Veterans recall sacrifices during World War II

Called Veterans Day in the U.S. and Remembrance Day in Canada, November 11 provides the opportunity to reflect on the deeds of those who served in the two nations' armed services, as well as to thank them for their sacrifices.

Leonard Brierley of Grand Manan, who served in the Royal Canadian Navy during World War II, was recently awarded the French Legion of Honor in recognition of his bravery on D-Day. In May, he received the medal from France's ambassador to Canada, Daniel Jouanneau, at a ceremony in Fredericton.

Born in England, Brierley grew up in Hamilton, Ontario, and it was there that he enlisted, boarding the HMCS Starr in 1942. "It sounded exciting, and I wanted to see the world," recalls Brierley, before chuckling, "And I wanted a girl in every port. That didn't happen."

He was stationed in England in 1943, where he trained in the southern section of the country and was able to visit family in Lancashire. "All my relatives were there," he recalls. "I was able to see my grandparents on my mother's side."

He was assigned to the HMCS Prince Henry, which the Royal Canadian Navy had first converted from a Canadian National Railway passenger liner into an armed merchant cruiser and then into a landing ship carrying 444 troops. She had eight landing craft as well as a large sick-bay facility for casualties.

On June 5, 1944, the Prince Henry sailed from its anchorage off the Isle of Wight and headed to Normandy, where it anchored off Courseulles. When the D-Day invasion began, the ship was off Juno Beach, and Leonard Brierley was a busy man, trying to get men safely off his landing craft and onto the beach as well as collecting wounded. Despite hitting a hidden sandbar during a landing and a mined tripod when heading back to the ship, Brierley's landing craft got him back safely. "I came through it fine," he stresses. "I remember one fellow took all my clothes, and I got a shot of rum."

"The ship went back with the wounded people to Southampton," Brierley recounts. "And the next day the beach was secured, and troops were inland as far as they could go. We continued for a week or two to take reinforcements in C some Americans, some Allied forces."

In August, the Prince Henry received orders to take part in the invasion of southern France and took aboard the 1st Special Service Force, a joint American-Canadian commando unit. "They were nicknamed the 'Devil's Brigade' because they had blackened faces," notes Brierley. "They served in the Italian campaign, were paratroopers and [skilled] in night warfare. I met a lot of brave men."

The next assignment for the Prince Henry and its crew was to sail to Piraeus, the port city outside of Athens, Greece, where Brierley says they ferried displaced Greeks back to their homes along the coast. "We took women, children and even goats back to their villages."

When the Prince Henry had completed its mission and returned to London, the ship was turned over to the British, and Brierley returned to Canada where he was demobilized in 1945 in Halifax. "They gave me $40 and sent me home."

Twenty-four years ago, after taking early retirement from Canadian Westinghouse, Brierley and his wife moved to Grand Manan. He admits he was surprised, as well as "really excited" when he was chosen as one of the 12 New Brunswickers to receive the French Legion medal. "My sons came, and my grandchildren came. We had a good time, and it was a real honor."

Melbourne North recalls Cologne after bombing

I made the best of it whenever I could. There's nothing good about war." That is how Campobello native Melbourne "Mel" North describes his years in the U.S. Army during World War II.

North was living and working in Gardner, Massachusetts, when the 27-year-old was drafted by the U.S. Army on March 4, 1941. Still a bachelor at that time, he was sent to Camp Edwards for basic training and then trained to became a truck mechanic. "We went everywhere in all the southern states, including hills in Kentucky that no revenuer went. I had a lot of adventures C all paid for."

North has no trouble recalling his last couple of days on land before sailing overseas to France in 1944. After leaving Fort Drum, N.Y., he and his fellow soldiers took the ferry to Staten Island. "It was winter, and when I saw the stoves in the barracks, I asked the sergeant, 'Where the hell is the wood?' He said, 'You're not going to be here long enough to get warm!'" The soldiers were placed aboard the Brazil, which had been converted to a troop carrier, and North will never forget the ship sailing out of the harbor on New Year's Day. "I looked out the window, and there was the Statue of Liberty."

