of murdered men beneath it. Former prisoner Krystyna Aleksandrowicz recalls their deaths: Before Christmas in 1942, the SS men put up a Christmas tree for us. On Christmas Eve, they gathered the labor details from the men’s camp and ordered them to carry soil in their coats. They shot any man who gathered up too little soil. Then they stacked a whole heap of corpses underneath the Christmas tree.”
     That Christmas was twenty-two year-old Walentyna Nokodem's first at the camp, and she later reflected on that horrible tree: "I remember my first Christmas in Birkenau. There was a Christmas tree and they gathered us up in the roll-call square, and under the tree they put the bodies of man, the bodies remained there for the whole Christmas, and they forced us to look at them. They put the Christmas tree by the end of our section, just by the barbed wire. I can't remember exactly but there were hundreds of bodies of male prisoners. It was my first Christmas in the camp. The women didn't want to look. We all cried."
     In her Auschwitz Chronicle, the late Danuta Czech, the Museum historian, notes under the date December 24, 1942 that, in the evening, Polish women prisoners in the Stabsgebaude [staff building] lighted candles on a fir bough that had been smuggled in. Carols were sung in many places around the camp, which lifted people’s spirits and gave them hope of surviving. In Block 18a, Christmas Eve had a religious dimension. A prisoner who was a Roman Catholic priest obtained some bread and used it as a substitute Host.

     By 1943, the November arrival of new camp commandant Arthur Liebehenschel had improved the prisoners' lives and there were no macabre "presents" that year. Many of the Polish prisoners received communion wafers in parcels from their families and shared them with other prisoners, including the Jews. In many blocks, the prisoners organized Christmas observances. 

     1944 was the last Christmas spent at Auschwitz. Since the days of the Third Reich were numbered, the holiday atmosphere was completely different. Father Władysław Grohs de Rosenburg, the prisoner priest, was even allowed to hold a midnight mass. The women in Birkenau prepared “Christmas gifts” for the children in the hospital, using material supplied by other women to sew about 200 toys. They attached two lumps of sugar or a piece of candy to each, and wrote the children’s names on the presents. One of the women dressed up as St. Nicholas and passed out the presents on Christmas Eve. Fifteen children from another block also received presents.
    Auschwiz-Birkenau Museum historian Teresa Świebocka says that in 1944, Leokadia Szymańska, who was then a patient in the camp hospital, made a small Christmas tree that is now part of the Museum’s collections. It features Polish flags and a Polish eagle at the top.

     The camp was liberated shortly after, on January 27, 1945,  finally granting the wishes made during the five Christmases observed there.   

      I hope this glimpse into some of history's most terrible Christmases was an interesting and thought-provoking reminder of how much we all have to be grateful for this holiday. I'm looking to explore the camp's celebrations held by Nazi guards and staff next week so that the two stories can be compared. Thanks so much for spending part of your busy holiday season reading this post!
     Delany Leitch (@DLeitchHistory on Twitter)

World War Wednesdays: Africa and the Second World War

Senegalese Riflemen who fought with the French

     This week, we're embarking into uncharted territory with WWW's first foray into a non-western perspective. I'll admit that my primary interest in Canadian and German history has dominated the narrative for the past two years, but a lack of knowledge of other sides of the story has also prevented me from expanding the horizons. Naturally, I have been interested in reading about the North African campaign of the Second World War and the legendary figure of Erwin Rommel, but that was the extent of my knowledge of the wartime conditions on that continent. Even during my in-depth Second World War course with Dr. Serge Durflinger, there wasn't too much discussion of Africa's role. Given that we call it the Second World War, I knew there had to be a connection, but never learned of it until very recently. I mentioned a few posts ago that I am taking a course on African history, which is part of my non-Western credit requirement. Since this is not my area of interest, I'll be honest and say that I wasn't overly excited about taking the class, and it's definitely been a challenge so far, but I did learn something completely new about the war and wanted to share it with you this week. I think a lot of us would say that our lack of knowledge on this topic does not come from an unwillingness to learn, but more from a lack of exposure to these stories. My hope is that you'll take away even a little information in order to acknowledge the African experience, and keep it in mind as we prepare to recognize that period in our history.

     All information comes from a lecture delivered by Dr. Meredith Teretta on 11 October 2016.

