CHAPTER III
The Second World War
When Tommy Prince left school in 1933, he and others of his generation were unaware that events were taking place that would later plunge the world into a global war. The rise of Nazi Germany led to the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939.
Canada was immediately drawn into the conflict as an ally of Great Britain. The call went out for volunteers for an army, and Prince, because he had liked being a cadet, tried to join the infantry. Too many other unskilled and poorly educated people were ahead of him and he had to wait. Finally, he applied to the Royal Canadian Engineers and was accepted in the 1st Corps Field Park Company on June 3, 1940. Unfortunately for Prince, this was a support rather than a fighting unit. However, after six weeks of drill and learning basic army techniques the 1st Corps sailed for Europe. In England, Prince found himself performing such diverse tasks as operating a lathe, guarding military and civilian establishments and generally doing everything but active fighting.
For two years Prince lived this monotonous life and hated it. Although the days were long and tedious, the evenings and weekends were more interesting, for he was a curiosity to the English people.
"Are you a real Red Indian?" they would ask. Upon assuring him that he was, an invitation to tea or dinner was usually extended. But he soon grew weary of being a curiosity. Unlike some soldiers who awaited battle with thin trickles of fear, Prince was afraid he would never see it.
His big chance came in June 1942. The military leaders decided that parachuting troops from planes was a reasonable approach to certain types of battles and called for volunteers to train as paratroopers. Prince volunteered and was accepted.
Training was tough and only a few successfully completed the course. Prince was one of nine out of a hundred to win his wings from the parachute school at Ringway near Manchester, England. It wasn't just the ability to "jump" that made him a good paratrooper. Prince had a natural instinct for "ground." He would land, creep forward on his belly with the speed and agility of a snake, and take advantage of small depressions in an otherwise flat field to conceal himself from view. He was a crackshot with a rifle and was as crafty as a wolf in the field. As a result of his impressive skills he was soon promoted to the rank of corporal.
The men under him responded well to his leadership, but Prince never let them forget that he was an Indian. He did this in a humorous way. When a letter arrived from his father, for example, he used to joke, "I've got a smoke signal from the chief." His emphasis on being an Indian was puzzling to his men for once a man was in an army uniform no one cared about his origin. Prince, however, felt it necessary to represent Indians as a people and never let the men forget his racial origin.
In September 1942, he flew back to Canada to become a member of the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion. He was soon promoted to Sergeant.
The Canadian Parachute Battalion was attached to the United States Special Force, an air-borne formation (known as the Green Berets) wearing American uniforms. This First Special Service Force was one of the most unusual collection of soldiers in World War II. Although qualified paratroopers, they also received extensive training as ski troops, mountain fighters. demolition exports, and in unarmed combat. The group has been described as "the best small force of fighting men ever assembled on the North American continent." As an experiment in unity it was decided that the force would be composed of sixteen hundred of the toughest men Canada and the United States could find.
This highly specialized force was called to action in January 1943. The Japanese had occupied Kisha, an island in the Aleutian chain of Alaska, and the Allies were determined to wipe out this foothold on the North American continent. Prince was exultant at the prospect of battle and when the Force parachuted onto the island he was disappointed to discover that the Japanese had withdrawn. Was he ever going to get a chance to test his courage?
His opportunity was to come during the Italian campaign in the fall of 1943. The Allies captured Sicily and launched and attack on the mainland of Italy. Large numbers of troops would soon be needed there. Members of the Special Service Force were told they would be sent overseas shortly, and all men were given a two-week leave.
The Allied armies had advancing northward up the Italian peninsula. South of Rome, this advance had been stopped by a firm German and Italian set of defenses known as the Gustav Line. A stalemate had been reached. In an effort to beak this, the First Special Service Force was ordered to attack behind the Gustav Line to divert the enemy, while the main army launched an attack. The Force opened their diversion by invading at Anzio. After establishing a beach-head, they were pinned down by accurate and heavy artillery fire, and were unable to advance. Many Canadian and American soldiers were killed or wounded.
In the first attack, Prince experienced the horror of war for the first time. He saw men riddled by machine guns that fired so rapidly they sounded like a motorbike engine revving up. He learned to crouch when he heard enemy mortars softly coughing up bombs which came fluttering towards him, with no more wound than that of a bird's beating wings, and then burst around the soldiers with a bang that tore good men to pieces.
He saw anti-tank mines toss a four-ton Bren gun carrier into the air and its crew crushed when it crashed to the ground. Anti-personnel mines sprang from the earth when a soldier triggered them and they exploded, sending out a withering hail of scrap metal that took off a mans leg so quickly that he found himself standing on one limb, looking at his bloody leg in amazement for a few brief moments before the pain struck and he collapsed screaming.
During that first demonic night, lit by flares, gunfire and exploding mortar shells, Prince heard men who had never been to church call on God. Men who had been fearless in training become gibbering cowards. He stepped on dead soldiers, German and Canadian, who had once lived, and marveled at their resemblance to sickly sweet puffballs.