On the way across the Atlantic, North worried about his ship being attacked by a German submarine and spent a lot of time figuring out how to escape if the Brazil was torpedoed. However, 13 days after leaving the U.S., it safely arrived in the French port of La Havre. "We went ashore on pontoons. The docks had been blown to pieces."

"I got around," sums up North of his military assignments in Europe. "England, northern France, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium and Germany. Because I was in the motor division, I didn't march around too much."

Some of his memories are pleasant. "My cousin Don Cline was in the Canadian Army in England when I was in the American Army in France, and we were writing letters and talking. So one day I said [to his superior], 'Look, I've got to get to England. I have cousin over in England, and I want to see him!'" To North's surprise, his request was granted. "By God, they sent me on a 10-day furlough to England, and I visited Dan and my father's cousins in London."

"The English Navy escorted the U.S. ship I was on because there were a lot of officers on board," he recalls.

Other memories are still vivid. "Sometimes when those bombers went over, you couldn't see the sky," he says of the Allied forces' growing presence, as well as success, on the continent.

"The first city in Germany I went through was Cologne. Thirty thousand people had been killed there two days before. Nothing in any English words can describe what I saw.... I was in Germany when the war ended, and my only desire was to go home."

He returned to the U.S. in 1945 and was discharged with the rank of sergeant at Camp Devins, Massachusetts. North worked at "half-a-dozen different things" to support himself and his family, and when he retired he came back to Welshpool and settled on a piece of land he purchased from his father. "I can see the house I was born in when I look out the window."

Unfortunately, although he is a veteran, North says he has never received any payment or form of gratitude from the U.S. Army for his years of service. "I never got so much as a thank you. I went all over hell, but I don't get five cents from the government over there."

Mildred Butler served as nurse in England

Deer Island native Mildred Butler served as a nurse with the 62nd General Hospital war unit in Taunton, Somerset, England, during World War II. Butler, who now lives in St. George and will celebrate her 100th birthday next July, became a nurse in 1929 after successfully completing the nursing program at the Calais hospital. "I always wanted to be a nurse. That's all I wanted to do." She worked for Dr. Norman Cobb, but in 1942 she was invited to join the 67th General Hospital War Unit, Maine Division.

"It was supposed to have been all people from Maine General Hospital in Portland," recalls Butler. "There was supposed to be a quota of 105 nurses, 59 doctors, two dieticians, two physiotherapists and five Red Cross workers, but when we left Portland we didn't have near the number of nurses."

The Maine medical contingent trained at Fort Bliss, Texas, and more nurses were acquired, courtesy of Central Maine General in Lewiston, Eastern Maine General in Bangor and "friends of friends."

2nd Lt. Butler, R.N., and her unit shipped out on September 1, 1942, aboard the Queen Elizabeth. The Cunard liner had been converted to a troop-carrying vessel with a capacity of 10,000, and by the time Butler sailed aboard her the Queen Elizabeth was providing shuttle service between New York and the Scottish port of Gourock.

The 67th General Hospital, which had 1,800 beds, was located in Taunton, Somerset, and was under the command of Lt. Col. Roland Moore. "D-Day was when the fun started," recalls Butler. "Planes landed, not far from our hospital, thick and thin, on D-Day, bringing patients."

"It all depended on what was going on across the channel, whether we were busy or not," she points out. "We were more like a home hospital. It was a good unit to work for. There was a comradeship. All of them were friendly."

"I enjoyed the English people, too. They were wonderful to us," adds Butler, who stayed in England until the spring of 1945. "When I came home, I went to the West Coast because I wanted to go to Japan, but they didn't want women who had been in the service for three years, so I came home and became assistant administrator and superintendent of nursing at the hospital in Farmington, Maine."

Sixty years later, Butler is still in contact with one of her comrades in the Taunton hospital. "I keep in touch with a Red Cross nurse in Ohio. I made some lovely friends over there."