Here is a year-by-year biographical esplanation of events that happened during the Second World War, as I recall them.
The Government of Canada advertised for Fully Qualified Tradesmen to go overseas to build Canadian Hospitals and Camps, further stating that only Qualified Tradesmen need apply. In May 1941 upon physical examination it was determined that i had a bad case of Flat Feet. However, if I agreed to sign documents indicating "Moderately Flat Feet" I could be enlisted in the Army because I was going into a Construction Company where supposedly I would not be doing any formal military training. I could work a full day without any serious problems with my feet.
On May 20, 1941 I was enlisted in the No. 1 Canadian Construction Company. We immediately prepared to go overseas to England.
On July 17, 1941 we disembarked at Liverpool, England and at the age of 18 (I lied about my age-19-in order to be able to go overseas). On July 18, 1941 we arrived at Camp Borden, northwest of Portsmouth. Over the next few days we (525 men) were all dispatched to different hospital projects and Army Camps.
I was to take ove the heating job at the new Canadian Rehabilitation Hospital at Camp Thursley near Godalming Surrey. When this camp was completed, I was asked if I could handle another project building Nissan (Quonset) huts. I jumped at the chance and was put in charge of building the new Canadian Army Laundry at Headley Downs just to the north of Camp Borden.
The Laundry was finished about November 1941. I was then deployed north a few miles to complete the heating in the newly constructed Canadian Army Prison at Headley Downs which was operated by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, during world War II they were known as the No. 1 Canadian Provost Corp. From there we were ordered to take military training, which entailed spending a week on the parade square (this involved considerable marching) the very first day my legs gave out after 1 hour and I was relievced of further military training (aboutn twice a year the Colonel would get angry with something we did and would order a Church Parade).
I was moved to Bramshott Hospital No. 14 a few miles from where thehospital was being remodelled. Sometime during this time I had developed serious eye problems and was admitted to hospital for 5 or 6 days. I was completely examined by an eye specialist who was a Captain (I cannot recall his name) and I was issued with a pair of glasses then sent back to my Unit.
In late February 1942 I was asked if I could handle a new Nissan Hut camp and then was moved to an English village called Burnham (near Slough, about 20 miles west of London) where we built a 200 man camp called Nissan Hut Village. Part of this project was also to take over for army use most of the Westin Biscuit Company warehouse, which was made for the No. 2 Canadian Tobacco Company. 'In case you didn't know it, Westin's was a Canadian Company and we were told that on our way back to camp we could stop at the factory and take as many broken biscuits as we could fit in our pockets.'
Our Colonel advised us tradesmen that if Westin Biscuits (Miss Mooney, General Manager) needed any help, we were to do whatever was requested without pay. I was only in the camp at Slough a few weeks when a serious conveyor belt problem developed at Westin. I was asked to go see if I could fix tha problem and get the biscuit plant back in operation. The problem was only a seized bearing. I repaired that within a couple of hours and the plant was back in operation. Miss Mooney was delighted and later became my first mentor. She looked out for me and got me out of trouble on more than one occassion. Westin Biscuits are responsible for me being taught how to design blueprints and put my ideas on paper.
'How this came about was I was told I was needed at Westin's Biscuit immediately and to report to Miss Mooney. When I went over there she came out of her office and grabbed a hold of me and said, "Come with me," we went across the road from the ooice to an Engineering Design Company and she introduced me to the head man and said, "I want you to teach this man how to make blueprints," and I was given a table and the men around me were asked to help teach me how to make the drawings. All the time I was at the campsite and also working to put the Canadian Tobacco Company in operation, I spent allof my spare time at night and on Saturday and quite often Sundays learning how to design blueprints. They specifically asked me to make drawings of the new Concrete Nissan Hut, which I had previously built without plans. Later I designed several different machines with the assistance of the other Professional Engineers.'
In March 1942 we started remodelling Canadian Hospital No. 5 at Taplow on the Astor Estate, near the Village of Taplow (about 25 miles west of London). It was here that I met Lady Astor (birth name Nancy Langhorne), there too we were told to assist Lady Astor in anyway she requested. Thereafter, partly because of my age, she too became my mentor. At this time I was assisting the floor layers with installation of new battleship linoleum on the floors while I was waiting for my own at the new camp for the men who would be operating the new Canadian Tobacco Company.
My Construction Master Sergeant told me that there was trouble at the Astor House with the boiler. I was told to grab some tools and the jeep would take me over there to see if I could fix the problem. What had happened was they had a Civillian install some new boiler controls and he did not know enought about it so he wired the controls into the system at the wrong place. While I was fire testing the new boiler I put it on emergency shut down 2 or 3 times to make sure the system was operating properly.
While I was taking the time to make sure the system was working properly a woman's voice asked me if I would like a cup of coffee and when I turned around to see who it was she had introduced herself as Lady Astor and then she commenced to share with me her life story and the history of her new hospital, which was originally built during the First World War by Canadian Engineers and of course then I was invited upstairs for sandwiches and coffee or whatever I wanted to eat.
