( then G. I. Joe Comes Home “oul “ se e a By Sgt. Jack Phillips vinci: > nd An overseas veteran. of .five years a service’ waiting to come home to his relat . mihi loved ones, looks into the future. nee one of the army of waiting—waiting to go home. With two years service in Can- eng, ind three years service abroad my ee ie=xpect, My name will be on the list f or repatriation. Holland, by truck, emf. Channel. port by train oyigem there to Britain, d adil wait for my V-E servi. “nts fi any other repatriates- tems m asking questions: ' Te) will it be like in Can- : a LI return?” ‘What ich & like in my own home rat incouver 2,” ha it be a difficult task W where I left off—to a -t welcome member of e family again—to fit in coe old associates and ich . a Gob? vert | be able to get a job: siahb I be able to find a hat® - my wife and children, re have to remain with ents—an arrangement i arely a happy one? ‘'questions are not aca- uestions to. me, but -2:ad and butter ques- id nearly evéry soldier “to ge home is asking 2 questions. ject is more discussed e army. than the sub- war-torn Europe for ifter experiencing air ‘ound warfare and all —oc of war; after seeing truction, hunger, “sick- ‘1 frustration of Europe . 23 all this, Canada seems _ ven on earth. - write this in my tent ‘se myself lying on the -f my North Burnaby ssnjoying the sun with nearby. Not far away, - little girls are playing. it is Sunday in June, » four of us are on the ‘) West Vancouver. off ‘i the day on the beach. sae of us over here has > had such pictures—call reams if you like—to -or darkest hours. Wait- wisely to go into battle— fein a muddy slit trench saying the enemy planes f.d will drop nothing fa0ugh to hit you—doing p.otonous but -necessary > one of the rear echelons in a hospital bed—in Ets like these, soldiers fof their beloved land, fgown home towns and fe .oved ones. = that is over for most of = are humbly thankful Fae ravage of war never : Our 20,000 Eseem few compared to plions of Russians, Ameri- British, French, and unbreakable people of Ba and the other demo- — peoples of the world. Biame “Canada” will al- v be symbolic of. liberation ae people of France, Bel- ‘> ADVOCATE—PAGE 9 an “going home.” “After gium and Holand, and the graves of our dead will be sac- red shrines. To the people of Britain, Canada will always be be remembered as a staunch ally, generous to a friend in need and an arsenal of de- mocracy Not only will British- ers remember us for our gal- lant fighters’ on land, on the sea, and in the air, but for our wheat, flour, bacon; eggs, ships, tanks and a thousand and one similar items of war material. FTER the fall of France and until Soviet Russia and the United States became belliger- ents, Canada was Britain’s number one ally. The 30,000 British women who married Ca- nadian servicemen-will come to Ganada .as ambassadors of good will, bringing with them some of the charm, ¢ulture and spirit of the old world and, what is more important, a keen desire to be aceepted by their husband’s families, to fit into the Canadian way of life and to make good homes I feel sure that Canada will ‘welcome these new citizens,= and do everything possible to make them “feel at home.” : So we’ll be on the way soon? -But what will it really be like over there? Is it true that they don’t know there is a war on back in Canada? Didn’t Joe write and say that Van- couver would wake up to the fact there is a war on only if a few tons of bombs are dropped on their heads? Of course Joe was rather biased—and he couldn’t see the woods for trees You see, he was really somebody in Lon- don, Antwerp, Brussels, Paris or Nijmegen The people made a fuss over him, and the army -and the auxiliary services put him up in the best hotels when he was on leave, and organized dances, theater parties and the best of entertainment for him. He was in the limelight over here—a liberator with a pocket full of money and a uniform - that gave him many privileges. Here, in Europe, and espec- jlally liberated Europe, every city, town or village was an actual or potential battlefield. The man in uniform was num- ber one: man—the liberator. ACK home Joe walked the streets and was amazed at how prosperous the town lgok- ed. The lights were bright and , he saw heaps of things that no Britisher can buy. Every one was working and everybody seemed to be making: a good thing-of the war. The restau- rants had wide selections of choice foods and the movies, dance halls and night clubs seemed to be doing a roaring trade. It seemed, to Joe, that people just took the war for * people. point score for repatriation is 176. Any day Then will come the trip to granted and were perfectly satisfied to see it last another ten- years. 'The trouble was that Joe had built up such a _rosy picture of the rapturous welcome he would receive that he suffered a let-down. Out- side of his own family no one seemed to care .much about Joe. Most of his old pals were gone, a few in the army, a couple in the navy, three killed on active service and a half a dozen working outside of town. But it won’t take Joe long before he fits in again, before he realizes that it was not all bread and jam over there. Even as his girl friend, parents and brothers and sisters worried themselves sick when the wire arrived saying Joe had stopped a Nazi bullet near Caen—so the wives, sweethearts and rela- tives of the almost one million men and. women on active ser- vice have always load of care and grief. Anxiety was no stranger to them, and every letter that came was fearfully opened. Ib will take a long time for the relatives and friends of our 30,000 dead to. asuage their grief—and a long time for the relatives of our men who are. seriously wounded or disabled. No! Joe will soon learn that nearly every family in Canada had someone overseas who was close and dear to them—and they all had a warm, personal reason to see the war ended as quickly as possible. When Joe gets around and finds out about the wonderfui job done by our munition