IT’S BEEN 60 years,

since the end of the Sec-
ond World War and the
‘stories, memories and re-
membrances of all those
involved are as relevant
“asever,

On this page you’ll
read the words of a young
man at the start of the
Second World War, the
memories of a man from
the end of the Second
World War, learn of the
specialized job a young
‘woman had during the
war and a poem in hen-
our of veterans. .

The large illustration
on the right is the front
page of The Maple Leaf,

the newspaper of the Ca-

nadian armed forces as
printed on May 9,. 1945,
‘the official ending date of
the Second World War.

Roughly translated,
“Kaput” is German for
no longer working.

Thanks. to Donna
Ziegler . for. making it
available.

By) MARGARET SPEIRS
JOAN MCFADDEN played
an important role in the Brit-

ish, war,, effort during, the.
Second World War,: even, .

though she didn’t know it
until the 1990s.

_ McFadden was a mem-
ber of the Women’s ‘Auxil-
_ iy Air Force (WAAF) and
_.worked as a wireless opera-
tor, transferring intercepted
German top secret mes-
sages to the code breakers at
Bletchley Park, an estate 50
miles northwest of London,

_ England.

She helped win the war,
and although. she didn’t
know it at the time, says the

code breakers at Bletchley
Park who unravelled the
German military’s Enigma
* and Lorenz codes were Ox-
' ford or Cambridge-educated
geniuses.

“We just knew what we

did,” says the 80-year-old
. great-grandmother.

“It’s amazing how secret |

it was. We didn’t know what
was going on there.”

_ McFadden and her five
co-workers alternated three
different job routines: listen-
ing to incoming messages,

forwarding the messages to"

the code breakers or typing

up messages to be sent.
McFadden never knew

the importance of her work.
She says it was just a job

“and she was more concerned’

with what to do when not
working.

- Years passed before any- .
one knew about the code |

breakers at Bletchley Park,
"she says. .

The | German military
codes were broken early in
the war years by the Allies,

_ Joan McFadden
in 1943

allowing them to learn of ©
German plans almost right .

away.

That’ provided valuable .
«intelligence to counteract

whatever the Germans had
planned. But everything had
to be kept top secret to avoid
the Germans finding out.

McFadden didn’t learn.
- the details until her first re-
union with her co-workers -

in the early 1990s,

“Everyone did their bit,”
she says...

“We never thought we'd
be defeated. Everyone was
working for the same end.
He (Hitler) had to be beaten

it.”
With the war all around
her, she. says tomorrow

' wasn't necessarily expected.

“You lived for the day.
You didn’t know whether
you’d be there tomorrow,”
McFadden says.

Despite that, and even
though people were afraid,
they never let feelings of de-
spair affect them.

and that’s all there: was to.

Joan McFadden
today. in Terrace

“Stress, that word wasn’t
invented then,” she says.

But doom and gloom
didn’t surround them all the
time. . )

“Oh we had a good time,”
she says.

“T mean the war wasn’t
all bad. Let’s put it that way.
I still have friends from
there, lifetime friends.-I still
keep in touch with Connie
and two or three others.”

Her friend Connie Lang-

ford, who she sees at yearly ~

reunions, lives in Lichfield,
England.

- McFadden was stationed
at Bletchley Park for three
years during the war.

McFadden trained as a
wireless operator and. then
took a course on Morse slip

reading, a total of one year

of training.

She remembers one
memorable moment as fun-
ny, even though it involved
an explosion.

A flying bomb ripped
through the : apartment
building where she and her

friends lived while in Lon.
don for Morse slip training,

but thankfully they were _
okay, she. says. , .
McFadden was sleeping °
by the’ window, and Connie

lay in a bed across from her.

The bomb blast blew her
blankets across the room
onto Connie. .

“We grabbed a coat and
Connie said ‘I can’t, leave
now, I’ve got to find my
tooth,’” she says about her
friend who wears a partial
plate.

“She was not going to

leave until she found it.

““T said ‘we’re getting out
of here before the whole
thing collapses.’”

They took refuge in a
shelter across the street.