Upstairs Lady Astor told me more of her life story and the reason the hospital was built on her property. I would like to relate how the hospital came into being on her land, so to make a long story short this is what I recall her saying.
It was because the Canadian Army needed land to build hospitals and camps that Lady Astor offered the Canadian Government to lease a part of her property to the Government of Canada for the sum of $1.00 per year plus other invaluable considerations inperpentuity and that is why my company was in there to remodel it to modern standards. It was obvious that Lady Astor took a shine to me and from then on sort of looked after me as if she was my mother. Sometime later she invited me over for dinner where she discussed further the history of how the hospital came about. She told me that when the hospital was built and finished she had invited all the important people to her home for dinner andin her own words she asked H.R. MacMillan how many trees he had to knock down to produce the lumber used for her hospital, his reply was I can build two hospitals like this with one tree. HER ANSWER WAS I THINK YOU ARE BULL SHITTING ME AND HE THEN REPLIED I WILL SEND YOU OVER A STUMP OF ONE OF MY TREES. WHICH HE LATER DID.
When the stump arrived the Canadian Engineers built a little cabana at the back of the hospital near the river (believe it was the Thames). When everything was completed Lady Astor had a Bronze Plaque made and installed at the cabana. I forget the exact wording she put on the plaque, but I do believe it read something like, "This tree was sent the courtesy of H.R. MacMillan, Lumber Mogul from Canada," and underneath that were the words, "THE DIRTY BASTARD SENT IT COLLECT."
'Sometime in the late 1980's the British Government appealed to the Government of Canada for assistance with the finances to rebuild the hospital. When I heard of this Iasked the Canadian Legion if they could send financial assistance to rebuild the hospital with money from our Trust Fund which was kept by the Legion to erect something as a Memorial to all the Canadians that were over there. If my memory serves me correctly the Canadian Legion rejected this suggestion. At this present time I do not know if the hospital was ever rebuilt.'
Lady Astor's history I learned over the next two years was her personal lifetime history, and I wish to regale you with the events as I near as I can recall from memory. She was born in the United States (Virginia) and brought to Canada at approximately 2 years of age. I cannot recall if she lived in Ontario or Quebec. However, she received all her education in the Canadian School System. I forgot how exactly she met Lord Astor but he asked her to marry him and she did, her age I deemed to be late teens. They moved over to what we call Taplow and of course she moved into what I fondly refer to as the Astor House, this is certainly not the official name of the house itself, but this is what I always referred to it as being.
Of course many things from her personal life she did not like to speak about, excepting tha tI believe she was pregnant and wanted her baby to be born in Canada. She and her husband boarded the Titanic and set sail for Canada. Somewhere off the coast of Newfoundland/Labrador the ship hit an iceberg. Her story then as the ship wa sinking her husband put her on one of the last lifeboats and because there was lots of room left, she begged her husband to get in. He refused so she watched as her husband and the Captain of the Titanic go down, according to her she was screaming, "GET ON THE BOAT! GET ON THE BOAT!" She watched as the stern of the Titanic go up in the air and crack in half, according to her story she witnessed this happening. From memory I believe she told me that her lifeboat was picked up by the Carpathia who was the first ship to answer the distress call from the sinking Titanic. After all these years whenever she told this story tears came to her eyes.
I DO NOT REMEMBER WHERE SHE WAS TAKEN WHETHER IT BE NEWFOUNDLAND OR NEW YORK. This is the rrue reason that Lady Astor became quite bitter and I have heard her blast people who claim to hve been Engineers. I do know she had a reputation of being very critical to people if they made a mistake. From my own personal experience and knowledge as long as you were a Canadian she would do most anything for you. I know she bailed me out of trouble a couple of times. To end this story no one could ever say anything real bad about the Lady Astor that I knew.
'I forgot to mention that any person who was in the hospital Lady Astor would visit them and she would go to all the wards asking, "If you need anything just let me know." Then she would go down to the last ward, which was known as the 'Clap Ward', anyone who does not know what this means, it was for anyone who contracted Venereal Disease. She asked the nurse to open the doors and she would back up into the main hallway and scream at any one inside, sometimes she would use quite violent and foul language. Then she would turn around and walk our of the hospital, as she passed us on her way out her expression grew very kindly and she would repeat the words, "If you need anything just let me know."'
I would like to explain why this happened, Lady Astor had invited all the people in the hospital who were capable of walking to her home for coffee and tea. Unbeknowst to her at the time those persons in the 'Clap Ward' were allowed to go over and according to her they dosed up many of her female staff. This is why she blew her top. This is the true reason why the Venereal Disease Ward was always locked.
In or around April 1942 the camp needed a solid small jail cell adn office building. Due to time constraints, we could not build it out of brick. We were having difficulty getting the materials we needed. Colonel McIntyre came to see me and asked me to build the Nissan Hut out of concrete and to get the job done. Our Construction Sergeant did not think it could be done. With the help fo my partners Private White and Private Barnes, I designed and built the very first Concrete Nissan (Quonset) Hut.
