As Canadians across the country paused for two minutes yesterday to remember those who fought and died in two world wars and other conflicts, it is fitting to put a human face on at least one of those from here who took up arms and lived to talk about it.
For Jim Alton of Fort Frances, there never was any doubt about whether he should go. He never even gave it a second thought.
“I went out of a sense of duty,” said Alton.
That was a common sentiment in 1943, when the world was embroiled in what has come to be known as the last “just” war. Thousands of young men from across Canada enlisted, right up until the end of hostilities in late summer of 1945.
By war’s end, Canada, with a population of only 11 million people, had nearly one million men in uniform—a greater per capita contribution than that of any of the Western allies. Only the beleaguered Soviet Union made a greater commitment of human resources.
Of course, Alton had an ulterior motive. He wanted to be a pilot and knew if he didn’t make his choice immediately, someone else would make it for him.
“I joined up on Sept. 18, 1943. I had just turned 18 and I knew if you didn’t enlist within six months of your 18th birthday, you’d wind up in the army,” he remarked.
Alton believes conscription was a good thing, even though it was rarely necessary then. In fact, he’d like to see it come back.
“I think it [conscription] would be a good idea today. We have too many young people with no direction, no discipline,” he observed.
Within weeks, Alton found himself at Manning Depot in what is now Thunder Bay. Along with hundreds of others, he had dreams of fighting the war from a chariot in the clouds, so he applied immediately for pilot training.
Within weeks, he discovered his chances of getting into action as a pilot were slim, so he transferred to air gunner. Here, he excelled and by the end of the year, he had his sergeant’s stripes and was shipped of to MacDonald, Man. for gunnery training.
Although far from the war, that posting was anything but dull. Alton recalled at least two occasions where fires broke out aboard the training aircraft in which he was honing his skills and resulted in hair-raising landings.
On one occasion, he donned his parachute and was prepared to bail out—only to discover he probably would have been unable to squeeze through the hatch with all his gear on.
“There were several close calls, for sure,” he said.
After that, it was off to “tarmac duty” in Trois Rivieres, Que., where he took a course in hand-to-hand combat in preparation for going overseas. His memories of that consist, for the most part, of being thrown around a lot.
“I’m a little guy and there was this one instructor who always looked for me to demonstrate on because I was easy to throw around,” he recalled with a laugh. “It got to the point where I would try to hide, but he always seemed to find me.”
Next, he was sent to a secret base at the Eglington Hunt Club in Toronto, where he was called upon to try some new experimental equipment the air force was testing. Here, he had one of the first experiences with anti-g pressure suits and lifejackets that automatically inflated when thrown in the water.
But what he remembers most was the dreaded centrifuge.
“They’d spin you around in that thing until you passed out. Then, they’d do it again with these special suits that squeezed your thighs and stomach to try and keep the blood in your head.
“It was quite interesting.”
Finally, in April, 1945, he was sent to Britain to be assigned to an air crew and at last come to grips with the enemy. He landed in Grenoch, Scotland and almost immediately transferred to Bournmouth. There, he took simulated parachute training and finally was ready to go to war when it was all over.
On May 8, 1945, Nazi Germany unconditionally surrendered. Alton immediately volunteered to be transferred to the Pacific theatre, where the war against Imperial Japan still was raging.
He was sent home on 30 days’ leave in preparation to ship out, but once again history intervened. All transfers of Commonwealth troops were halted in anticipation of an earlier-than-expected end to all hostilities.
Although Alton and the world did not yet know it, in July the United States successfully tested a weapon of unprecedented destructiveness that was destined to force the unconditional surrender of Japan before the new troops could be integrated into the existing forces in the Pacific.
Once again he was a little too late.
So Alton returned home to Fort Frances and studied drafting. He worked at the local mill for two years before moving to Thunder Bay, where he worked for Ontario Hydro until he retired in 1983 and moved back to Fort Frances.
In the interim, he and his wife, “Ronnie,” raised six children and now spend their winters in Florida.
Alton is modest about his wartime efforts. He said he feels he does not deserve the same recognition as those who fought and died in the conflict he was denied because he was a little too young to get fully involved.
But he did what he could and if fate denied him the opportunity to strike a blow in the cause of freedom, perhaps in this week of remembrance, he still deserves the same gratitude and respect as those who never came back.
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