     My professor began by asserting that the Second World War actually began in Africa, which obviously took me by surprise. She said that the first expansion of fascism took place not in Europe, but in Ethiopia, with Mussolini's 1935 invasion. This was related to both strategic and economic reasons, was a symbol of the birth of Italian power (Italy had controlled parts of that territory until they were defeated and expelled by the Ethiopians after the 1896 Battle of Adwa), and was a way of proving that the nation had been reborn. A hundred thousand Italian troops invaded from neighboring Somaliland and Eritrea, using superior technology including poison gas, and ultimately occupied the nation until 1941. Since Ethipoia was a member of the League of Nations, Emperor Haile Selassi made an appeal after the invasion which led to his honour as Time Man of the Year for 1935, but no action was taken by the League. The appeal did create a great deal of press, especially among members of the African diaspora in the West, where it established anti-colonialist, black solidarity sentiments.

Haile Selassi on the cover of Time 

     In June 1940, as Paris was occupied by the Germans and France fell, a hundred thousand African soldiers were mobilized to defend their colonial mother country, and seventy-five thousand were already on their way. African casualties in France already totaled twenty-four thousand, and there were between fifteen and sixteen thousand French African Prisoners of War in Germany. However, not all of French Africa was fighting for the same cause. You'll remember that when France fell, it was divided into two zones: Vichy France, which was a puppet of Nazi Germany under Philippe Pétain, and Free France, which supported the Allied cause under Charles de Gaulle. French West African territories aligned with Vichy France, as did North Africa. On the other hand, French Equatorial Africa under Félix Eboué pledged allegiance to de Gaulle and Free France, becoming a secondary seat of government with Brazzaville as the capital of Free France from 1940 to 1943.

Senegalese Tirailleurs prisoners in 1940

     The French African troops were called Tirailleurs, as they had also been called in the First World War, and played an important role in putting French West Africa under Free French control. Battlefronts included the late 1940 Allied invasion of North Africa (Operation Compass), where French West Africa joined the Free French troops in support of the Allies. Between 1943 and 1945, over a hundred thousand troops were drafted from French West Africa, and soldiers from both French West Africa and French Equatorial Africa made up over half of the total of the French Free Army.

British African soldiers in Burma

     In terms of British Africa, five hundred thousand African soldiers fought for the British, and fifteen thousand in total were killed.

     Overall, one million African men contributed to the war effort, and an estimated fifty thousand were killed in active duty.

     After the war, three hundred thousand African soldiers returned home in 1945. Africa experienced a much slower process in returning to civilian life, as troops remained in Africa until 1947 because preference was given to European soldiers to return home. In addition, the continent shouldered an economic burden as a result of its natural resource exploitation during the war. African minerals played a significant role in the Allied war effort, with an estimated ninety-nine percent of the Allied uranium coming from the continent, and those extractions during the peak years of the war were crucial for armament supply. Major mineral-producing countries included South Africa, the Belgian Congo, both Rodesias, the Gold Coast, Nigeria, Angola, Sierra Leone, Morocco, and Southwest Africa. As a result, the colonies were used as a means of shoring up the economies of their mother countries and the war accelerated the entry of Africa's mineral extraction into multinational corporate capitalism, a system that still plagues those countries to this day.

African veterans

     During the war, African soldiers had been exposed to the pro-democracy and anti-fascist ideas of their European and North American comrades. They came home from service, back into the rural areas of the continent, and began spreading those ideas and proliferating political parties. This, combined with the minimal compensation and recognition they received from the colonizing nations for their wartime contributions, prompted them to use their dissatisfaction to achieve political influence. Between the end of the war and 1960, their political opinions ranged from the search for retribution to outright revolution in regard to colonial independence.

     Overall, I think that Africa's story of the Second World War is one of many unfortunate and upsetting narratives from that period, and should be discussed and recognized by a wider audience. I'd like to thank you for expanding your historical horizons this week!