All the Colonel said to me was 'SMART ASS', after completing the Camp and Tobacco Depot I was promoted to a fully qualified tradesman in Auto Body and Sheet Metal work in the Canadian Army.
Around May 1942 I was moved to Camp Borden to build a new Mess Hall and kitchen. After this was complete, we were moved to Bramshott on or about July 1942 to complete two new hospital wards. Because of time we could not build both wards with frame (wood)construction, one ward was built with a 22 foot hospital Nissan (Quonset) Hut.
After this (1943) we were moved to other hospitals to do remodelling. The only one I remember is Horsham Hospital near Hailsham, where I helped remodel the nurses quarters and we built a new nurses laudry room including plumbing. I had to build a large laundry sink with a drain board, designed out of sheet metal and built essentially with no equipment - quite an achievement.
In late 1943 we wer sent to remodel a 4-story brick hospital to the Canadian Medical Standards. This building was about 9 miles northwest of East Borne on the Channel Coast.
In November 1943 we were sent to Colchester. Here we remodellled a Canadian hospital to medical standards. My brother was the first hospital patient in 1944, Leonard Chisamore. He had broken his arm while installing a new heating boiler.
In early spring of 1944 some of us were moved back to the camp at Burnham (Westin's Biscuit Company) to some more work.
In May of 1944 about 30 of us wer sent back to Bramshott Hospital to check out all the operations and facilities in preparation for D-Day assault. We were there until about September 1944 (Canadian Headquarters guaranteed a lot of us that when a solid beachhead was held, we would move to France to rebuild Army Hospitals. This never happened, we ended up sitting around Bramshott doing minor repair work. We grew quite angry with this as we wanted ot be a part of the invasion).
Near the end of September 1944 our group was moved back to Burnham Camp (Westin's) to do some more repair work. On or about December 15, 1944 I developed a bad case of blood poisoning in my right leg (ny knee swelled up like a balloon). After an operation and while I was recuperating in the hospital, my Colonel came to visit me. He sat on myh bed and he informed me that there is no more new construction projects and that I was no longer needed. So he told the nurse that when I am able to walk I was to report to Canada House in London and they would send me home. Because of my feet and my eyes he had ordered that I be sent home and I told him I want to learn how to build bridges. I can do something because I wanted to get to Germany. This time he pointed his finger at me and ordered that I would obey orders and I was to return home. As he left he had spent a bit of time in the nursing room adn the nurse came back shortly afterward and told me that I had been ordered home for rehabilitation.
I convinced two nurses and the hospital adjutant that I did not wish to return to myh company, I wished to continue on in Europe. They insisted I had to return to my company. However, I convinced them to give me a special rehab leave of absence. I would then make my choice to go to the Canadian Engineering Training Depot at Cove, north of Aldershot.
About the 28th day of December 1944, I reported to the adjutant at the Cove Training Centre. The officer there said I was not supposed to be there beczuse I had no military training. I convinced hime that we needed men in the front lines and I wanted to learn how to build Bailey Bridges or whatever was needed in a few weeks. I remember we talked for over half an hour. Then finally he sent to the hospital for my military records and after receiving my records I was grudgingly accepted into training.
Early February 1945 we were transported to Ostend, Belgium. From there the Army Draft was split up into different groups. I was moved to a front line field engineering company (I forgot the company number) at Arnham which is in Holland. We were rebuilding a road into Germany. After clearing the mines and building the road we were moved out to a small Dutch Village north of Nijmegin for a rest and looked after a canal bridge, where Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa were headquartered.
I do not know of times or dates, nor what sequence the next events took place. We did build two or three small bridges, I know for a fact we built the twin General Craer Bridges located at Zutfin where we came under German counter attack and shelling. We did finish the bridges, but I do not know when (we lost two men as a result of the shelling). My company was moved to a German town named Goch near the Rhine River. It was here that my company built what is known as the 'Floating Bridge' near Cleave (see picture in the Legion Magazine). We built it in 25 hours non-stop, the Americans built a similar bridge upstream and beat us by one hour. The next thing I remember is we were moved to the German town of Mepin on May 5, 1945 preparing to build a new bridge while under attack. At 7:00 AM May 6, 1945 while eating breakfast the Company Commander came in and said "CEASE FIRE,HOLD THE LINE," We were then put on patrol of the farming village. Two days later, the Armistice was signed. All we did after that was patrol. I think we also built a bridge, but am not sure of this fact.
Late May 1945, I transferred to the Pipe band of the Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa. I attended with the Pipe band the victory celebration held in Amsterdam. I do not remember when I was brought back to England, but after a leave I reported to the Engineers Training Camp at Cove, England. While waiting for rehabilitation to Canada, they asked for volunteers, and I volunteered to demolish the air raid shelters which were built by Canada in Aldershot. Then we returned home.
I was honourably discharged November 2, 1945. It was noted I had minor phyiscal disabilities.
Respectfully Yours,
Harold Victor Chisamore