work- ers, shipwrights, farmers, fac- tory workers and so on down the line, he will realise that there were few slackers among- st the people of Canada. EN things were pretty messy on the beaches of had. their J Normandy, the boys and girls of Vancouver’s shipyards held union meetings and pledged to work harder and longer—and abstain from _ strike action When Joe’s pals were getting ready to cross the Rhine -re- sponsible labor leaders, the trade union movement and the general public of B.C. con- vineed the B.C. Electric tram workers that they should call off. their strike and use -other methods of achieving their jus- tifiable demands. Those tram men realised that a protacted strike would seriously curtail Vancouver’s war production, so they went back to work—to keep their pact with Joe’s front line buddies—to keep the materiel of war rolling to the (Continued on page i1) See G.I. JOE Unions Are Reborn In Europe News,concerning the rebirth of the trade union move- ment in Eastern Europe continues to arrive in Moscow. The newspaper of the trade unions, Trud, almost every other day has articles showing developments in Bulgaria, Jugo- slavia and Rumania... Particu- farly mteresting are recent re- ports from Hungary and Czech- oslovakia. “By the middle of: June ‘this year,” writes V. Hay, in Trud, “the number of trade union members in Hungary reached 5,000. About half of them were in Budapest and vicinity, where more than 70 pereent of Hun- garian industry is concentrat- ed. The largest unions are“those of agricultural workers, rail- waymen, metal workers, state employees, and agrarian em- ployees. Unions have been cre- ated of postal employees, doc- tors, teachers and professional All unions are united in Hungarian trade union Coun- ceil.”’ @ THe major task undertaken by unions is improvement of living conditions of workers. The country is flooded with pa- per money issued by the Ger- mans with the help of their Hungarian flunkeys. Unions have succeeded in winning higher wages, thus. partially overcoming the effects of in- flation, regulating the working hours and attaining vacations with pay. In cases where no agreement with employers could be reached, cases were given to the special All-Hungarian Labor = Commission, appointed by the Government. Trade Union congresses are being held. Miners and agri- cultural workers have already met, and others will meet in August and September. The work of the unions is felt in political life of the coun- try as well. They take an ac- tive part in cleansing the state apparatus of fascists. They have delegates in the provision- al national national assembly, and in the local organizations of national independece. Currently, the Hungarian trade unions are estaklishing fraternal connections with Ru-~ manian, Jugoslav and Czech trade unions, and are reported to show great interest in the Trade Union movement of the Soviet Union. A similar revival of trade unions is witnessed in Czecho- slovakia. On .May first this year, when the Germans still held central areas of Czecho- slovakia, delegates of under- ground workers’ committees assembled. in conference. They created a central council of trade unions and effected com- plete trade union unity. Com- munist, Social Democrat, and People’s Socialist parties de- cided that the former split. in the trade union movement must be liquidated. It will be remem- bered that in Czechoslovakia each party formerly organized trade unions. In the liberated Republic, a continuation of the split in the trade union moye- ment was bound to affect nega- tively the whole work of re- construction and rebuilding of life. @ WITHIN a day or two of lib- eration the Prague’s new Central Trade Union Council began active work. Masses of workers streamed into the unions. Prime Minister Fier- linger stated to the trade union delegation, “In all questions of state construction, we shall co- operate with the United Trade Unions. Your position even to- day is strong, and exceedingly important.” At mass meetings of work- ers in key factories, ministers of government representing workers’ parties explained the government program. They said that through their factory committees - workers will par- ticipate in organizing produc- tion and managing nationalized enterprises taken from Ger- . By Raymond Arthur Davies mans and traitors. Twenty-four huge plants already have been nationalized, including the big Skoda Works, Witkowice Steel Works, Bata Shoe Works, and others. jecdogs ae The trade unions play an“im- portant role in cleaning fas- cists out of the state appar- atus. Recently they took over the management of state in- surance departments. Property of all fascist trade unions has been handed over to the Cen- tral Council as well as the property of all unions dissolved by the fascists. In May, the council was given the printing press and offices of the reactionary paper “Nar- odna Politika,’ which served the Nazi occupants. This press prints the trade union organ of labor. On June seventh, the Coun- cil unanimously elected as its- chairman, Zapotcky, who was released from the concentration camp at Saxenhausen by the Red Army. From 1929 to 1938 he was head of the Czechoslo- vak-~Industrial Unions. In leading bodies of the coun- cil, many former members of reformist and left unions are working together. Enemies of trade union unity are excluded. HE trade unions of Gzecho- slovakia face many serious problems. They must carry through nationwide organiza- tional campaigns, set up final organizational forms of united local unions, carry through further cleansing of industry from reactionary elements. The unions do not propose to permit automatic utilization of form- er trade union leaders of tech- nical experts who served the fascists. The unions also plan to take an active part in all govern- ment plans for national man- agement and reconstruction. Trade union life boils. The trade unions of Czechoslovakia have come to a place destined for labor in helping to adminis- ter national life. SATURDAY, AUGUST I1, 1945.