Emo veterans share their stories

Man is a war-like creature, says the spry 92-year-old Lloyd Wheatley of Emo, a veteran of the Second World War.
Wheatley was 28 when he enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1943. He served on a Handley Page Halifax B MK3 aircraft as a rear gunner in the 434th Squadron.
Wheatley was shot down on his fifth mission over Germany on Nov. 18, 1943. He was introduced to the parachute the hard way.
While his plane was hit by German bullets, he strapped on his parachute and jumped for the first time with the rest of his crew. He said parachuting wasn’t really a main concern.
“When your plane is on fire, you don’t worry about that [parachuting],” he said matter-of-factly.
He and his crew was captured and sent to Stalag lVB, a prisoner of war camp about 80 km from Berlin.
“By that time, they [the Germans] were treating the prisoners pretty well,” recalled Wheatley. “Earlier in the war when they had the upper hand, they weren’t so gentle.”
A few prisoners tried to escape, but it wasn’t easy. Any who did were recaptured or shot. To his knowledge, no one from his camp escaped and made it to England.
“You made the best of it [being a PoW],” Wheatley said. “The boys used to do a lot of singing and a lot of nail chewing, too.”
There’s an interesting story about the Stalag bakery.
Black bread, which consisted of rye flour, potatoes, and sawdust, was made four or five years before the prisoners would eat them, Wheatley recalled.
The year was stamped on the bread—some were made in 1938, 1939, etc.
“It wasn’t very digestible,” he remarked.
Sid (last name unknown), a member of Wheatley’s crew, went blind by eating the black bread. Wheatley told him to stop eating the bread and eventually Sid got his eyesight back.
Earlier on in the war, the Red Cross would send care packages for the PoWs via trains. But the last six months of the war was a different story. The Americans and British would blow up the supply trains during the day.
“Our supply of parcels were shot,” Wheatley noted.
When Wheatley and the rest of the PoWs finally were liberated by American soldiers, they were given food.
“They gave us white bread. It tasted sweeter than any cake I ever tasted in my life,” he said.
Wheatley said he was 170 pounds when he first entered Stalag lVB and weighed only 115 when he left.
The Halifax aircraft was used earlier in the war. They (training) often used First World War airplanes, which were badly outdated, noted Wheatley. As time went on, they made better and more superior planes, he added.
“Some of the older planes were used up until the middle of the war,” he said.
Wheatley recalled that some 30-40 planes were lost during one raid on Germany. He vividly remembered one raid in particular.
There were 1,000 planes that flew over a target in one night. There were four different makes of planes travelling at different speeds and at different heights (some could fly at 25,000 feet while others at 16,000).
The 1,000 planes went over the target in 35-40 minutes.
“A box of bombs would come down and hit one of our own planes, and go right through the wing and the plane would go back to England with the size of the bomb,” recalled Wheatley.
If the bombs didn’t hit a vital part of the wing, such as the engine, then no serious damage was done. The bombs were designed to explode on impact with a solid object, such as the ground or buildings.
The Germans had a very effective radar system and the German guns were radar controlled, added Wheatley. As such, the British and American planes would drop shoe-box size boxes full of tinfoil strips to foil the system.
“That filled the air [with foil] and every one of the pieces reacted on their radar as a plane,” Wheatley explained. “That snowed the radar out for other planes to come into the territory.”
Other anti-aircraft guns still were used by the Germans but they were no longer accurate, he said.
Although Wheatley flew in night missions 9 (between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m.), he never saw action. “I never used my guns,” he said. “I never got a plane in my sights.”
Wheatley noted if he did use his turret guns, he would have to shoot in short bursts or risk the barrels melting from the heat.
The first fleet of planes that went over a target, called Pathfinders, dropped huge flares. Then other incoming planes could see the target light up as high as 20,000 feet.
Out of every 100 crew personnel, 80 were killed, 16 became PoWs, and four completed their operations. “Not very good odds,” Wheatley said.
Wheatley recalled that 100 ex-PoWs were invited for tea with the King and Queen of England at the same time a ship, the Louis Pasteur, was leaving for Canada.
“So I turned down the invitation and took the ship home.”
He made it back to Emo in mid-June.
“I had enough of war,” said Wheatley, who was married a month later.
Even though the war for Wheatley may be long over, his thoughts on future wars are far from done.
“A future war is building at the present time,” he warned. “[World War III is slow in building, but number three is coming.”
And the outcome is going to be devastating, he added. “It’s going to be worse than they say it’s going to be.”
