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In previous blog entries I have told the story of Jeff Nicklin, a close friend and two-time Grey Cup Winner (’35 & ’39) with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, who was killed in action while leading the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion on the drop into the Rhineland in March ’45.

Each November, just prior to the Grey Cup, the Canadian Football League (CFL) presents the Jeff Nicklin Memorial Trophy to the most outstanding player in the West Division.  This year’s winner is Joffrey Reynolds, a Running Back with the Calgary Stampeders. 

I have written Mr. Reynolds to congratulate him and sent him a copy of The War Amps internationally award-winning documentary Jeff Nicklin: Hero of the Gridiron and the Battlefield, which was produced shortly after teaming up with the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion Association and the CFL to rededicate the trophy during a live TSN broadcast in 2006.

The documentary touches on another outstanding Canadian soldier from the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion, Corporal Frederick Topham. 

Frederick George Topham was born in Toronto, Ontario, on the 10th of August 1917.  He was educated at King George Public School and Runnymede High School.  Prior to his enlistment he was employed in the mines at Kirkland Lake.

Corporal Frederick Topham earned the Victoria Cross, the only member of the 6th Airborne Division to win the Commonwealth’s highest gallantry decoration.  His citation reads:

“On 24th March 1945, Corporal Topham, a medical orderly, parachuted with his battalion onto a strongly defended area east of the Rhine.  Without hesitation and on his own initiative, Corporal Topham went forward through intense fire to replace the orderlies who had been killed before his eyes. As he worked on the wounded man he was himself shot through the nose.  In spite of severe bleeding and intense pain, he never faltered in his task.  It was only when all casualties had been cleared that he consented to his own wound being treated.

His immediate evacuation was ordered, but he interceded so earnestly on his own behalf that he was eventually allowed to return to duty.

On his way back to his company, he came across a carrier, which had received a direct hit.  Enemy mortar bombs were still dropping around.  The carrier itself was burning fiercely and its own mortar ammunition was exploding.  An experienced officer on the spot had warned all not to approach the carrier.

Corporal Topham, however, immediately went out alone in spite of the blasting ammunition and enemy fire, and rescued the three occupants of the carrier.  He brought these men back across the open, and although one died almost immediately afterward, he arranged for the evacuation of the other two, who undoubtedly owe their lives to him.

This NCO showed sustained gallantry of the highest order.”

After demobilization, he worked at Toronto Hydro.  He died on the 31st of May, 1974 and is buried in Toronto.

On March 24, 2005, on the 60th anniversary of Corporal Topham’s VC action, the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion Association presented Topham’s medals to the Canadian War Museum.

It has been part of the military tradition for centuries that no wounded soldier would be left on the battlefield.  Every soldier knew the drill – if wounded, get him to the medics; if dead, bring back his body, if possible.

This ancient, unwritten law of the fighting man was displayed in a remarkable manner by Sgt Don McGeachie of Charlie Company.

The battle of the Leopold Canal is inscribed on the metal cap badge of the RWRs.  The yeoman work of Don McGeachie had much to do with this.  Students of military history can point to many war heroes who are known for individual exploits.

The courage shown by individual soldiers such as him and what he did at the Leopold Canal is, to use an overworked phrase, ‘the stuff of legend.’

Don McGeachie was an old timer with the Winnipeg Rifles.  He enlisted during the first week we mobilized.  He literally fought and scrabbled his way up the ranks from private soldier to sergeant.  The Leopold Canal scrap was in October of 1944.  By this time, Don McGeachie had become another of the stalwart non-commissioned officers upon whom this battalion counted heavily.

The episode which is best remembered from the Leopold Canal Battle concerns Lt Jim Kerr, who was in command of a platoon of Charlie Company which crossed the Leopold Canal on an October night.

The crossing was after dark. The lighting was provided by the flamethrowers mounted on the carriers, and slanted upwards at a 45-degree angle.

The first of a number of segments in the McGeachie story commenced when we took a 60-hundredweight truck back to B Echelon to pick up reinforcements.  Don was in the back. We loaded up the ‘new boys.’  At the first stop, Don came around to the passenger side and told me that the reinforcements were all French-speaking.  What are we going to do about that?  This was the first time that the infamous conscription issue had hit our battalion.  Earlier that week, Prime Minister Mackenzie King had released some 16,000 Home Defence troops for overseas service.