     I'd also like to mention that the Royal Canadian Legion Poppy Campaign is underway, and I encourage you all to look for your nearest poppy box and make a donation. One hundred percent of the proceeds go towards supporting our veterans, so it is our duty to repay them in such a small capacity. Please remember the regulations for poppy wearing: do not attach any pins or emblems into the center, wear the poppy only on a lapel or shirtfront, and be sure to purchase a new one every year. It's also not too early to begin thinking about how you will spend this Remembrance Day. If you are in the Elgin County area, I would highly recommend attending this year's ceremony held by the Township of Southold. It's on Sunday, November 6th at the Shedden Keystone Complex, with author and historian Ted Barris as the guest speaker. Mr. Barris is an excellent scholar of Canadian history, and I've worked with some of his material when writing about the No. 4 Bombing and Gunnery School in Fingal. I'm very sad that I can't be at the ceremony to meet him, so please be sure to attend on my behalf and hear him speak about Vimy Ridge. More details here: http://www.southwold.ca/sites/default/files/Poster_2016_Remembrance_Day_Service_1.pdf
     That's everything for this week! Thanks for reading,
     Delany (@DLeitchHistory on Twitter)

World War Wednesdays: A Hateful, Beautiful Scene: The London Blitz, 1940

Firemen battle to control flames raging through a town house ravaged by a direct hit in 1940

     One thing I feel like we haven't talked about enough on this blog is the Blitz during the Second World War. Since we're coming up to another anniversary of the start of the Battle of Britain, I thought it would be interesting to compile some of the coolest resources related to that iconic period in British history and hopefully give you a good overview.

Stiff upper lip: A man determined to keep a sense of normality reads a book on a park bench as a moored barrage balloon, designed to scupper air attacks, floats in the background and a second, right, soars above

     When the war began in September 1939 the British people were warned that air attacks on cities were likely and that civil defense preparations on a local and national level were already underway. Those who did have backyards built corrugated steel Anderson shelters and covered them over with earth. Larger civic shelters made from brick and concrete were established in British towns, and a blackout was rigorously enforced.

Wreckage: Workers wielding pick-axes and shovels are tasked with clearing away the remains of bombed building that would have once stood next to this Central London church

     Until late summer 1940, the German Luftwaffe (air force) had targeted RAF airfields and radar stations for destruction in preparation for a German invasion of the island. When the invasion plans were put on hold and eventually scrapped, Hitler turned his attention towards demoralizing the British population and forcing its leaders to come to terms. At around 4:00PM on 7 September 1940, 348 German bombers blasted London for two hours. Two hours after that, guided by the fires started during the first assault, a second group of raiders began a second attack that lasted until 4:30 the following morning. 

In this extraordinary picture, the double-decker bus is still visible amid crumbling tarmac and bent girders left in an enormous crater caused by a bomb which landed in the middle of a Balham high street, south London

      This marked the beginning of what the British press called the Blitz, the German word for lightning. For the next 57 consecutive days, London was bombed either during the day or night. The concentrated, direct bombing of civilian and industrial targets in Great Britain continued until May 1941, when the Germans began focusing their attention on the Russian theater.

     "They came just after dark... "

Ernie Pyle was one of World War Two's most popular correspondents. His journalism was characterized by a focus on the common soldier interspersed with sympathy, sensitivity and humor. He witnessed the war in Europe from the Battle of Britain through the invasion of France. In 1945 he accepted assignment to the Pacific Theater and was killed during the battle for Okinawa. Here, he describes a night raid on London in 1940:

"It was a night when London was ringed and stabbed with fire.

They came just after dark, and somehow you could sense from the quick, bitter firing of the guns that there was to be no monkey business this night.

Shortly after the sirens wailed you could hear the Germans grinding overhead. In my room, with its black curtains drawn across the windows, you could feel the shake from the guns. You could hear the boom, crump, crump, crump, of heavy bombs at their work of tearing buildings apart. They were not too far away.

Half an hour after the firing started I gathered a couple of friends and went to a high, darkened balcony that gave us a view of a third of the entire circle of London. As we stepped out onto the balcony a vast inner excitement came over all of us-an excitement that had neither fear nor horror in it, because it was too full of awe.

You have all seen big fires, but I doubt if you have ever seen the whole horizon of a city lined with great fires - scores of them, perhaps hundreds.

There was something inspiring just in the awful savagery of it.

The closest fires were near enough for us to hear the crackling flames and the yells of firemen. Little fires grew into big ones even as we watched. Big ones died down under the firemen's valor, only to break out again later.

About every two minutes a new wave of planes would be over. The motors seemed to grind rather than roar, and to have an angry pulsation, like a bee buzzing in blind fury.

