I normally write about Saskatchewan men and women in World War Two. This time the story is about my Uncle, Sergeant Alex Sinclair, Royal Regiment of Canada a Saskatchewan buddy, Private Robert Arthur Wignes, of the Humbolt District.
Alex’s family were from Scotland. I think he was born there in 1916. The family moved to Canada when he was young. Alex had an older sister, Kath, and a younger brother Robert. It seems his mother died in the 1930s and he and his brother Bob were ‘raised’ by their sister Kath. She was a secretary with Bell Telephone in Toronto. She never married, was smart with her money and invested wisely.
The kids were raised in Toronto through the Great Depression. In 1943 Alex’s father Robert is living in Apartment 4, 40 Doel Avenue, Toronto, now part of Dundas Avenue East.
Alex joined the “Toronto Royals,” the Royal Regiment of Canada in 1939. By 1942 his bravery, determination, and natural leadership ability propelled him to the rank of Sergeant.
Uncle Alex married a favorite aunt, my mom’s sister Sarah in 1951. At age 15 I was kicked out of school and considered a juvenile delinquent. My Mom tried to give me to a passing band of Gypsies. When that failed, I was sent to Sudbury, Ontario to live with my Aunt, Uncle and two cousins.
Alex was nice to me — but he was terrifying. He often flew into unpredictable bouts of anger. He could be very violent. He experienced loud nightmares. I kept my mouth shut and did as I was told. I got work running a marina on the French River and moved out. Today we call Uncle Alex’s condition PTSD.
While I lived with my Aunt and Uncle, Alex often brought ‘Old Army Buddies’ back to the house after the Legion closed. My job was to open and serve beer. These Army guys talked about their experiences among themselves. I listened.
Uncle Alex occasionally talked about the August 19, 1942 Dieppe Raid. He was taken prisoner at Puys and spent three-and-one-half years as a prisoner of war.
Veterans Affairs Canada notes, “Of the 554 members of the Royal Regiment of Canada who embarked on the raid, 227 died in or as a result of the raid (212 on August 19th) — more deaths than any other unit involved. In addition, 136 were wounded and 264 became prisoners of war (POWs). Only 65 made it back to England. They were wiped out.
Landing at Blue Beach, August 19, 1942
Alex did not have to go on the Dieppe Raid. A friend, another Sergeant had just got married and asked Alex to trade places. Always caring, Alex did. It was the biggest mistake of his life.
Alex, one of 554 members of the Royal Regiment of Canada, three platoons of Canadian Black Watch and a few guys from the Royal Canadian Artillery, who landed on Blue Beach.
On August 21, 1942 Ross Munro, Canadian Press War Correspondent filed an article about the Dieppe Raid. He went to Puys with the ‘Toronto Royals.’
The plan was to land before daybreak and under the cover of smoke.
On the way over, Munro writes, “We came under fire first at sea when the German E-boats made a futile attack on our fleet of small craft on the east flank of the main flotilla.” The delay meant it was fully light and the smoke had dissipated when they landed.
Munro writes, “… the grimmest and fiercest engagement of the Dieppe raid… (was fought) by the Royal Regiment from Toronto who fought a tremendous action on a small gravel beach.
“I was with them when their landing craft crunched onto the shores of France; with them for part of that terrible fight.
“The Royals’ target was a beach at Puys, one mile east of Dieppe. There is a break in the gleaming white cliffs at this point and a small valley slopes from the sea to the town a quarter mile inland.
“The beach was strongly defended. On top of the cliff were several quaint French houses which had been fortified. Two concrete pillboxes were on the slope. A considerable German force was in position here …"
To immobilize the German guns, the men had to cross the open stony beach, scale the heavily wired ten-foot sea wall, and run up the slope.
Munro writes, “As soon as the ramp at the bow of our boat fell fifteen Royals rushed the beach and sprinted up the slope, taking cover along the cliff side.
“I saw a dozen Royals to the right running like deer for the top of the slope. Two fell but the rest rushed on, firing Sten Guns as they went.
“They disappeared over the hill and others from the second raiding party followed. We could hear the battling in the direction of Puys and realized men were trying to relieve the pressure on the beach by shooting up the German defenders from behind.”
Alex made it over the sea-wall and up the slope, twice. When he returned the second time the situation was hopeless. This photo shows Blue Beach and the ‘slope.’ A grey concrete gun emplacement can be seen on the hill just below and left of the house.
Soon enough, Ross Munro’s Landing Craft took on a few passengers and backed off the Puys beach. He made it back to England.
Surviving on the Beach
Alex said he was on the beach talking to an officer when the officer’s head disappeared. All the officers were killed except one. As Senior NCO, Alex became second in command. Of the 556 Toronto Royals who landed, 212 were killed on August 19, 1942. Others died of their wounds.
Asked how he survived Alex said because he was a ‘little guy’, five seven, he piled bodies up for protection and got under them until fighting ended.