McGeachie solved the French-English dilemma in the good old Canadian way.  Many would call it compromise.  We went to the back of the 60-hundredweight and asked into the darkness if any of the soldiers could speak English.  One French-Canadian said that he could.  We told him to jump down and, on my own, I immediately promoted him to corporal.  His name was Bob Croussette.

We had a truckload of very nervous soldiers who had been transported in the dark, up to the Leopold Canal.  The area was alive with shellfire, flamethrowers, small arms bullets and mortar bombs.  They wondered, quite naturally, where they were.  I had to jump back into the front to show the driver the road up to the Leopold Canal.  Sgt McGeachie – a commanding figure – clambered into the 60-hundredweight.  His hobnailed boots were stomping around.  He did remember a few words of high school French.

McGeachie soon realized that the reinforcement troops, fresh from Valcartier training camp in Canada, were a bit uneasy.  No amount of French or English would settle them down.  It was time for McGeachie to put on his act.  He cleared the middle of the corrugated metal floor and gave his best imitation of a very disturbed NCO – which he was.

We reached the canal.  Matters were confused.  It was pitch dark, but exploding star shells gave off an eerie source of light.  We had originally crossed the canal in Kapok and Canvas Boats.  These were of the folding variety.  They could be carried by two men and would hold up to eight while in the water.

By this time, our pioneer platoon had scrounged enough material to install a floating footbridge.  It was pitch black now.  We could find neither the boats nor the footbridge.  Also, no one really knew at that stage the depth of the Leopold Canal.  Finally, McGeachie found three of the original flimsy assault boats.

It did not take long for the boats to be filled up.  Also, the Rifles pioneer platoon under Lt Bill Speechley had re-located the Kapok bridge.  What McGeachie had done so far on this evening comes under the heading of ‘leadership’ in a very big way.  Once we were on the German side of the raised bank of the Leopold Canal, McGeachie took over.  He had a phenomenal memory for where the Germans had previously dug, what the Americans called, ‘foxholes.’ 

Continued in Part II

The following is a News Release that was issued by The War Amps:

To mark the 65th anniversary of the Italian Campaign, The War Amps has re-released two internationally award-winning productions.

From the time Canadian Troops landed in Sicily in July 1943, through to the epic battle of Ortona and beyond, the Italian Campaign was front page news. The War Amps documentary A War of Their Own tells how the Canadians in Sicily and Italy faced tremendous odds never before experienced by the Canadian Army and developed innovative techniques to fight in an inhospitable terrain against an experienced enemy force during almost two years of steady fighting.

The Allied troops in Italy, in a questionable jest, became known as the D-Day Dodgers. The nickname implied that the troops in Italy were avoiding the “real” war in France. Some of the boys in Italy considered the name a bit of a slur, so they put out an extremely clever and sarcastic response to the catchy tune of the famous wartime song, Lili Marlène, which was well-known to the fighting men.

The D-Day Dodgers music video was produced especially for A War of Their Own.  Featuring rare archival film, the powerful images of camaraderie, youth, friendship, and “bravery in the face of danger” are in very touching, almost haunting, contrast to the images of war with which they are juxtaposed. The song tells much of the story of what the Canadians and the Allies did in the Sicilian and Italian Campaigns.

For more information on the documentary and music video please visit waramps.ca.

Please find below the latest instalment in The Snapshots of War series.  

The Italian Campaign of World War II was the name of the Allied operations in and around Italy from 1943 to the end of the war. 

December 1943 - Troops of the 1st Canadian Division fight their way through the streets of Ortona in Italy. Brother, this was one hell of a scrap! 

Portrait of a gun - the dreaded German 88 millimetre Anti-tank weapon. This one got three Canadian tanks before it was knocked out by a Typhoon bomber. The place was the Liri Valley – one of the toughest fights for the British and Canadian troops in the Italian campaign. 

Troops of the Edmonton Regiment firing at some Germans in a slit trench in Ortona, Italy during World War II. One wonders what the Despatch rider is doing in the background. Probably one of those guys who just had to look for a fight!

 You’re not THAT busy.  Stop and take a real look at this.  The date?  May 24, 1944.  The place?  Between the Gustav and the Hitler Line during the Italian Campaign.  The Sherman tanks push forward through a peaceful valley.