Children sit among the rubble of their home September 1940

The guns did not make a constant overwhelming din as in those terrible days of September. They were intermittent - sometimes a few seconds apart, sometimes a minute or more. Their sound was sharp, near by; and soft and muffled, far away. They were everywhere over London.

Into the dark shadowed spaces below us, while we watched, whole batches of incendiary bombs fell. We saw two dozen go off in two seconds. They flashed terrifically, then quickly simmered down to pin points of dazzling white, burning ferociously. These white pin points would go out one by one, as the unseen heroes of the moment smothered them with sand. But also, while we watched, other pin points would burn on, and soon a yellow flame would leap up from the white center. They had done their work - another building was on fire.

The greatest of all the fires was directly in front of us. Flames seemed to whip hundreds of feet into the air. Pinkish-white smoke ballooned upward in a great cloud, and out of this cloud there gradually took shape - so faintly at first that we weren't sure we saw correctly - the gigantic dome of St. Paul's Cathedral.

St. Paul's was surrounded by fire, but it came through. It stood there in its enormous proportions - growing slowly clearer and clearer, the way objects take shape at dawn. It was like a picture of some miraculous figure that appears before peace-hungry soldiers on a battlefield.

The streets below us were semi-illuminated from the glow. Immediately above the fires the sky was red and angry, and overhead, making a ceiling in the vast heavens, there was a cloud of smoke all in pink. Up in that pink shrouding there were tiny, brilliant specks of flashing light-antiaircraft shells bursting. After the flash you could hear the sound.

Up there, too, the barrage balloons were standing out as clearly as if it were daytime, but now 

Dec. 29, 1940 - St. Paul's Cathedral emerges from the flames during one of the most devastating raids.

they were pink instead of silver. And now and then through a hole in that pink shroud there twinkled incongruously a permanent, genuine star - the old - fashioned kind that has always been there.

Below us the Thames grew lighter, and all around below were the shadows - the dark shadows of buildings and bridges that formed the base of this dreadful masterpiece.

Later on I borrowed a tin hat and went out among the fires. That was exciting too; but the thing I shall always remember above all the other things in my life is the monstrous loveliness of that one single view of London on a holiday night - London stabbed with great fires, shaken by explosions, its dark regions along the Thames sparkling with the pin points of white-hot bombs, all of it roofed over with a ceiling of pink that held bursting shells, balloons, flares and the grind of vicious engines. And in yourself the excitement and anticipation and wonder in your soul that this could be happening at all.

These things all went together to make the most hateful, most beautiful single scene I have ever known."

References:
   This eyewitness account appears in: Pyle Ernie, Ernie Pyle in England (1941), Reprinted in Commager, Henry Steele, The Story of the Second World War (1945); Johnson, David, The London Blitz : The City Ablaze, December 29, 1940 (1981).

     Many thanks to BBC History, Eyewitnesstohistory.com, and the Daily Mail for the information and images used in this post. 

     Thanks for reading,

Delany (@DLeitchHistory on Twitter)

World War Wednesdays: The First Christmas at No. 4 B&G, Fingal, 1940

     For the next few weeks I thought it would be interesting to post a festive feature about the four Christmas celebrations that took place during the operation of the No. 4 B&G school in Fingal. I really cannot imagine not being able to return home to celebrate with family, and instead having to stay at a remote little Air Force school in the middle of nowhere, but these folks certainly made the best of their circumstances. All information comes from Winston B. St. Clair, who published a series  in the St. Thomas Times-Journal in the early 1990s to bring people's attention to the important part the RCAF played in their local history. Here's the first, about the School's very first Christmas celebration:

 
    One of the features of the Christmas Season of 1940 was that the men at the RCAF schools were given less time off than were the members of the Army. The reason stated by AFHQ for this decision was that the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan schedules were too important to be compromised. This caused considerable resentment in the lower ranks of the Air Force. One should not be too critical of the Air Force, however, as the decision was made more for political reasons rather than military. The Mackenzie King government was under sever criticism from many sources for its lackluster war policies and it would not have been politically prudent to reduce the output of the high profile BCATP schools at that time.