Superb in field craft, Prince was swift, silent and superior to his associates. Unseen movements came naturally to him. The battalion, in recognition of his unique skills, made him reconnaissance sargeant His task was to crawl out by night toward enemy lines, sometimes alone, sometimes with a patrol, listen to the Germans, estimate their numbers and report to his battalion commander. Before every attack, he was sent out to reconnoiter enemy positions and to relay information on the roads, a bluff that would shelter a radio truck or a gully that would provide shelter for an attacking platoon.
His most famous exploit was at the Anzio beach-head where the Special Service Force spent ninety days of hell without relief in the front lines. On February 8, 1944, Sergeant Prince, acting alone on a volunteer assignment, ran a telephone wire, under cover of darkness, 1500 metres into enemy territory, to an abandoned farm house in which he established an observation post. From the farm house Prince could observe enemy emplacements invisible to Allied artillery men and telephone back there exact locations.
With this information the Allied artillery could lay down an accurate barrage of fire and destroy the enemy. As a result of this, four such enemy positions were destroyed. Suddenly, communications ceased. Prince guessed what had happened. Shell fire from one of the armies had cut the telephone line. Nothing daunted, Prince shed his uniform, donned some clothes the farmer had left in the house, and ran out into the yard in imitation of those many Italians who had persisted in staying home and tending their small farms despite the war raging around them. Acting as an angry peasant, he shook his fist and shouted imprecations at the German-Italian lines and then at the American-Canadian forces.
With complete disregard for his own safety, he then picked up a hoe and walked to the fields as though to weed the crops. Actually, he was carefully following his telephone line. Discovering the broken wire he began to weed the crops in the general vicinity. Finally, at the exact spot where the break was, he bent down and pretended to be tying his shoe laces. In fact, he was splicing the line. After succeeding in this task, he continued to weed the fields for a time and then retired to the farm house. Upon reentering the farm house he calmly continued to report to his company on the position of the enemy artillery emplacements. Soon, shaken by the havoc wrought by the artillery of the Special Force, the enemy withdrew. Only then did Sgt. Prince report back to his commanding officer. Lieutenant-Colonel Gilday recommended to his superiors that the Military Medal be awarded to Thomas Prince for "exceptional bravery in the field."
It was at Anzio, where it held one third of the defense perimeters, that the Force earned the name of the "Devil's Brigade." A diary was found on the body of a dead German officer which had the entry, "The Black Devils are all around us every time we come into the line, and we never hear them come." This reference to the mens habit of sneaking, black-faced, into the night through Axis lines, slitting the throats of unsuspecting enemy soldiers, gave them their special name, selected not by them but by their foes.
After the capture of Italy, the Special Service Force took part in the seizure of coastal islands during the invasion of Southern France, went on to the mainland, and then advanced along the Riviera. Here Prince was to earn his second outstanding military award and, by a strange fluke, miss receiving a third.
The Devil's Brigade had advanced along the Riviera until the battalion was held up by natural mountainous defenses where a stalemate was reached.
In order to achieve a complete victory it would be necessary to launch a powerful, surprise attack, smash the strong enemy defense line and then move quickly to capture the reserve battalions before they could be used as reinforcements. To do this, the Devil's Brigade needed to know the exact location of the enemy reserves and the detail of the roads and bridges. Prince, accompanied by a private, sneaked through the German lines and scouted behind them, located the enemy encampment for the reserves and began the return trip with their report. On the way, they saw a battle taking place between the Germans and a squad of French partisans. Prince and his colleague were determined to help the partisans and took up concealed positions to the rear of the Germans and began to pick them off. The Germans were concentrating so hard on the French that they were not aware of this other threat. Finally the Germans, dismayed by their high casualty rate, withdrew. Prince then mad contact with the French Force.
"Where is the rest of your company?" asked the French leader.
"Here," said Prince, pointing to the grinning private. "Mon Dieu," said the Frenchman, "I thought there were at least fifty of you!"
The French commander recommended Prince for the Croix de Guerre, but the courier was killed en route and the message never reached his commander-in-chief, Charles de Gaulle.
On returning to his own lines, Prince, despite his fatigue, was sent back into action at the head of the battalion. The enemy line was breached, and a lightning attack was launched on the German encampment which Prince had previously located. By the time the battle was over and he had covered 70 km on foot, fought two battles and been without food or sleep for 72 hours. Over a thousand German soldiers were captured and an unknown number killed in the engagement. The Americans awarded him the Silver Star for his role in the battle.
When the battle of Southern France was won, Prince was summoned to an investiture by King George VI at Buckingham Palace. As the band of the Guards Brigade played, he walked smartly up a carpeted ramp, snapping to attention and saluting His Majesty. The King pinned the Military Medal on his chest, then, on behalf of President Roosevelt of the United States, pinned on the Silver Star.
When the war ended in Europe he returned to Canada, and was honourable discharged on June 15, 1945.
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