“We left and another of-
ficer went in and got her
tooth. She had one tooth ona
plate and she couldn’t smile.
That’s what: strikes me fun-
ny,” she says. "

A male officer returned to

the building to retrieve their

clothing and Connie found

- her tooth somewhere among

her clothes. _

The women finished their
training in Compton and then
were posted to Bletchley.

McFadden was born and
raised in Canterbury, Eng-
land.

The third of four chil-
dren, she and all her siblings

served in the military: her

sister and one brother were

in the army. and her other’

brother -flew with the air

“force. -
She says they annoyed
their father, who would -

gather strawberries and veg-
etables from the garden in

the evening | that he meant -

A young man makes his will

Basil Baxter

BASIL BAXTER was sent to France in the
m 6spring of 1940, age 22, as a member of the
- Royal West Kents regiment of the Br itish

army.

He wrote the following just eight days be-
fore he was captured and became a prisoner
for the duration of the Second World War.

A member. of the first-ever Kitimat mu-
nicipal council in the 1950s, Baxter came

to live in Terrace in 1986. He passed away
- Nov. 4, 2003.

May 13, 1940

Death would seem to be a thing for the
moment avoided, but in reality it is never to
be counted as completely out of the reckon-

ing. ,

This is a very unstable life and certain in-

cidents bring this home to me.

So if this unfinished life should be brought
to a very incomplete end, perhaps let it. be
said of me that, though he was a little self-

ish, a little weak, a little afraid, and quite a

bit lazy, he endured all that he was asked to
endure without complaining and with a rea-
« sonable measure of cheerfulness.
I know that more good would be spoken
of me than J have ever deserved. My humble
thanks are here offered in advance.

- To those I would leave behind, I offer my
gratitude for their kindness and encourage-

ment.

have to go.

And so last, “leaving life’s problems all
unsolved and harassed by regrets,”

I should

I feel that I should, for the first time in my

life, make my will.

The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, November 9, 2005 - AS

*thee Po eae

to eat at tea time the fol.

lowing day, but they’d eat

all the food that night so it

: wouldn’ t go.to waste if to-

morrow never came.

“You didn’t know and_
who wants those beautiful -

strawberries bombed,” she
says.

Her father’s hobby of gar-
dening came in handy with
the war rationing, allowing
the family to always have
fresh vegetables, she says.

McFadden moved to Ter-
race 16 years ago to be near
her two daughters.

One has since passed
away and the other moved,

but she has no desire to
leave.

“Terrace is a nice place.
The people here are excep-
tionally _ nice,” McFadden

says, adding the trees and.

shrubs remind her of home.

"nobody to give us any or- -[j

The
Veteran

By DAWNA MARIE
OTTENBREIT
They.call him a
veteran...
He’s the man that fought
~The wars to end all wars:
Otners fought beside
him
Long rest on foreign’
shores.
The ranks are thinning...
Old soldiers have passed
on
To their reward,
Few are left to
remember
The horror; the waste of
war.
Sixty years of freedom...
Over a half a century...
Those who laid their
lives down’
Fought and died for you
and me. :
Let us always be on |
guard,
‘Strive to make war
obsolete.
Let us remember the
veteran
When he is but a.
memory.
For he is the symbol of
freedom,
A vigilant sentry.

Dawna Marie Ottenbreit
is a writer and poet who
lives in Terrace.

How his war
ended in 1945

LONG TIME Terrace resident Willy Schneider —
was first an artilleryman in the German Army
and then an officer in an infantry division.

: The following is an exce: pt from his
obiography, Such is life ...., about the events
eginning on May 6, 1945.

Our dispatch rider usually arrived around 4 a.m.,
which heralded the beginning of another day of utter
fusion. We began to wonder what might have hap-
ned to him when he had not shown up by 5 a.m. He
as a pleasant man who always found something to

on his feet. More staggering than walking and sporting
distinct hiccup, he threw his big leather dispatch case
n the table and exclaimed with slurred speech “The
loody war is over.” Having made this historic state-
ment, he reached into his coat and produced a bottle of
fine cognac which we helped him to polish off without

* much persuasion, What a way to start a day! What a

way to end a war!