     When the Christmas Season of 1940 arrived, No. 4 B&GS, Fingal had been in operation for about a month, and all was not well. The primitive coal fired space heaters in many of the drafty temporary wooden buildings were not working properly, and and it was only a slight exaggeration to say that if the coal fumes did not kill you, chances were good you would freeze to death. The attempt to heat the Recreation Hall with a small portable kerosene heater was an exercise in futility, making greatcoats mandatory attire for all recreational activities. Walking on the roadways had to be executed with caution, as a thick gooey clay based mud was everywhere. Only a freeze-up or drought could make walking safe.

     Of all the problems facing Fingal the most serious one was the shortage of potable water. There was lots of water for making mud, and there was an unlimited supply of available from the taps, but could not be used for cooking or drinking. Anyone who inadvertently drank the water found it to be a very moving experience!

     It was not only the physical conditions that threatened to make the first Christmas at the school something less than pleasant. As noted above, the RCAF would get very little time off at Christmas. To add to the general gloom, Fingal's training activities got off badly when the school lost an aircraft and three staff personnel in early December.

     There were, however, some positive signs: the official opening of the school took place on 17 December, without incident, and the first men to train at the school, Wireless Operator Air Gunner Course No. 3, graduated on 22 December. The next day, students for Air Observer Course No. 8, and Wireless Operator Air Gunners Course, No. 4, reported for duty. So in spite of an abundance of mud, a shortage of drinking water and a host of other problems, Fingal was in the bombing and gunnery business.

    On 24 December, Fingal played temporary host to some rather high priced political and military people, namely; Major C. G. "Chubby" Power, the Minister of National Defense for Air, Air Commodore C. H. Edwards, Air Member for Personnel; and Air Commodore G. E. Brooks, Air Officer Commanding No. 1 Training Command. These officials were enroute to the Technical Training School at St. Thomas in a futile attempt to quell the unrest at the school. Mitch Hepburn, the Premier of Ontario, was at Fingal to see the party off on their return trip to Toronto and Ottawa.

     The entry in the Daily Diary for 25 December indicated that most of the personnel took advantage of the Christmas Day holiday and were away from the school. To help compensate for the restrictive leave policy, the Air Force made extra messing funds available to the units so that the men could have a "bang up" dinner and an evening of entertainment. Christmas dinner consisted of turkey and all the trimmings, and was served to the men by Officers and Sr. NCOs. An Anglican Padre from the Technical Training School was on hand to assist with the celebrations. An article in the St. Thomas Times-Journal the following day said that 110 airmen were served Christmas dinner. This represented about twenty-five percent of the men who would normally eat in the Other Rank's Mess Hall at the time. The paper commented on the international composition of the event, with the men's national origins ranging from American to Welsh. The entertainment that followed the meal was wholly self made, with singing and other merriment.

     On Christmas Day, the Sr. NCOs were entertained in the Officer's Mess, and later that day, the Officers visited the Sergeant's Mess. In all, it was not a bad Christmas considering that the school had been in operation for such a short time, and that there were many rough edges in both the physical and human aspects of the school that had to be smoothed out.
     
    The first Christmas at Fingal was noticed by more than just the men who were stationed there. The Times-Journal of 16 December said that the Christmas trade in the city was the best it had been in several years and credited the employment created by the two nearby RCAF schools, and an upswing in the industrial activity, for this happy turn of events. The paper said that 300 men, many who were previously unemployed, now worked at the RCAF Technical Training School in St. Thomas, and the Bombing and Gunnery School at Fingal. This figure was a bit low as the unit diaries showed that there were 540 civilians employed at those two schools as of 31 December 1940.

     Although the paper had stressed the importance of civilian employment in the Air Force schools as a contributing factor in the expanding economy, the local merchants were also aware of the purchasing power of the airmen themselves as a factor in the city's improved retail trade business. They had targeted members of the RCAF with advertising ever since the Technical Training School  opened in late 1939, and considered the young men of the RCAF to be "good spenders". To give some idea of the size of the potential customer base in question, the monthly unit strength of that school alone topped 5,000 personnel in December, and was on its way up. Chances were, however, that Fingal was too new and too small to impact greatly on the retail trade that season.
     
