My name is Okill Stewart, and I was born on March 10th, 1941 in St. Lambert, Quebec. My father was an executive with Ogilvie Flower Company. I had a nice childhood. At an early age, I was sent away to Bishops College boarding school in Quebec's eastern township. I attended school there for seven and a half years before transferring to Gordonstoun in Scotland.
In 1939, while I was still schooled in Scotland, I received a latter from my father where he was sharing his thoughts on what was going on in Europe; in that letter he said that the was imminent in Europe and I should get back to Canada.
When I got back here, my dad called his cousin, who ran a paper operation in Northern Quebec. He arranged to get me a job as a surveyor in Chicoutimi, Quebec. I thought I'd do some work and learn French. Well, I didn't learn much French, but it helped prepare me for the impending war. In Chicoutimi, we had no radio, television or other means of communication. In the Spring of 1940, we bumped into a lumberjack and he told us the war had been going on for three weeks already!
I remember it like it was yesterday: I went home, told my father I wanted to fight for my country, and he grabbed me on the shoulder. My father stared into my eyes and said "Good boy!" as my mother wept. My father was deaf in one ear, and that ailment kept him out of World War I. He was pretty resentful of not being able to fight for Canada, but was proud of me and my brother Campbell for volunteering back then.
He called his friend in Longdale, Hamilton Lane, who was raising a battery to go to Europe. The next morning, my father took me to the Place Viger recruiting station in Montreal, where I signed on the dotted line! I had become a member of the 81st Battery.
After enlisting, I did a bit of training and marching. Soon thereafter, we were sent to Petawawa, Ontario where we became a part of the 14th Canadian Field Regiment. In Petawawa we learned about artillery, specifically 25-Pounder guns. I had trained so well that my superiors offered me commission. When I spoke to my father about the offer, he advised against it. He felt I was too young.
In Spring 1941, we boarded The Empress of Canada, a ship that had just been to the Mediterranean. There were 10,000 of us aboard the ship. We were separated in bunks of three below deck. In those days, there were no ship stabilizers, so the trip was a rocky journey. So many of the soldiers became seasick that a stench developed on the ship. It was unbearable, so I slept out on the deck at night. That deck was the only place I could get some rest.
The Empress started out in a convoy when we left Halifax, but in no time we had left the other ships behind. Our ship was three times faster than the rest of the convoy. The ship traveled in a wide arc to Europe. Along the way, we got one air alert, and one submarine alert. Aside from that, the boat ride was rather uneventful.
The ship arrived in Greenoch, Scotland and we were immediately sent down to defend the coast. We were a huge regiment, but we only had 25 guns. We were extremely under armed. If Hitler had only known how unequipped we were he would've walked onto that island with his hands down!
From Scotland, we were sent down to the South of England with the Third Canadian Field Regiment. I was granted a leave around that time. And I can remember on December 16, 1942, I happened to be in London on leave. I was in a hotel room with a group of buddies. My memory is a bit hazy, so I forget what exactly we were doing, but I didn't forget the message that came over the radio that night: Pearl Harbor had been bombed. I remember everyone bowing their heads for those poor American soldiers. We were in dismay, but then this one soldier clapped his hands and said, "Hooray, hooray! Now we're going to win the war!" Prior to that we felt that we had no hope in hell.
Anyway, we all knew the D-day is coming, but no-one knew when. It was decided then that we would be one of the six Canadian Batteries in the D-Day invasion. And we spent the next two years preparing for that day.
Our regiment ran several schemes. There were times we set sail, but didn't know if the landing is gonna happen or not. Whatever the case, I knew we had to be on point. During these trainings, we'd reach the French coast and our hierarchy would bait the Germans into attacking us. We were trying to find out where the Germans were. The Germans were smarter than that though, thank god.
On June 5th, 1944 we set sail for France. When we passed the Isle of Wight on the mainland, they let us know D-Day had arrived. This was it. Our ship's interior was protected by heavy barbed wiring with balloons on top. This setup warded off any German planes that wanted to come down on us as we sailed.