When 6 a.m. came along therd was no more shoot-
ing, no more rumble of distant artiller Y, no more aick-
eack-ack of*machine guns, only an eerie silence which

“our befuddled heads had some problems to adjust to. -

The war was really over. Although we. had known for
months that this day had to come sooner or later, we
were simply not prepared for it,

There was an cerie silence that May morning, Af-°
_ ter having listened for years to the sounds of a war, it

was difficult to comprehend that, all this had come to

an abrupt halt. Despite our slightly besotted heads we
had to realize that our country had lost another war and J"
~-there were all kinds of foreign troops occupying os

country.
We had heard from our “fathers and grandfathers

_ how they had felt after the end of World War I, but that.
was cons.ago as far as we were concerned and could ~

-of course never happen to us. But now it had. Three

generations of German men had gone to war and all

had come home as losers.
We also had to come to the shocking realization that
the army had become our family. It had clothed us; fed

us and accommodated us, in rather questionable fash-, .

ion sometimes, but never-"
. theless was always there.
We eventually sobered
- up that May moming and
waited in expectation for
something to happen, but
nothing did. And neither fi
did anything happen’ on - ’
the 7th. We were so used
to having our orders for
the day by early morn-~
ing, but now there was

ders or tell us what to do..
The whole German army _
‘command had. collapsed:
and the Canadians. took
their sweet time to tel] us
what was to happen to us. —
Not that we minded too,
much.
‘ It’was in midmorning. .
on the 8th when we even-
tually met our conquer-.
ors. When we came out

Willy Schneider
during the war

into the yard we could have thought the better part of:
the Canadian army had arrived. There were personnel

carriers with machine guns mounted, Jeeps and motor-

cycle outriders, all armed to the teeth.

AS soon as they came to a halt, orders were barked,
sounding much like the German army only in a differ-
ent language, and within moments we were surrounded
and had weapons of all types and description pointed at

us. I don’t think [ had ever so much military hardware

pointed at me during all of the war.

-A corporal or sergeant went back to the officer i in
charge who was still in the personnel carrier, snapped .
- to-ramrod attention, saluted, barked something, made _-

a smart about face with his knees up‘to his, belt and
marched off with his arms flying face high.

I had great difficulties to suppress a grin when'I

. watched this performance. I would have never thought —
that there could be another army in the world drilling
their people to do these most ridiculous and unnatural, '

things, but here they were right in front of my eyes.

After the sergeant, or whatever rank he was, had ~

made his report, the officer in charge, looking grim
and threatening, followed by at least four soldiers,
looking equally grim and threatening, came forth and
demanded to see our commanding officer, in English

of course. We all stood there looking like a bunch of .

dummies, much to his annoyance. Apparently he as-

sumed that everybody in Germany spoke English, just

as we expected him to address us in German. It ap-

peared that I was the only one who could remember.’

enough high school-English and was foolish enough to
let it be known, and within minutes I was appointed the
official interpreter.

The Canadian officer was not too impressed with

my English and let it be known, but for the time being I”

was the only one he had. (I was not too impressed with
his English either. It sounded entirely different from
the English I had learned in high school.) |

He' again demanded to see our CO immediately.

This was when we ran into a small problem which I, _

had great difficulties to explain to him. |
With. the war over, our CO felt his duties and re-

sponsibilities had come to an end and he could devote -

himself entirely to the bottle. The Canadian delegation
had arrived in midmorning, and by that time our CO

had already consumed enough firewater to be rather.

shaky in his boots.
I mumbled.something about the CO not feeling too

well and directed some of our men to get him out here’

speedily or we could be in serious trouble. Somehow we

- were able to present our slightly disheveled CO, who

tried to muster (not'very successfully), a smart military
salute. The Canadian officer was not impressed. We
bundled him into the personnel carrier, Major Eschen
and I were ordered to come along.

We were off to Wilhelmshaven, headquarters of the
Canadian forces. Upon our arrival there, the almighty
paperwork and bureaucracy had first to be satisfied.
There were endless interrogations and questioning, and

it was obvious we were met with a great deal of sus-:
' picion.

We were still the enemy. |. After all, the war was over
for only two days, and Germany had not endeared her-
self to anybody during the last six years.

mile about. When he finally did arrive shortly after 5”
m., he was smiles from car to ear and rather unsteady