     On 26 December it was business as usual, and it seemed that Fingal was doomed to be a hard luck station, for on that day a young man from the school died of pneumonia in the Technical Training School hospital. The year ended on a buoyant note with flying training starting on the 31 Dec. for the two new courses in residence. The Daily Diary of 1 January 1941 made no mention of a special New Year's dinner or inter-mess visitations, but it did give a Monthly Unit Strength for that date as 625 all ranks, plus 130 civilians. If anyone at Fingal was unhappy with the short Christmas leave period it appears that they did a good job of keeping it to themselves.

     The true highlight of the first Christmas at Fingal had in fact little to do with the celebration of the holiday but everything to do with adhering to its eternal message. A short time before Christmas one of the school's officers learned that the young son of one of the airmen was seriously ill, and he and some others quickly collected a purse of about $80.00 so that the airman could spend Christmas with his wife and son in St. John, New Brunswick. The commanding Officer saw to it that the necessary leave was forthcoming.

     A bittersweet account of this first Christmas, but I think it is a great example of the spirit of the school and those who were there. Stay tuned next week to see if things improved by Winston St. Clair's next installment, Christmas 1941!
     Thanks for reading, 
Delany
    

World War Wednesdays: Did You Know? Stories of St. Thomas

    This week at work, I came upon a bit of information that combined a bunch of different concepts into one, and it kinda blew my historical mind. Working at the Archives has expanded my knowledge on all of these individual areas of St. Thomas's history, but I had no idea they were as connected as they are. If you're ready to figure out this tangled web with me then get comfy, I'm going to start at the very beginning!

   
     The former St. Thomas Psychiatric Hospital was opened on 1 April, 1939. Even before construction was complete, it was known as the country's finest mental health hospital due to its modernity. The facility itself was almost entirely self-sufficient and included 460 acres of land for its food and produce needs.

     Shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, Ontario Premier Mitchell Hepburn and the province of Ontario negotiated to lease the hospital buildings to the Department of National Defense in order to support the war effort.

 
    By late October 1939, the hospital's approximately 2,400 patients were relocated to other facilities across the province, and its grounds became a training base for over 60,000 air force personnel in the service, repair, and manufacturing of R.C.A.F. aircraft.


     The hospital was just months old when the war broke out and interrupted its original function, but this was not the only aspect of the site that was thrown a curveball in 1939. At the time, Elgin County was in the process of planning to host the 1940 International Plowing Match, which was to take place on the grounds of the massive new hospital site.

     According to the hospital farm's former manager, Charles H. Denniss, in an article in the St. Thomas Times-Journal, the outbreak of the war almost brought a complete disruption to the Plowing Match plans, but it did not have to be cancelled and the preparations were carried through to "successful completion".

     The 1940 International Plowing Match was thus held from 15th-18th October, on lands adjacent to what was then known as the Technical Training School, (but we now know as the Ontario Psychiatric Hospital), and Bannockburn Farms (property of Ontario Premier Mitchell Hepburn).

 
   When driving down Sunset Drive in St. Thomas today, it is impossible not to look out at the massive hospital site and reflect on what a shame it is for the facility to sit empty. There are so many stories and memories associated with that area, and its wartime identity is just one small aspect. I hope that reading about its former days of glory will remind you of how things used to be in Elgin County, as well as keep the area's wartime history alive.
 
         Thanks for reading,

                Delany

World War Wednesdays: The Battle of Britain Anniversary

     This past week saw the 75th anniversary of the launch of the Battle of Britain during the Second World War, and that video of the Duke of Edinburgh definitely made sure it was in the news. The post for this week is all about what happened during that time, as part of the German plans for Operation Sea Lion. Winston Churchill was the new British Prime Minister at the time, so I hope you are a fan of his like I am, because he produced some of his greatest speeches during that period.
   
   

1. Operation Sea Lion (German: Unternehmen Seelöwe) was Germany's plan to invade the United Kingdom during the Second World War, following the Fall of France. The entire plan relied on Germany having complete control of the English Channel, which, in turn meant that Germany had to have control of the skies so that the Royal Air Force could not attack German ships crossing the Channel. Hence victory in the Battle of Britain was an integral part of the plan.

2. 