For this mission we were issued M7 Priests by America. They were like Sherman tanks with sides that came up straight. Thanks to the weapons the Americans had given us, we had to learn about self-propelled equipment on the fly.
I was assigned to a Sherman tank. The Sherman was an LCT, or landing craft tank. We didn't know how to fire the thing so we threw most of the bullets out of the tank. We needed more room for our cigarettes and equipment anyway. In all, we had six vehicles: four M7 Priests, one Sherman tank, and another carrier full of rifles.
The sea was rough that day, and the crossing was rather uneventful, until we got close to the shore of Juno Beach in Normandy. As our infantry was assaulting the beaches, we began trying to engage the Germans without hitting our own infantry. As they fired away at the shores, we were firing over them. It was extremely difficult to fire as the ship was bouncing on the waves.
We approached shore at 6AM on June 6th, 1944. When I looked out, I saw more ships than I ever thought existed. It was as if you could head back to England hopping from ship to ship! There were five beaches to hit in all. The Americans had two, the English had two, and us Canadians had one.
All of our ships had extended sides and extended exhausts for the possibility of landing in deep water. Just like we had prepared for, one of our landing craft hit a mine, and the craft sank. The first vehicle off was our Primary Reserve regiment The Queen's Own Rifles. Their vehicle had high-extended sides. It went through 30 feet of water before it hit a mine. No one got out of that accident.
The next vehicle out of the landing craft was our tank. Fortunately, we made it to land safely. Behind us were our guns, which also landed successfully. On the way in, I looked out of my tank's turrets and saw German prisoners and Canadian infantry men under the sea wall. It was quite a site. There were so many boats with tiers of rockets firing away.
When we got on the beach, we were about an hour waiting for our weapons to land. We then made our way to Beriniere Sermere to settle.
While we were ashore, we were strafed only once by German aircraft. There were also a few German shells firing. Once we got to Beriniere Semere, we realized another battery had taken our position!
We quickly resolved to go back and find another unoccupied field. At that time, a young Frenchman came up to us and said "don't go into that field!" My French is limited, but I understood every word he said. I asked him "why we shouldn't go to the field?" The young chap told me the Germans made him lay down mines there. He told me he knew where the mines were, but when I asked him to show me the way, he said "hell no!" I raised my gun and made him show us. We got into that field with our equipment and didn't hit a mine. Sometimes you get lucky.
After that, we did a lot of foot slogging. Our infantry badly needed to find an airport for reconnaissance. Carpicet Airport was a few miles inland from the coast, so we sought to take it over. It was a very arduous fight. I remember our infantry boys would seize a part of the airport and find out the Germans were behind them. They would get into tunnels they dug and come right back!
My friend Bobby Mueller and I, we had a motorcycle, and there was a big pig running loose. Bobby was driving the motorcycle, and I was hanging on the back. We were sick and tired of the rations we had been eating. I wanted anything but those gross dehydrated foods. So we picked the pig up, and obviously the motorcycle was running slower with all the weight on it. As soon as we picked the pigs up, we saw Germans! They were in our sights the whole time we were there with the pig. At this point the smart thing would've been to let go of the pig and zoom out of the area...but we were determined. Damn fools we were, but we held onto the pig and got out of there! We had some good food that night.
From Bernieres-sur-mere, our infantry continued traveling. Once we got to Caen, we saw it was pretty well obliterated by our Air Force. There was so much rubble that you couldn't even get into town. I had to pass word back to send a huge bulldozer to clear our way. We had to be careful because the rubble made natural hiding spots for German snipers. We got through it safely though.
In France, we quickly learned that the money the Brits had given us to spend was worthless. In that country, there was only one currency with value: cigarettes, specifically American and Canadian cigarettes. We had the tastiest cigarettes because our boxes were preserved with cellophane. British cigarettes were always stale because they had no seal. They could keep those for themselves.
Anyways, our infantry finally got through the ruins of Caen, and eventually found ourselves in the midst of the Battle of Falaise. In this battle, we teamed with British and Polish infantries to come into town on one side, and the Americans and General Patton took the other. We startled the Germans with our smothering attack.