Wheatley believes countries will use nuclear warheads. “What they got, they’ll use,” he noted. “Man has always used his best weapons in a war.
“I believe they will be used. I hope not on world-wide scale.”
Wheatley, with the aid of a writer in Ottawa, produced a hard-cover book, “Memories and Thoughts of Things to Come,” about his experiences in the war and the history of his grandfather’s family.
Although Wheatley said he kept no souvenirs, he did keep a diary, which is now in the Barwick museum, along with his uniform and his wife’s uniform.
< *c>Raoul Cayer
Fellow Emo resident Raoul Cayer, 89, also was 28 years old when he enlisted in the Second World War, serving from 1943-46.
“People in Holland just loved Canadians,” he noted. “I met some fine families and made friends, kept in touch with them over the years.”
When Cayer first joined up, he took an advanced machinist course to drive a tank. “I drove a tank up until the end of the war,” he noted.
Cayer, who rose to the rank of corporal, was sent to the 17th Field 5th Division and served in the continental Europe theatre. Other than meeting people, he couldn’t recall any fond memories of the war.
Even though Cayer didn’t want to talk about the action he was involved in, he did say he saw plenty of it.
Not everyone went home right after the war. Cayer had to serve one year in the army occupation before going back to Canada. They were on a points system and he needed more points.
“After the war was over, they moved us into Holland,” he recalled. “We were polishing tanks and whatnot for about a month, and I got fed up with that.
“I told my sergeant major that if I’m going to polish stuff, I want to polish my brass.”
Although Cayer did say he watched war movies in the past, he hasn’t seen many lately. Cayer also doesn’t think video games give the wrong impression of war.
“I think it’s a good thing showing the kids what we had to go through and the other stuff to keep them safe,” he reasoned.
Cayer has mixed feelings about the war. “Sometimes you think maybe we shouldn’t have [been involved in the war], but I think we should have,” he remarked.
Cayer said it’s like the war in Iraq. “People say we shouldn’t have went in there. [But] if we don’t, then maybe we would be fighting them here,” he argued.
Cayer used to be active in the local Remembrance Day celebrations. “I haven’t marched in the parade now for quite a few years now. I’m always there [at the events], but not marching.”
He also said he used to attend reunions in the past but admitted it’ been a long time since the last one. One year he was set to go to Holland but got sick and had to cancel.
He recalls a gathering back in the early ’70s in Winnipeg. He said about eight vets got together for about a day or two.
Besides the good nature of the people of Holland, Cayer also recalls the holiday seasons when they would invite the soldiers to their homes at Christmas time.
Cayer attributes his health and longevity to his relatives. Both grandfathers lived into their 90s while there were those who lived into their 100s on his mom’s side.
But Cayer said he suffered a life-threatening injury back on April 15. He was on the way to pick up a paper in his car when he was struck by a truck, which totalled his car and sent him in the hospital for 15 days with broken neck.
He wore a neck brace for 12 weeks when he arrived home.
Cayer said it’s only just now that he’s coming around that he doesn’t feel too much pain. “I’m lucky that I’m here,” he admitted.
He said that his doctors told him that if he wasn’t in good shape, he wouldn’t have made it.
Cayer stays active with his hobbies. He said he carved an eagle made of wood, and also made several models of the boat “Keenora” and sold them for $25, which aided the Emo centennial committee.
< *c>Bernice Campbell
Bernice Campbell, 74, from Emo served in the military from 1951-53 as a nurse’s assistant.
Campbell held the title as pilot officer at Vancouver Grace Hospital when she met a girl from overseas who had served in the war. Campbell said she and a couple of other girls talked and agreed to join the military and perhaps they would be stationed overseas.
As it turned out, one girl didn’t qualify while the other was from Newfoundland and Labrador (which wasn’t a Canadian province back then).
“So there I was on my own,” recalled Campbell.
She was given a month leave to go home and visit her family before her military career started.
While en route home, she said she met an American colonel on the plane who referred to her as “sister.” That shocked Campbell, and it was at that time that she found out they were referred to as nursing sisters.
Campbell got her first posting to Clareshome, Alta. Pilots there were training NATO cadets and it was there that she met her future husband.
Campbell said her husband, now deceased, was a fighter pilot in the war.
From December, 1951 until May, 1953, Campbell was transferred to the radar stations of northern Quebec. The Cold War had just begun.
“They weren’t too happy when I said I was already planning to get married in August,” noted Campbell. “Nursing sisters couldn’t stay in the military if you were an officer and marrying an officer.”
The next rank Campbell would have received had she stayed in the military was Captain, but said she still would have stayed a nursing sister.