The soldier were shot by machine gun and mortar fire from enemy guns on the upper slope. Those not killed, like Alex Sinclair and Robert Wignes, were taken prisoner. The seriously wounded were sent to the hospital in Rouen, France. Those able to walk were marched away.
Uncle Alex and Aunt Sarah Returned to Puys
My Aunt told me that when they reach to walkway above the beach Alex asked to be alone. He sat on a bench overlooking the beach at Puys and cried for more than an hour. It was a cathartic experience. He came to grips with the nightmare of war that haunted him for so many years.
Veterans’ Affairs had programs for men like Alex who were prisoners of War. He finally took advantage of them. Soon after the Puys trip he got sick. Alex died in Sudbury, Ontario in 1987.
Prisoner of War Camp Stalag VIIIB/344, Lamsdorf, Poland
Alex escaped twice from the POW Camp during the first year of captivity. It is pure conjecture — I was not able to confirm this, but it is believed he escaped both time with fellow RRC member Private Robert Wignes, B-67003, POW# 25264 of the Humbolt, Saskatchewan District.
Robert was born in Humbolt October 16, 1918 and grew up on a farm south of Humbolt. He moved to Ontario during the Depression and found work as a sailor on the Lake boats. He enlisted in Toronto on September 13, 1939, a week after war was declared.
The Escapes
According to the Saskatchewan Virtual War Memrorial bio by Blair Neatby, the first escape was on October 10, 1942 from Lamsdorf, Poland POW Camp. Robert, and one assumes Alex, were captured on October 16, 1942. The plan was to go to neutral Turkey. They probably went in the wrong direction.
The second escape occurred April 17, 1943. They hopped an ammunition train. Alex was captured and returned to the Camp. Private Wignes was shot and killed. The bullet wound was near his heart. He then fell under the train.
According to a Military Police account conveyed to family by Camp Leader S. Sherriff, RSM, “The dead man escaped from the P.O.W. Camp and was trying to reach safety (going south). At some railway station the fugitive swung on to the moving train and travelled with it. Either a soldier or a railways guard saw the fugitive and fired a shot through the door at the intruder. The escapee fell from the train as a result of the shot, and came to fall on the railway lines. He was run over by a moving train whereby both legs were severed from his body.”
Private Wignes died on or about April 17, 1943 at Ryczow, Poland and was buried in the local cemetery. He was later moved to Kracow Rakowicki Cemetery, Poland, about 257 Kilometres south-west of Warsaw. They travelled about 150 Km south of the POW Camp. Robert was a Metis.
Following his second escape Alex was assigned to a job in a Silesian coal mine.
Alex Sinclair – POW and Miner
After the war, Uncle Alex worked as a miner in a Nickle Mine at Sudbury, Ontario. He often joked that he began his mining career while a POW.
Like many POWs he was assigned to a Working Party and worked underground in a coal mine in Silesia. Conditions were terrible. The mines were dark, damp and wet most of the time. The timber support beams kept falling; there were rock falls and regular power outages.
Third Escape
Third time lucky. Alex, their German Guard, a New Zealander and a Brit escaped on the Death March.
Death March
The Russian Army was advancing west. On January 22, 1945 thousands of POWs left Stalag VIIIB/344 for a march west to get away from the Russians. They walked through four-foot snow drifts in bitter cold with little food. Those who fell were shot on the spot; their bodies left to freeze. It was a nightmare.
Alex’s German Guard was from New Jersey, USA. He’d gone home to Germany before the war to visit family and was forced into the Army. He was very protective of Alex and the Group he guarded. When Hitler Youth attacked them he chased them off.
It was obvious to the Guard that the War was lost. Alex, a New Zealand buddy and a Brit talked the Guard into escaping with them. He agreed on the condition he be turned over to the Americans. It was agreed and off they went.
The Guard was turned over the to Americans near the Rhine River. In 1956 Alex and my Aunt visited the Guard and his family in New Jersey. They continued to write each other.
As part of their escape they ‘acquired’ a German ambulance and ‘booty’ to go along with it. The plan for Alex and his buddies was to get enough money to move to New Zealand and a new life.
When the ambulance ran low on fuel they were going to put gasoline into it but it ran on Diesel. American soldiers mixed gasoline and oil together and sent them on their way. Westbound traffic across the Rhine was for only one hour a day. The fuel mixture made the vehicle underpowered, but they got across the Rhine.
Unfortunately, the British Army was there to greet them and that was the end of their escape plans. Alex spent six months in a British hospital recuperating.
Back in Canada, Alex got his back pay from when he was a POW and headed to Vancouver — then Alaska and then, broke, back to Toronto for a loan from his sister Kath. He met my Aunt in 1950. They had a son who he named Robert, probably named after his ‘escape buddy’ Robert Wignes.
Jobs and opportunities weren’t good in Toronto. After two weeks in the slammer for impaired driving, Alex went to Sudbury and, because of his German Coal Mine experience, got a job as a long hole driller in a nickel mine. My Aunt and two cousins followed and they settled in Copper Cliff, which is where I first met him.