I remember one night at my command post I received a message from the forward observation post. They told me Germans have advanced in our direction. They were nearly on top of us! We had seven tanks, and luckily that was enough to stave them off. We attacked them relentlessly, and the Germans eventually retreated. Our Forward observation post was also left intact.
A day or so later, the Germans tried to get out of this part of Falaise. I guess they've had enough. The problem for them was that there was only one escape route and before they could escape, we unleashed our Typhoon aircraft at them and destroyed their infantry. For my money, once we gained control of the air from the Germans, we had won the war. Our barrage of airborne fire left more destruction than I had ever seen to that point. There were burned pieces of equipment of all shapes and sizes. Not only that, there were hundreds of dead Germans, as well as cows, horses and pigs. The stench was unbearable.
After wiping the Germans out in Falaise, we cleared out various other French towns while traveling up the coast. From then on we Canadians had to clear the channel point in various French towns. We left it up to the 2nd Canadian Division to clean up the messes they made. We got to Leopold Canal, where a lot of action was during the First World War. But for is it was thankfully quiet.
Along the way, there were a lot of dirty tactics by the Germans. They were knocking out our tanks and playing the fields. I remember one night I went to bed in the field, in my tent. Early that next morning, I woke up to wetness all around me. I initially thought I had wet the bed, but I opened the tent and there was water all around us. The Germans had blew open a dyke!
Anyway, around that time for the Germans it was all about conquering the Port of Antwerp. The Germans wanted to take it over so they could block us from getting supplies, but we weren't going to let that happen. We wanted to take the Port immediately, but our ships had to get through the Shelde to get back into the Port of Antwerp.
Eventually, our infantry was set to settle in Cadzand, Holland. My job was to come in ahead of everyone else, survey the field and figure out where the best places to line up our weapons were. Me, a signaler, and the driver of our Jeep pulled up one night, and the town was deathly still. As I was unrolling my survey weapons, I looked in the distance, I saw a German. I also heard more German Helmets chiming. They were well within a rifle shot, I frankly was wondering why they hadn't killed us.
My signaler said, "they're waiting for bigger and better things." I guess they figured waiting to kill our entire infantry made more sense then just killing us. I told him to get in touch with the infantry and tell them it's best for us to set up shop a bit further back. He had a walk-talkie, and in those days they were extremely unreliable. If it wasn't the battery being faulty, it was the tremendous amount of noise they made. Unfortunately, we couldn't get in touch with the rest of the infantry.
I said the best thing to do would be to go back ourselves and wait for them. We went back, and I set up my survey equipment beside an embankment. On the near side was a ditch, and immediately before the ditch was a barbed wire fence. I figured that was a good place to set up shop. This way, when I was giving information to the guns, I'd have somewhere to duck.
My signaler was right in his estimation, because as soon as our tanks arrived, the Germans started attacking us. We would dive in the ditch, jump up to communicate with the next tank, then dive back inside. This messy situation continued until we knocked out all the Germans shooting at us. My uniform was ripped to hell, but I was in one piece.
From there, we went into Belgium for a two-week rest. After we had recuperated a bit, we went into the town of Nijmegen. We were taking over for a British battery. I remember coming in and trying to get the records from their Captain, which was custom of taking over a territory. He told me he wouldn't give it to me, he wanted an office. I guess he figured I was only a bombardier with a couple stripes. But once I told him we'd leave town if he didn't give the records, he finally passed them over.
Nijmegen marked the first time we got the chance to rest in private homes. I slept in the home of a chap named Mr. Tolin. I remember one morning he woke me up and told me all our guns had been taken! I put my clothes on and dashed out of there. It was then that I found out the Battle of the Bulge was underway. It was a scary moment because I wasn't sure where exactly the Germans were. Bridges had been knocked down all over the coast, so their path was unpredictable. I only knew they may be in range, if not already at Antwerp.
I later heard that the Germans got around Boulogne-sur-Mer and were coming in not far from us toward the Port of Antwerp. Little did they know, General Patton was a couple hundred miles away from them. His army traveled day and night up the Rine to get to Boulougne-sur-mer.