   Head of the Luftwaffe Hermann Göering, on the right, overlooking the white cliffs of  Dover, England

        Operation Sealion looked simple in theory because geographically, Britain should have been an easy target. The Luftwaffe was very experienced in modern warfare, and the Wehrmacht had experienced astonishing success since the attack on Poland and the British had lost a vast amount of military hardware after the evacuation from the beaches of Dunkirk. The RAF and the Army in Britain looked weak; only the Royal Navy seemed to offer Britain some semblance of protection. It is said that Hitler was prepared to offer Britain generous peace terms. However, on May 21st, 1940, Admiral Raeder told Hitler about a plan to invade Britain and Hitler, it is said, was taken in by the plan. 
3.      It was only when it became clear that Britain would not sign peace terms that Hitler gave his backing to an invasion. On July 2nd 1940, Hitler gave his first tentative orders regarding a possible invasion of Britain. It stated that

   “a landing in England is possible, providing that air superiority can be attained and certain other necessary conditions fulfilled…..all the preparations must be made on the basis that the invasion is still only a plan, and has not yet been decided upon.” Hitler, July 2nd 1940

4.      Towards the end of June 1940, Hitler finally gave the order for the German military to make plans for an invasion of Britain, but they were one step ahead of him as all three branches of the German military had guessed that an invasion would be needed and had already started on their own plans. At a meeting with his service chiefs on July 21st, Hitler made it clear that he recognized that the plan had its dangers, but he was keen to press on with the plan so that he could turn his full attention to Russia once Britain had been defeated.
5.      Beginning in July 1940, the Luftwaffe targeted its bomber campaign on coastal shipping convoys and shipping centres, such as Portsmouth. one month later, the attacks shifted to RAF airfields and infrastructure. As the battle progressed, the Luftwaffe also targeted factories involved in aircraft production and ground infrastructure. Eventually, it resorted to attacking areas of political significance and using terror bombing strategy such as the "Blitz" against British citizens to weaken morale.

6. 

   Children in the East End of London, made homeless by the Blitz

      Throughout the battle, the Germans greatly underestimated the size of the RAF and the scale of British aircraft production. Across the Channel, the Air Intelligence division of the Air Ministry consistently overestimated the size of the German air enemy and the productive capacity of the German aviation industry. As the battle was fought, both sides exaggerated the losses inflicted on the other by an equally large margin. However, the intelligence picture formed before the battle encouraged the Luftwaffe to believe that such losses pushed Fighter Command to the very edge of defeat, while the exaggerated picture of German air strength persuaded the RAF that the threat it faced was larger and more dangerous than was the case. Due to the failure of the Luftwaffe to establish air supremacy, a conference assembled on 14 September at Hitler's headquarters. Hitler concluded that air superiority had not yet been established and "promised to review the situation on 17 September for possible landings on 27 September or 8 October." Three days later, when the evidence was clear that the German Air Force had greatly exaggerated the extent of their successes against the RAF, Hitler postponed Sea Lion indefinitely. The Battle of Britain thus marked the first defeat of Hitler's military forces, with air superiority seen as the key to victory.
7.      Ultimately, the Battle of Britain's legacy is that of utmost resiliency on the part of the British people during the darkest hour of their history. This can be attributed in part to the unwavering leadership of Winston Churchill, who coined the term "The Battle of Britain" before the attack began and used powerful speeches to bolster the spirits of the citizens. To conclude, here is a segment of one of his infamous pieces from July 14, 1940, called "War of the Unknown Warriors":
8.  And now it has come to us to stand alone in the breach, and face the worst that the tyrant's might and enmity can do. Bearing ourselves humbly before God, but conscious that we serve an unfolding purpose, we are ready to defend our native land against the invasion by which it is threatened. We are fighting by ourselves alone; but we are not fighting for ourselves alone. Here in this strong City of Refuge which enshrines the title-deeds of human progress and is of deep consequence to Christian civilization; here, girt about by the seas and oceans where the Navy reigns; shielded from above by the prowess and devotion of our airmen-we await undismayed the impending assault. Perhaps it will come tonight. Perhaps it will come next week. Perhaps it will never come. We must show ourselves equally capable of meeting a sudden violent shock or-what is perhaps a harder test-a prolonged vigil. But be the ordeal sharp or long, or both, we shall seek no terms, we shall tolerate no parley; we may show mercy-we shall ask for none.
9.      They are shattering words for undoubtedly the most shattering of times. Seventy-five years later, we are incredibly fortunate to recognize them as such.
10. Thanks for reading,
11. Delany
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