On top of that, The Allied Forces had the local airport secured. Once the weather cleared enough for a flight, the US Air Force knocked the hell out of the Germans, and they retreated back to their Fatherland they loved so much. That battle was the Germans' last major offensive in Europe. After that they were done. And I still think that only reason we won the war is because we got control of the air.
After Antwerp, we weren't involved in any heavy fighting for a month or two. When the spring offensive started in March 1945, I can remember being in Cleve, where I was in a command post. The Germans had fled Cleve for Germany by that time, and they left behind perfectly useful dugouts. Along with the dugout there was a potbelly stove and a lot of coal. And all of a sudden this German shell landed shaking up the entire area! The bag of cordite we left near the stove fell inside the stove, and it mushroomed into a ball of fire. Luckily, the encasing helped the cordite from exploding, but there were still tremendous flames.
We finally got the flames down, and everything went back to normal...for them anyway. But within a few days, I developed a heavy sunburn that resulted in blisters all over. I ended up having to go to the hospital for a couple weeks. Unfortunately, I wasn't there for my mates for a couple of their battles.
I got back near the end of March, and we headed towards Holland. Our regiment moved through Leerort, and Leers. On May 4th, 1945, we received cease-fire orders. The Germans didn't officially capitulate until May 8th, 1945, but the war was over for us. Now we just had to worry about getting home.
The Brits were able to jump in across channel ferry and head home to England, but it was a bit different for us. We had a lot more water to cross then them. Our command sent us to barracks in Utretcht to wait on a ship that can take us back to Canada. The Americans, by and large went into Germany. We didn't have anything to do until the ship came, so a few of my chaps went to the meat-packing district and took over a yacht club. The club had 24 lovely sailboats, sleeping quarters, and beautiful cooking facilities. I never ate or drank better than the time I spent there. The chaps in our regiment would bus over to the club around noon, and not even leave until the middle of the night. We were probably having the best time in town.
Not only did we have food and drinks, women seemingly came from nowhere to patronize the club. I guess they heard about the good time we were having. The last bus would leave town at 2 AM, but every night there were still women left at the club! Out into the river we'd go every night out, and I always enjoyed their company.
Some of our comrades would go out to the historic sites. Soon after, it was announced that a convoy of five corvettes would be shipped to Canada, and they held five people each. I was one of the first volunteers to head back to Canada. Our crew got fresh fruit, rum, and headed out for Halifax. Back then, there were no stabilizers, so it was a rough ride.
Once we got to Halifax, I took a train home. I remember getting off at St. Lambert, and it seemed like the whole town was there! I saw my parents, and they were beaming with pride. My father told me since I had been away for such a long time it was a good idea to take a trip. From there, we took a weeklong holiday trip.
After I came back home, I relaxed a bit, but after awhile my parents wanted me to think about my next steps. My mother asked me "have you ever thought of working for a living?" Even worse, my father wanted me to go to Oxford! I didn't want to leave the country again.
All my friends were making nice livings as salesman, so I told my Dad that's what I wanted to do. My father called Sam Milligan at Dominion textiles, and I got a job within a week. I started off making $150 a month, which was good money back then. After a year, I was looking for a raise. The senior commissioners were doing much better than me, but I saw no growth potential there.
Around this time, the real estate industry was booming. Soldiers were coming back home, and companies were paying realtors to travel state to state. It was an opportunity I had to take. I learned the ropes at various firms in Montreal, and went out on my own after two and half years.
Working hard was nothing new to me, but now I was making a lot of money from it. Within a few years my business was so successful that I built an office building. I got involved in appraising of hundreds of properties near the seaways in St. Lambert, and did quite well for myself.
In 1990, I sold my business and retired.
These days, I'm very active in Military affairs. I'm the honorary Colonel of the 78th Highlanders, a re-raised regiment that saw service in Quebec in the 1700s. We even went over to Scotland and performed in front of Prince Phillip and Queen Elizabeth II! I got to speak with her, and it was a wonderful experience.
Many of the joys of my life have been gained from my military experience, and I truly appreciate it.
